that decision, what would we have done with 10,000 u.s. troops? would they have enforced security? frafr frankly, would we have wanted them to be fighting in places like mosul and fallujah against isil. republicans have criticized president obama for not leaving troops in iraq and some have said if american forces had stayed there would be no isis. but emma sky believes that was never in the cards. iraq s prime minister maliki had a new set of patrons, his fellow shiites in tehran. and they made him an offer he couldn t refuse. that was part of iran s deal with maliki. we ll give you a third term but the conditions are, no american soldiers, that was what iran had demanded and no way had had gone through parliament. one thing was clear. it was only iraq s army that could have stopped isis.
but emma sky believes that was never in the cards. iraq s prime minister al maliki had a new set of patrons, his fellow shiites in tehran, and the mullahs made him an offer he couldn t refuse. that was part of iran s deal with al maliki, we ll give you a third term, but the conditions are, no american soldiers. that was what tehran had demanded. there was no way it would have gone through the parliament. one thing is clear, it was only iraq s army that could have stopped isis. instead, iraqi soldiers threw down their weapons and ran. [ phone ringing ] hello? next on blindsided. what drives these people? what makes them tick? you ll go inside theind of a radical. meet a man who was prepared to die for a fantasy.
the sunni soldiers in the iraqi army simply said no. for many sunnis, they looked at iranian-backed regime in baghdad and they looked at isis, and some of them made the disastrous calculation that isis was the lesser of two evils. reporter: the last american soldier left the country in 2011, after the u.s. could not reach agreement with maliki to maintain a military presence. the question that we ask today when people look back at that decision is what would we have done with 10,000 u.s. troops? would they have enforced security? and frankly, would we have wanted them to be fighting in places like mosul and fallujah against isil? reporter: republicans have criticized president obama for not leaving troops in iraq. some have said if american forces had stayed, there would be no isis. but emma sky believes that was never in the cards.
iranian-backed regime and looked at isis and some of them made the disastrous calculation that isis was the lesser of two evils. the last american soldier left the country in 2011. after the u.s. account not reach agreement with maliki to maintain a military presence. the question we asked when people look back is what would we have done with 10,000 years of troops. would they enforce security and would we have wanted them to be fighting in places like mosul? republicans have criticized president obama for not leaving troops in iraq. some said if american forces had stayed there would be no isis. emma sky believes that was never in the cards. iraq s prime minister maliki had a new set of patrons. his fellow shiites in tehran.
ram page with isis with concerned including emma sky. it is terribly depressing. she was a key political adviser and the commanding general often had her at his side in the unravelling, sky said nothing that is happening there now is unevitable including the rise of isis. obama campaigned to ending the war in iraq and so the administration squandered security gains by in part sticking with a pro- iowa ran and anti- sun ni almaliki. it is to sustain the status quo. this was not stable. that led with iran not