Volcanic Ash

President Barack Obama is trumpeting this month’s withdrawal of the last U.S. combat troops from Iraq — 50,000 “transitional” troops will remain — as a campaign promise kept.

I’m sorry, but there’s nothing to trumpet about this miserable war, which after eight years has left us with nearly 6,000 U.S. military and civilian deaths, more than 70,000 Americans wounded and many times more Iraqi casualties.

Our country has spent $737 billion, and for what? For nothing.

If anything, Iraq has less long-term stability than when we started the bombing and we’ll leave the country with as much or more potential for breeding terrorism.

The government we sponsored in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein has been chronically unable to get its act together, and Iraqi deaths from war-related violence were at least 356 in July, the highest since last year. The suffering of these people will continue long after we’re gone — perhaps even more so than before we arrived.

So no political boasts, please. Tell me we’ve learned some kind of lesson about the futility of ham-handed attempts at nation-building in cultures we don’t understand and where we’re not welcome.