(A) When you bring up the SOFA negotiations you are bringing up Bush 43's incompetence at negotiating a long term deal back in 2008. If Bush knew Iraq would not be ready for all troops to be gone by the end of 2011, then Bush should have signed a deal that gave the Iraqis that Bush and I guess you think they needed.
(B) When you say Obama willingness to sabotage the SOFA discussions you must be able to explain just how he sabotaged them. Can you explain how Obama sabotaged the SOFA discussions?
The SOFA agreement had been a hot issue to Iraq internal politics; Maliki had to demonstrate his independence from the US. An interim agreement to extend the the then-current SOFA was in place, in order to allow time for the final product to be negotiated. By doing that, Maliki could show how he wasn't a US puppy. However, when the Obama administration refused the interim agreement, and pushed an all-or-nothing final SOFA agreement. It was, simply, Obama's way to get what he truly wanted - withdrawal from Iraq while being able to blame someone else.
(C) When you claim that Obama;s "slavish conviction to removing troops from Iraq directly contributed to Maliki's need to realign his government, and retrench his power base " you need to explain what is incompetent about 'removing troops' specifically in accordance with Bush's negotiated date for US troop withdrawal from the country. There is no incompetence there. And you also need to explain what you mean by Maliki realigning his government and retrenching his power Base? That makes no sense since it was Maliki that initiated the process against Bush where Bush had no choice but to sign the 2008 SOFA deal wherein Iraqis demanded that all US troops be removed from Iraq before January 1, 2012. I must remind you that Obama contrary to Bush succeeded in getting a ten year SOFA with Afghanistan. There was nothing stopping Bush from getting a ten year deal was there? If there was what was it?
Again, you are failing to grasp the intricacies of the negotiation process. Because Obama decided to play hardball over the interim SOFA extension, Maliki was forced to compromise with his internal political opposition. Their original constitution had to be accepted, despite the fact that everyone recognized it was not ready. As a result, the coalitions fell apart. It took the US 12 years to get our Constitution right, and we demanded they get it done in 6 years.
To try to compare Iraq to Afghanistan SOFA negotiations is like trying to compare potatoes to cars. One has nothing to do with the others - they had different goals, different political environments, and different ally alignments.
(D) I would like to know how you "know" that keeping troops in Iraq after 2011 would have prevented the rise of the IS terrorists in Syria and Iraq. I prefer to accept Petraeus' judgment that there is no way to know that. “Petraeus was asked: Would it have happened if we had had 25,000 troops still on ithe ground? Petraeus answered: "No one knows whether forces there would have given us an influence."
So, tell me ... Petraeus was a member of the Armed Forces, and as such, is steeped in complete obedience to the civilian command structure. Of course, he didn't condemn the Obama administration - that was NOT his mission. It is NOT an accident that Petraeus' post-military career started with a high-level administration post, despite the fact that he had little or no experience in intelligence collection operations while in the military. In short, he was not qualified for the job - the Senate didn't want to know, but rather, rubber stamped his appointment - but it's clear that his performance has been lackluster, if not completely incompetent.
Now, as to the actual issue of the impact of military troops remaining in Iraq - at the time of the sabotage of the SOFA discussions by Obama, the military was providing security training to the military, civil engineering assistance and training to the Iraqi government, supporting efforts to improve the education system, and providing direct military support to the Iraqi military. The downsizing of US military support, as a result of the SOFA negotiation collapse, did not begin until later.
I don't think you have defined one lick of incompetence on Obama's part. In fact the situation could have been worse if the US military seen by the Sunni street as defending Maliki's partisan Shiite government.
As to the claim that Obama incompetence contributed to ISIS, history will judge. Maybe the use of the word 'incompetence' is too strong - maybe the phrase 'intentional and orchestrated subversion of the Iraq-US coalition' would be more accurate.
