Obama abandoned Iraq War

ISIS gained power because of void left after troops withdrew

There was a time not so long ago when President Barack Obama boasted of how he had “ended” the Iraq War. It was, in his telling, a sign of his stalwart fidelity to his word. American attitude was: Let’s get out of here as quickly as possible.”

And why not? This was the fulfillment of Obama’s defining political promise. When we were out of Iraq entirely, he didn’t say how regrettable it was; he declared “mission accomplished.”

It’s only after the ensuing disaster that we learn he was an innocent bystander. It may be that Iraq — after being largely pacified by 2009 — would have fallen apart even if we had maintained a residual force. But troops on the ground gave us the influence to restrain Maliki from his worst instincts.

Without the U.S. as an honest broker, it has been downhill ever since. Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero, the former deputy commander in Iraq, told Filkins, “Everything that has happened there was not just predictable — we predicted it.”

Iraq is perhaps the purest expression of the Obama doctrine. We removed ourselves entirely from the country on the assumption that we could diminish our influence without baleful consequence and that there were effective substitutes to military power. Now that the most powerful terrorist group of modern times controls large parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria, we are back at war, although without the requisite seriousness or comprehensive strategy.

What is happening in Iraq is exactly what we fought to prevent with the surge in 2007 and 2008. It is heartbreaking commentary on Obama’s recklessness that we are now in an arguably worse position, with fewer options to reverse it. He never ended the Iraq War, as he so proudly said. He only abandoned it. Rich Lowry (comments.lowry@nationalreview.com) is editor of National Review. His columns are distributed by King Features Syndicate.