Obama's Iraq: The Aftermath of Retreat

A year ago Barack Obama declared that the Iraq War was over, that we had won and that American troops were coming home.

CBS reported the story:

The president also used his speech to emphasize that he delivered on his promise to end the war in Iraq. He said 150,000 U.S. troops were pulled out and the last of them came home last December, including the 4th Brigade Combat Team from based at Fort Bliss.

"You left Iraq with honor," said the president, "your mission complete, your heads held high."

How are things going in Iraq today? Glad you asked. The Economist reports on Iraq’s current descent into violence:

AFTER a lull of nearly five years during which it seemed as if Iraq might be emerging from the legacy of its civil war, the country has been drawn back into a nightmare of spiralling attacks on a widening range of targets. The past four months have been among the bloodiest since 2008; nearly 3,000 people have been killed and over 7,000 injured. But the Islamic State of Iraq, the latest incarnation of al-Qaeda, now appears to have broadened its scope from its trademark attacks on security forces and Shia mosques and markets, to suicide-bombings of cafés and funeral gatherings.

In the north in Diyala, Kirkuk and Nineveh provinces and in Anbar province in the west, a struggle for control between a resurgent al-Qaeda, newer Sunni extremist groups and re-emerging Shia militias is fuelling a lethal mix. Iraqi security officials say they have captured or killed more than 70% of al-Qaeda’s people in Baghdad and that successful attacks on police stations and government ministries have waned.

But outside the capital, the threat is mounting. Al-Qaeda has regrouped in the surrounding tribal areas that have traditionally been used as staging posts for attacks on Baghdad. Regular strikes on police patrols and army checkpoints, as well as daily assassinations of officers and interior-ministry people, have kept security forces on the defensive.

If this is what Obama calls a completed and successful mission I would hate to see a mission that he considered a failure.

The notion that ending the war was a transcendent virtue, no matter how the war was ended and no matter the consequences is symptomatic of a failure to grasp reality. You can end the war by emerging victorious or by surrendering. Obama never seems to draw the distinction.

But, I forgot. In Obama’s world a mission is a success because he says it’s a success. Reality becomes insignificant when placed against the grand oratorical flourishes of our demagogue in chief.

Of course, the Economist supports the Obama administration. Thus, it fails to give Barack Obama any "credit" for the current state of affairs in Iraq. I promise you that no other major media outlet will see the connection.