Cheney on Wasted Sacrifice

Former Vice President Dick Cheney worries that the U.S. troop withdrawal from urban Iraqi areas might “waste all the tremendous sacrifice that has gotten us to this point.” Andrew Sullivan writes that he’s really just trying to establish a narrative whereby the Obama administration gets the blame for a war that spirals out of control. I’m in too good a mood today to question Cheney’s motives, which only he can know. But it’s notable that the document that governed today’s scheduled urban pullout was negotiated by the Bush administration that Cheney served. My friend Chris Brose, a former speechwriter for Condoleezza Rice, made this point after Obama’s March speech at Camp Lejeune announcing his withdrawal plan. There really can’t be an effort on the right to claim credit for the end of the Iraq war and to blame the Obama administration for its consequences. The reality is that if Iraq truly does collapse, that failure will have a thousand fathers.