There seems to be no sense of ownership of Iraq from the US political elite - there's a lot of buck passing and electoral calculus, but no sense of responsibility.

This would be fine if the US had no pretensions to global leadership; but it does - and US politicians go on as if the rest of the World hasn't figured out the geo-strategic incompetence of the US ruling elite.

The rest of the World understood the US was definitely going to be less relevant economically as the years went by (that was clear after the 2008 financial crisis). What is a revelation is how quickly America's geo-strategic relevance is being eroded.

America's great advantage over the Chinese in most parts of the developing World is its military, but Iraq demonstrates the limitation of that military, but most importantly the failure of imagination of the policy makers wielding that tool.

So where does US go - after Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq?