President Obama’s complete pullout of forces from Iraq, squandering the victory there that was handed to him by President Bush, has been a historic disaster, allowing the creation of ISIS. The precise magnitude of that disaster is yet to be understood, but we know already that the president’s strategy to fight ISIS is regarded as unlikely to succeed thanks to the absence of ground troops.

Now, Obama’s Secretary of Defense at the time of the pullout is going public with his and the national security team’s opposition at the time to the pullout. Sixty Minutes has released a promotional video for tomorrow’s broadcast featuring Leon Panetta:

Panetta has always seemed to me to be an honest and decent man. But by speaking out now, he is not only alerting the public to Obama’s overruling of his advisors, he is letting us know that he is distancing himself from responsibility for a historic blunder. That suggests that he realizes a reckoning is coming and wants to escape blame.

One of the notable and deeply troubling aspects of Obama’s unilateral decision on the pullout is the complete absence of resignations in protest.  Where were the patriots when we needed them most?  Why did Panetta wait so long?