Jeff Jacoby
By New Year’s Day, the US military presence in Iraq will be history. President Obama has made it official, announcing last week the fulfillment of his campaign pledge to end the Iraq war and bring the troops home. Senior American commanders in Iraq had recommended keeping up to 18,000 servicemen there, and even Defense Secretary Leon Panetta wanted around 4,000 to remain. But Obama, whose meteoric rise to power was fueled by opposition to the war, overruled them. “The rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year,’’ he told reporters. “After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over.’’ And what happens then?
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