This month, Obama administration officials revealed plans to dramatically reduce embassy staff in Baghdad, the largest U.S. diplomatic mission abroad. Along with the announcement in December of the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq — the message President Obama is sending is clear: The sooner we put Iraq...

It appears that our interests were ill-served by the abandonment of Iraq by Barack Obama.

We interrupt President Obama’s celebration of keeping a campaign promise to bring you news from Iraq, where a political crisis has been unfolding since just hours after Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta departed on Thursday.

This vision of relations will seem palatable to Americans and Iraqis who want to believe that all will be well after the withdrawal of U.S. troops. But the image is a mirage.

Upon returning from several years of "self-imposed" exile in Iran--which the "firebrand" cleric chose after two uprisings by his Mahdi Army militia were badly defeated--Muqtada al Sadr declared, "We are still fighters," and has threatened attacks if US forces remain in Iraq past 2011.

In what can only be described as a first-rate senatorial butt kicking, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) took apart the two administration witnesses’ effort to explain why, after so much blood and treasure has been expended in creating a democratic Iraq, we’re now left with zero combat forces in country.

What is historically distinct about U.S. power is that it has quite remarkably enabled the spread of human liberty and representative government, through time and across cultures.

The United States should protect the Iraqi electoral process from anyone seeking to manipulate its outcome.