Iraq: Even THESE people admit...

[DeistPaladin]

However, many of the rest of the neo-con punditry who were 100% wrong 11 years ago are blaming Obama for the clusterfuck which was largely their fault, as they sold that bad bill of goods to Americans.

I'm sure there was the same armchair quarterbacking from conservatives after the Vietnam War. "Just one more year and we would have won!" You can always count on that lament when you live in an alternate universe where total victory is always "just around the corner". Remember how Bush and Cheney spent every year for the last five years of their administration saying, "the insurgency is in its death throes" every few months?

But what really surprises me is the double-think that goes into the whole Neo-con argument. I mean, let go of the history re-write. Let them have their alternate facts. Ignore that Bush signed the treaty pulling our forces out and the Iraqi government refused to allow American troops to stay. Even accepting all that, their claim makes no sense:

• If Bush was so successful in creating a stable government and a self-sufficient army in Iraq, why did it require our presence propping it all up to make it work?
  
• If the victory was so great, why did it all fall apart the moment we left?
  
• If 2 trillion dollars, 10 years and the blood of our finest could only produce a government and an Iraqi army that only worked as long as we were there to sustain it, how is that a success?
  
• If the Al Qaida insurgency was crushed, whence commeth the Al Qaida affiliate army now poised to take Bagdad?