This originally appeared as a response to a column published in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. It is reprinted with the author’s permission.
In response to the column by Rep. Greg Steube on June 26: The carnage, death and destruction brought about by the Iraq invasion and occupation are heart-wrenching, not only for those who served, like Rep. Steube, but for all Americans.
Steube correctly recognizes that President Bush made a mistake in invading Iraq. The occupation was also a mistake. Although American troops occupied Iraq for eight years, the Iraqi political process never stabilized.
Steube nevertheless blames President Obama for the collapse of the Iraqi army and the fall of a large part of Iraq to the Islamic State of Iraq.
He sets out President Obama’s mistakes as: failure to negotiate an Iraqi status-of-forces agreement and failure to help moderate Sunni insurgents fighting the al-Assad regime in Syria, thus letting al-Qaida take over the insurgency and decimate the moderates.