Very good PBS Frontline program this week on the history of the Iraqi war - Bush and the crew take their lumps, but Obama looks totally incompetent - for instance Bush worked closely with Al Maliki, even holding regular TV “tutorials” with him to help guide his policies while heading Iraq - although Maliki showed tendencies to want to purge sunnis during that period, they were held in check - from the time Obama took over he never met with Maliki, even insisting that the Iraq ruling council formalize an informal understanding that no Americans remaining in country would be held criminally responsible for actions attributable to war, something Obama knew was unlikely - this gave Obama the rationalization to pull all our troops out of the country at the end of 2011 as per agreement reached by Bush and thus treating Iraq as a “normal” and “sovereign” nation, something commentators on the program all agreed was far from actuality. The day after our troops left, Maliki had the sunni vice-premier arrested and began a major purge of sunni influence in the country, including even the “Sons of Iraq”, the sunni militia which Petraeus had bought off to help pacify the country during the “Surge” - so out of touch was our government with the Iraq government that we had no idea that the Iraq army would collapse when ISIS invaded in the spring - Obama threw away what had been gained in the country because of what the program makes evident was his dislike for the war and Bush’s policy and his desire to simply walk away and be done with it....