As we consider the fall of Mosul to terrorists and the threat they pose to Baghdad, we must concede: We had been warned.
Just months after the impact of the U.S.-led surge in Iraq was being realized, then-U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker delivered these prescient words at a joint hearing of Congress:
"I am certain that abandoning or drastically curtailing our efforts [in Iraq] will bring failure, and the consequences of such a failure must be clearly understood. . . . It could well invite the intervention of regional states. . . . The gains made against al-Qaida and other extremist groups could easily evaporate and they could establish strongholds to be used as safe havens for regional and international operations."
What Crocker understood even then was that as a fledgling democracy, Iraq would remain vulnerable to existential threats posed by extremism without a continued U.S. presence and a robust foreign policy in the region.
The early and manifold errors of the Bush administration in Iraq should not be forgotten, even as experienced and resolute leaders, including Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus, formulated and executed a counter-insurgency policy that pacified many violent parts of the country.
Their eventual success was imperfect, but it was also unimaginable. And when the last U.S. troops crossed the Kuwaiti border in December 2011, they left behind what President Barack Obama called "a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people."
Whether or not that was true, what they most certainly did not leave behind was a residual force, as was recommended by American military advisers and diplomats and--in spite of reports that leadership in Iraq was intransigent on the issue--desired by Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Critics have noted that the Obama administration's failure to secure an agreement with the Iraqis on the status of forces was politically expedient. It was. Yet it is not solely to blame for Iraq's perilous state. The administration's absence of a coherent policy in the Middle East, and in Syria in particular, has played a role, too.
Left unaddressed for years, the extremist threat has spilled over into Iraq, a nation that U.S. intelligence knew would long be susceptible to violence and increasingly beholden to Iran--where U.S. foreign policy has been equally flaccid.
If President George W. Bush is guilty of overreaching, of entering Iraq without a plan for the post-Saddam era, then Obama is equally guilty of underestimating the power vacuum that exiting Iraq would leave behind.
His lack of a coherent policy to address instability in the greater Middle East has made the region even more ripe for extremists--and that's saying something.
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Cynthia M. Allen is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Editorial on 06/23/2014