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The Failures of US Counterterrorism and How it Led to ISIL
David Kilcullen, Senior Future of War Fellow at the New America Foundation, a former Australian professional soldier and chief counterterrorism strategist at the US state department and the author of Blood Year: The Unraveling of Western Counterterrorism (Oxford University Press, 2016), takes a close look at 2014 and the rise of ISIS, spreading the blame between Presidents Bush and Obama.
Kilcullen said the past two American presidents faced difficult foreign policy decisions that resulted in major "screw ups" — Pres. Bush's decision to invade Iraq and Pres. Obama's decision to withdraw troops from a relatively stable Iraq in 2010 — and the next president will face even more dire circumstances abroad than the ones that currently exist in war-torn countries like Syria and Iraq.