The Bush administration as early as 2003 was trying to dump Iraq and get our troops out by June 2004. We put the appointed council in charge and then because insurgents started wailing on us, decided to keep troops there. But Bush's plan was always to cut and run. Every single time we planned to leave, Bush decided we would be embarrassed by leaving.
After the surge seemed to have worked Bush and Malaki signed an agreement to keep troops there through 2011. The signing of that agreement was when Bush got a shoe thrown in his face. Obama ran on a platform of getting our troops out but Bush had already set the date for when we would pull out. Obama just kept to that date. His big mistake was really just that he publicly announced the date we'd be gone which telegraphed what we were doing, but Bush had already set the date. Like I said, Obama wants this to be gone, never wanted to fight the war.
But Bush set that date himself and made all the terrible decisions that led up to ISIS by firing the Ba'ath government and the Army. Malaki expected us to stay, thought he could play us for more time and money and guns, then started replacing the people we trained with shitheels and powdered puffballs. That's not Obama's fault, that was Malaki's fault. But again, Malaki was Bush's choice, so the blame lies again squarely in his lap.
I'm not a fan of Obama but he stated what he was going to do, which is keep the planned deadline. It was Bush and Malaki that fucked things up, not Obama. Blaming Obama for pulling our chestnuts out of a fire that Bush created is sort of disengenuous.
The SOFA was not why we pulled out at all, it was just an interesting side note. We have a long history of demanding SOFA's including Germany and Korea and Japan. Iraq didn't want to sign it, so we didn't make them. We pulled out like we planned to do. If Malaki hadn't been playing games things might have been different but I doubt it.
Blaming Obama for doing what he said he was going to do five years earlier is kind of stupid. Almost as stupid as invading a country, disbanding their government, then their army, then replacing them with a new sectarian one that was almost certain to try to fuck the old government and thus made it a sure bet that a war would erupt. And then blaming it all on Obama.
I'm not saying you're saying this, I'm just pissing and moaning. Malaki caused tons of problems, but he was Bush's choice. So it was again, all Bush's fault. Stupid fuck. I would love to see him indicted and prosecuted for the atrocities he caused.