WASHINGTON, D.C.: It is becoming increasingly likely that Iraq has reached a turning point. The forces hostile to the government have grown stronger, better equipped and more organized. And having now secured arms, ammunition and hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from their takeover of Mosul—Iraq’s second-largest city—they will build on these strengths. Inevitably, in Washington, the question has surfaced: Who lost Iraq?

Whenever America has asked this question—as it did with China in the 1950s or Vietnam in the 1970s—the most important point to remember is: the local rulers did. The Chinese nationalists and the South Vietnamese government were corrupt, inefficient and weak, unable to be inclusive and unwilling to fight with the dedication of their opponents. The same story is true of Iraq, only much more so. The first answer to the question is: Nouri al-Maliki lost Iraq.

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