Way back in the summer of 2009, when the US withdrawal from Iraq was being touted as yet another great triumph by the Obama administration, we wrote in this space:

"Was withdrawal from Iraq just another campaign promise, made to be broken – like Obama's pledges on government secrecy and other civil liberties issues? The president's record, so far, does not bode well for an answer in the negative.

"This administration of self-proclaimed 'pragmatists' has no problem dispensing with principles and promises when it's convenient. And it is decidedly inconvenient to be getting out of Iraq at the very moment we are ratcheting up pressure on our new adversary in the region: Iran."

At the time, this may have seemed a bit of a stretch: after all, the President had secured his party's nomination – and the White House – largely on the strength of his promise to get us out. And the country, by that time, was more than ready to see the last of Iraq.