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.