Fareed Zakaria carries water for Obama on question of who lost Iraq

Fareed Zakaria tries to make the impossible argument that it was George W. Bush who lost Iraq:

Inevitably, in Washington, the question has surfaced: Who lost Iraq? ... The first answer to the question is: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki lost Iraq. But how did Maliki come to be prime minister of Iraq? He was the product of a series of momentous decisions made by the Bush administration.

If it is true that Maliki was George Bush's mistake, Barack Obama has had 6 years to rectify that mistake. Furthermore, before he foolishly withdrew all American troops from Iraq, Obama had the ability to rectify that mistake while he had American boots on the ground in Iraq to back him up.

In fact, restraining Maliki's pro-Shiite and anti-Sunni tendencies was one of the primary functions of American forces in Iraq, as Dexter Filkins has made clear:

U.S. diplomats and commanders argue that [American troops] played a crucial role, acting as interlocutors among the factions—and curtailing Maliki’s sectarian tendencies. “We used to restrain Maliki all the time,” Lieutenant General Michael Barbero, the deputy commander in Iraq until January, 2011, told me. “If Maliki was getting ready to send tanks to confront the Kurds, we would tell him and his officials, ‘We will physically block you from moving if you try to do that.’”

Even Zakaria himself admits that one of the main functions of US troops in Iraq during the surge was to tamp down sectarian violence and reconcile Sunnis and Shiites:

From 2003 onward, Iraq faced a Sunni insurgency that was finally tamped down by Gen. David Petraeus, who said explicitly at the time that the core element of his strategy was political, bringing Sunni tribes and militias into the fold. The surge’s success, he often noted, bought time for a real power-sharing deal in Iraq that would bring the Sunnis into the structure of the government.

In other words, Zakaria admits that at the end of the surge a fragile peace between Sunnis and Shiites had been established. How, then, did this peace fall apart? Barack Obama foolishly withdrew the American forces that were exercising a stabilizing influence on the country. Zacharia admits this, too:

If the Bush administration deserves a fair share of blame for “losing Iraq,” what about the Obama administration and its decision to withdraw American forces from the country by the end of 2011? I would have preferred to see a small American force in Iraq to try to prevent the country’s collapse. But let’s remember why this force is not there. Maliki refused to provide the guarantees that every other country in the world that hosts U.S. forces offers. Some commentators have blamed the Obama administration for negotiating badly or halfheartedly and perhaps this is true. But here’s what a senior Iraqi politician told me in the days when the U.S. withdrawal was being discussed: “It will not happen. Maliki cannot allow American troops to stay on. Iran has made very clear to Maliki that its No. 1 demand is that there be no American troops remaining in Iraq. And Maliki owes them.”

In other words, after American armed forces had completely routed Saddam Hussein's army and stood astride Baghdad as undisputed conquerors, nevertheless, when Maliki refused to negotiate a status of forces agreement that was acceptable to Obama, well, golly, there was just nothing Obama could do about it. Again, Dexter Filkins provides the real picture:

Obama ... was ambivalent about retaining even a small force in Iraq. For several months, American officials told me, they were unable to answer basic questions in meetings with Iraqis—like how many troops they wanted to leave behind—because the Administration had not decided. “We got no guidance from the White House,” Jeffrey told me. “We didn’t know where the President was. Maliki kept saying, ‘I don’t know what I have to sell.’ ” At one meeting, Maliki said that he was willing to sign an executive agreement granting the soldiers permission to stay, if he didn’t have to persuade the parliament to accept immunity. The Obama Administration quickly rejected the idea. “The American attitude was: Let’s get out of here as quickly as possible,” Sami al-Askari, the Iraqi member of parliament, said. ... Barbero was angry at the White House for not pushing harder for an agreement. “You just had this policy vacuum and this apathy,” he said. “Now we have no leverage in Iraq. Without any troops there, we’re just another group of guys.” There is no longer anyone who can serve as a referee, he said, adding, “Everything that has happened there [Maliki's persecution of Sunnis and the ISIS insurgency that has resulted from it] was not just predictable—we predicted it.”

So, Zakaria attempts to demonstrate that it was George W. Bush, and not Barack Obama, who lost Iraq. This is the kind of brazen assertion of patent nonsense that we saw when Susan Rice attempted to assert that Benghazi was caused by that damn video and that Bowe Bergdahl served his country with "honor and distinction."

The only thing that Zakaria has succeeded in demonstrating is the extent to which he, like Susan Rice, carries water for the Obama administration. We shouldn't be surprised that Susan Rice spins for Obama. But, that Zakaria, a supposedly impartial commentator, does so, is shocking and should be roundly condemned.