Truest statement of the week II

When President Obama became President, Iraq was actually in a relatively good place. From 2007 to 2009 is the only time in the whole war that the US had the right strategy, the right leadership and the right resources. So when President Obama took over, the levels of violence were down, there was optimism in the country that everything was heading in the right direction.
And after the 2010 elections which were a tightly contested election, but a good election, the US didn't uphold the election results and the US quickly drew down its forces. That enabled basically Maliki, who lost the election, to consolidate more and more power and go after his rivals, to arrest Sunni's en masse, which created the space for Islamic State to rise up and created the problems that we see today.
So I think Iraq will go down as a blot of President Obama's record. Particularly, as his administration was claiming Iraq to be a great success. 


-- Emma Sky, author of  The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq.
, appearing on ABC's THE WORLD TODAY.