Foreword
When President Obama withdrew the last troops from Iraq in December 2011 after eight years of war, he proclaimed that the United States was “leaving behind a sovereign, stable, and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government.” That optimistic narrative began to crumble in January 2014, when insurgent forces seized control of Fallujah and Ramadi, the main cities in Iraq’s predominantly Sunni Anbar province, taking advantage of the unstable government of Iraq’s since replaced leader, Nouri al Malaki. It disintegrated further when the group captured Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. The jihadist group responsible for the insurgency calls itself the Islamic State…
