The Non-Option of Disengagement from the Middle East
By
Frederic C. Hof
In 2003 American forces successfully took Baghdad, but without the benefit of a ‘day after’ civil-military stabilization plan. The unintended results: a chaotic occupation, a vicious insurgency, the premature withdrawal of the United States from Iraq in 2011, and the subsequent rise of the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh). This and other disappointments—Libya 2011 (again […]