[Old Teufel Hunden]

"The second question is: what if President Obama had left a force in Iraq in 2011 to protect our gains?"

I can see this thread being a long and angry one. The above part of the article is the most salient point right now, not re-litigating the Iraq war. Once ISIS gets kicked out of Mosul, we will almost be back to the point we were in at 2011 when Obama pulled the troops out. It took six years to get back to this point, but we are indeed back. Now lets not make the same mistake we made previously and get a SOFA deal to station at least 10,000 - 12,000 troops in Iraq.

For those of you complaining about this, do you complain about having troops in Germany, Okinawa or South Korea? We have to do it and it's another reason why we need to spend more on national defense and reform the social programs. One of the federal governments main priorities should be the protection of it's citizens. If this means to continue our current model of using the reserves or expanding our active duty force, I'm not sure. It has to be done though. We've seen the consequences of what happens if we don't do it.

[mad_as_he$$]

“...do you complain about having troops in Germany, Okinawa or South Korea? “

Yes I do. Especially when the “host” countries don’t pony up their fair share.