If you're wondering how Iraq fell apart, the Wall Street Journal has some new insight. According to a new report, President Obama put Vice President Joe Biden in charge of "day-to-day" management of Iraq.
Mr. Obama had made exiting the prolonged Iraq and Afghan wars a cornerstone of his presidency.
Through tight control over airstrikes in Syria and limits on U.S. action in Iraq, Mr. Obama is closely managing the new war in the Middle East in a way he hasn't done with previous conflicts, such as the troop surge in Afghanistan announced in 2009 or the last years of the Iraq war before the 2011 U.S. pullout.
In Iraq, Mr. Obama had delegated day-to-day management to Vice President Joe Biden.
Explains a lot. Of course the downfall of Iraq isn't all Biden's fault, the majority of the responsibility lies on President Obama's decision to put politics above the advice of generals and pull troops early.
As a reminder, when Biden was tapped way back in 2008 to serve as Obama's VP much of the reason given for choosing him was based on his "extensive" foreign policy experience. In his memoir, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote, "I think he [Biden] has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades." That extensive experience and whether it would serve in a useful, positive way was debatable years ago and it's certainly debatable now.
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