A nation once seen as a great hope in the Middle East is unraveling, as al-Qaeda sinks its teeth in, and a bloodied America wonders what could have been.
The cities of Fallujah and Ramadi captured this past week by al-Qaeda had been liberated during the Iraq war in the bloodiest combat U.S. troops had seen since Vietnam. The victory left the Iraqi insurgency beaten and humiliated in Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni Muslim homeland that Osama bin Laden himself had claimed would be a graveyard for the hated Americans.
If al-Qaeda reasserts control of Anbar, it will be able to boast of defeating the "Great Satan" while establishing a haven from which to make more trouble: pouring fighters into Syria, threatening the borders of Lebanon and Jordan, and linking up with insurgents in Arab Gulf nations friendly to the United States.
That would have provided a base from which to strike al-Qaeda in its backyard and counter Iranian influence in the region, analysts say. Case in point: The United States still has 40,000 troops in Japan and 54,000 in Germany a half-century after World War II ended. U.S. commanders under Obama recommended keeping 20,000 troops in what was deemed a more volatile area of the world. Commanders said a robust troop presence would help Iraqi forces keep a lid on violence and allow the U.S. to keep tabs on al-Qaeda. Obama rejected the idea, Kagan said.
