Twenty years following the US invasion of Iraq, the sources, conduct, and consequences of the conflict are still often misunderstood — this while the security climate in the Middle East shifts to a new era.

To make sense of the war and its role in US foreign policy, The World Upfront is joined by Colonel (Ret.) Frank Sobchak, PhD. Sobchak has extensive career experience in the Middle East, has written on the region for major outlets such as Time and The Wall Street Journal, and has published the US government's definitive study of the Iraq War.

In this episode, Colonel Sobchak explains that while the decision to invade Iraq was a calamitous strategic blunder, the decision to withdraw was also itself shortsighted, portending a Middle East in which US influence is progressively ceded to less savory actors.