But in Obama’s narrative, the withdrawal didn’t hurt Iraq or contribute to the collapse of order and the rise of ISIS over the next few years. “Maintaining American troops in Iraq at the time [2011] could not have reversed the forces that contributed to ISIL’s rise,” Obama said in his speech. Again, keep in mind that the U.S. military can “achieve any mission,”—just not, apparently, ones that Obama finds politically difficult to undertake.
No, according to Obama, a residual presence of U.S. troops could have done nothing to bolster Iraq’s security forces; keep al-Qaida in Iraq on the run; prevent their regrouping and rebranding as the Islamic State; stop them from seizing Fallujah in January 2014 or Mosul in June of the same year; or stop their campaign of genocidal violence against Christians, Yazidis, Shia, and Kurds.
But if U.S. troops could not have done anything in 2011, why has Obama ordered U.S. troops back to Iraq to fight ISIS now? What does Obama think U.S. troops can achieve today that they apparently could not have achieved at considerably less cost with an already existing deployment back in 2011? Obviously our troops can make a difference, and Obama knows it, or he would not have ordered them back to Iraq in 2014.
But, for that matter, where does Obama think ISIS came from?
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