Here's the short version: The United States invaded Iraq in 2003, claiming that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had both weapons of mass destruction and connections to Al Qaeda. He had neither. Both Saddam Hussein and the United States are mostly gone from Iraq these days. In their place? Al Qaeda, or some version of it.
Today it is the Islamic State that is the biggest threat to Iraq. In its infancy the Islamic State was a splinter group of Al Qaeda. It has since surpassed Al Qaeda as the world's scariest terrorist organization. Almost a year ago, it burst onto the world state by seizing large parts of Syria and Iraq. Someone call the Coalition of the Willing.
So how did it all go so wrong? In these 54 steps.
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