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the Taliban, which still held control of territory in the South and East. During
an election in Spring 2014, fraud was prevalent and Secretary of State John
Kerry expressed his “gravest concern” about the political future of the country.
There also remains the question of the future of U.S. bases there. The former
president, Karzai, refused to sign a deal allowing the long-term use of bases for
U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and America will have to resolve that issue with
whoever succeeds him. Without those bases, Obama’s ability to conduct “coun-
terterrorism” operations, such as drone attacks on Pakistan, will be severely
limited. Fearing the worst, Obama, just months after announcing plans for
withdrawal, asked Congress in mid-2014 for another $65 billion to support the
war in Afghanistan and other “global security programs.” Once more, as the
21 st Century dawned, the limits of U.S. power were clearly in sight.
In Iraq, where the U.S. withdrew its military forces in December 2011,
problems have worsened as well. Even with American soldiers gone, there
remained a high number of U.S. private contractors, some with military roles,
in country—in fact, by 2008 the Defense Department had over 155,000 pri-
vate contractors in Iraq and 152,000 actual military troops. Like in Afghanistan,
the U.S. also sees Iraq as a key area for U.S. bases, so a major increase in tur-
moil, and an outright rebellion in June 2014, have threatened to destroy the
entire mission, over a decade long, in that country. Even though the U.S. left
Iraq in 2011, the insurgency, especially among radical Sunni Muslims, contin-
ued, and in 2014 a force named ISIS, for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, staged
an unexpected and highly successful attack on the Iraqi government. As a
sidebar, the U.S. had for the previous few years been focusing heavy attention
on Syria, where it opposed the government of Bashar al-Assad and supported
hundreds, if not more, of rebel groups, some al Qaeda-linked, trying to over-
throw him.
Still, ISIS, though it was linked to some of those Syrian rebel groups, which
the U.S. aided, was trying to oust the Iraqi government, which the U.S. cre-
ated. Complicating matters more, the Iraq-Iran alliance continued to grow,
merging a U.S. client state, Iraq, against one of America’s main enemies, Iran,
and causing great confusion for Middle Eastern policymakers. ISIS, a Sunni
Muslim group, emerged out of an al Qaeda group in 2013 [though it has since
distanced itself from Qaeda] and in January 2014 began an offensive that led
to taking control of Fallujah and a number of towns near the Turkish and
Syrian borders. More shocking, and perilous to the Americans, was the ISIS
takeover of Mosul in June. Mosul was Iraq’s second-most important city after