When then-Sen. Barack Obama visited the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board in 2008, I had one question for him: Which Democratic candidate for president would be best at keeping Iraq from imploding?

"That would be me," Obama answered.

He called Operation Iraqi Freedom "an enormous strategic mistake." Nonetheless, Obama also noted that, once the war had begun, "We had an obligation to fund our troops and to try to make this work as best we can."

And: "Once we were in, we had some obligation, both strategic and humanitarian, to stabilize the country, and that we should be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in."...