Let's go back to 2007 and all of the talk of getting out of Iraq.
Let's recall Withdrawal is not an option by Henry A. Kissinger:
"The disenchantment of the American public with the burdens it has borne alone for nearly four years has generated growing demands for some form of unilateral withdrawal. But under present conditions, withdrawal is not an option.American forces are indispensable. They are in Iraq not as a favor to its government or as a reward for its conduct.Nevertheless, President Obama went ahead and withdrew from Iraq. And Mr. Kissinger turned out to be right!
They are there as an expression of the American national interest to prevent the Iranian combination of imperialism and fundamentalist ideology from dominating a region on which the energy supplies of the industrial democracies depend.An abrupt American departure will greatly complicate efforts to help stem the terrorist tide far beyond Iraq; fragile governments from Lebanon to the Gulf will be tempted into pre-emptive concessions.
It might drive the sectarian conflict within Iraq to genocidal dimensions."
