Reading the Guardian report on the defection of the Sons of Iraq, Marc Thiessen writes:
'The rise of the Sons of Iraq is one of the great success stories in the war on terrorâ??and thanks to Americaâ??s success in encouraging and nurturing this movement, President Obama inherited a strong hand in Iraq. It would be a tragedy if, in his eagerness to withdraw, Obama squandered that success through a policy of neglect.'
I suspect this an argument we're unfortunately going to be seeing a lot more of in the coming weeks and months. The notion that President Obama "inherited a strong hand" in Iraq is questionable, to say the least. The Bush administration set fire to Iraq and was able to tamp down what was, by 2006, a raging inferno into something resembling simmering kindling when it came time to hand off the problem they created to another administration. This is not the kind of achievement I'd be particularly eager to brandish.
(AP Photo)