The proximate cause of Iraq's unraveling was the increasing authoritarian, sectarian, and corrupt conduct of the Iraqi government and its leader after the departure of the last U.S. combat forces in 2011.
Interpretation
The quote highlights how the failures of the Iraqi government post-2011 led to instability and chaos in the country.
David Petraeus emphasizes the significant role that the poor governance characterized by authoritarianism, sectarianism, and corruption played in the destabilization of Iraq following the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011. By pointing to these factors as proximate causes, he suggests that leadership decisions and government actions are critical in determining the stability and order within a nation, especially in the aftermath of foreign interventions.
In practice
This quote could be used in a political debate to illustrate the consequences of poor governance.
There is nothing I can do to undo what I did. I can only say again how sorry I am to those I let down and then strive to go forward with a greater sense of humility and purpose, and with gratitude to those who stood with me during a very difficult chapter in my life.
I considered our British comrades to rank with the finest men and women of any armed service in the world. And I know that my fellow American soldiers - and those of the other coalition countries under my command - valued very highly the professional expertise, capability, courage, and determination of our British partners on the battlefield.
In the 101st Airborne Division headquarters in Mosul, we had a sign on the wall. It was a question that we would ask ourselves before every new operation or policy initiative. It asked: Will this policy or operation take more bad guys off the streets than it creates by its conduct?
The idea is to go to bed every night with fewer enemies than you had in the morning.
We periodically note that there are no silver bullets, there are no magic formulas, there's no single action or component of the overall... comprehensive civil-military approach.
At least from a national security standpoint, none of the problems the U.S. and U.K. face will become easier to solve if the U.K. is out of the E.U.; on the contrary, I fear that a 'Brexit' would only make our world even more dangerous and difficult to manage.
Term limits would cure both senility and seniority- both terrible legislative diseases.
Having been blacklisted from working in television during the McCarthy era, I know the harm of government using private corporations to intrude into the lives of innocent Americans. When government uses the telephone companies to create massive databases of all our phone calls it has gone too far.
History will also give occasion to expatiate on the advantage of civil orders and constitutions; how men and their properties are protected by joining in societies and establishing government; their industry encouraged and rewarded, arts invented, and life made more comfortable; the advantages of liberty, mischiefs of licentiousness, benefits arising from good laws and a due execution of justice. Thus may the first principles of sound politics be fixed in the minds of youth.
It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention.
I think the Democrats are going to have to be willing to give up, maybe, some short-term political gain by whipping up fears on some of these things - if it's a reasonable Social Security proposal, a reasonable Medicare proposal. We've got to deal with these things. You cannot have health care devour the economy.
The ultimate victory of tomorrow is democracy, and through democracy with education, for no people in all the world can be kept eternally ignorant or eternally enslaved.
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