“They left behind $25 billion in military training and state-of-the-art warfare equipment, but neither a dictator nor a nation. Indeed, under the latter heading they had endeavored to build a nation where there had been none, but ended up liquidating the machinery—–the Republican Guards and the Baathist political party—that in the most recent era had enforced co-existence with machine guns and poison gas canisters. Foolishly claiming America’s job was done at the end of 2011 when the last GIs boarded transports out of Baghdad, Barack Obama was actually opening the gates of hell without a clue as to the furies that would soon come swarming through.”
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/memo-to-washington-iraq-is-not-a-nation-and-you-cant-build-it/