Note how he says that if we still had troops on the ground in Iraq, they would increase his headaches, as they’d have to be reinforced. He doesn’t consider the possibility that if he had not left Iraq so precipitously and then boasted about doing so, the Islamic State might not exist today. This is not to say that the Iraq misadventure was any better conceived or better executed than the one in Afghanistan. It would never have been possible to establish a stable secular republic there. But there is no doubt that Obama’s weakness gave the jihadis an opportunity, and he took it. “Obama calls reporter’s question ‘BOGUS and WRONG,’ but his own words prove otherwise,” The Right Scoop, August 9, 2014:
In order to reassure the American people that he’s a NOT complete dithering fool, Obama held a press conference earlier today before going on vacation (again). The very last question he took got him in a little huff and he rambled on and on about it until he finally called it an analysis that is “bogus and wrong.”…
This was the question: “Do you have any second thoughts about pulling all ground troops out of Iraq? Does it give you pause doing the same thing in Afghanistan?”
He tries to slither out of responsibility by blaming Iraq for not wanting U.S. troops there, conveniently neglecting that getting troops out of Iraq was one of his greatest campaign promises. As many on Twitter noted:
He specifically claimed that he kept that promise and now he’s saying it wasn’t his fault. So which is it?
The answer is – whichever is politically convenient at the time.