'Catastrophic decisions': Mattis savages Obama for 'failure' in foreign policy Mattis believes he was vindicated by events. Obama declared the war over, but “Iraq slipped back into escalating violence. It was like watching a car wreck in slow motion,” Mattis says. “All of this was predicted — and preventable.” Obama made “catastrophic decisions” in Iraq, Mattis concludes. And he did so because he ignored the advice coming from multiple military and civilian advisers, thinking he knew better than all of them. “At the top, then as now, there was an aura of omniscience. The assessments of the intelligence community, our diplomats, and our military had been excluded from the decision-making circle,” Mattis writes. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/emboldened-adversaries-and-shaken-allies-mattis-savages-obamas-lack-of-leadership-in-new-book