# Why the US left Iraq **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 14, 2014, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-us-left-iraq/690750 "2014-06-14T02:05:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 58
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2014, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-us-left-iraq/690750/58 "2014-06-29T19:06:30Z")
John Mace opines that Obama “either lied to us or didn’t know what he was talking about” referring to 2011 when announcing that all US Troops would be pulled out of Iraq. Nearly three years have passed since Obama supposedly lied because he knew that there were no capable Iraqi Defense Forces functioning in Iraq in 2011. Here is what John Mace specifically said. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > But Obama told us all that he was pulling everyone out and that he was leaving a stable and capable Iraqi Defense Force behind. So, he either lied to us or didn’t know what he was talking about. But John Mace is now suggesting that his statement (above) is not saying that Obama should have seen this attack coming. > [@Syria: Is there any way this can end well?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/117): > > I never said Obama should have seen this attack coming. But how can that be. In Mace world it would have to be that an attack of this magnitude would have to be foreseen by Obama in 2011 to be accused of lying for saying the Iraqi troops were capable to counter such an attack without US troops remaining in Iraq beyond the 2011 date. Obama actually used the term “self-reliant” in 2011 as he said we were leaving behind a ‘self-reliant’ Iraqi government. > [@Syria: Is there any way this can end well?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/syria-is-there-any-way-this-can-end-well/611919/117): > > However, if Iraqi forces prevail and drive ISIL back into Syria, they will have done it with US help. That does not speak well to the idea that Iraq is “self-reliant”. Mace pretty much supplies the proof that Obama in 2011 needed to foresee some kind of test of the Iraqi government’s self-reliance in order for Mace to be accurate in proclaiming ‘after the test came’ that Obama lied in any way back in 2011. This is for the record since Mace has indicated he will not counter this phase of the argument. It is my view that he has no way to counter it and has lost interest in defending this statement that he made: _“But Obama told us all that he was pulling everyone out and that he was leaving a stable and capable Iraqi Defense Force behind. So, he either lied to us or didn’t know what he was talking about.”_ -John Mace --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-us-left-iraq/690750)._