Michael Barone
The Washington Examiner
7/6/2014
Here’s a shocking story from American adviser Ali Khedery on how the Obama administration leaders kept Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister of Iraq, and how that has led to the apparent breakup of Iraq today.
Khedery, the son of Iraqi immigrants to the United States, is fluent in Arabic and from 2003 to 2009 was the longest serving American government official in Iraq. He claims to have known Maliki well and to have initially supported his ascension to the office of prime minister.
I should add that this is one man’s story and I suspect that others may take a different view or have a different version of events. But taken at face value, it is a blazing indictment of Vice President Joe Biden and his foreign policy adviser Anthony Blinken and of (referred to but unnamed in the article) career Foreign Service Officer Christopher Hill, who was ambassador to Iraq in 2009-10. A must read.
