Incoming White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that Barack Obama’s greatest foreign policy successes were “ending the war in Iraq, uh, and winding down in a responsible fashion the war in Afghanistan, uh, and doing that after, uh, the success, uh, of, uh, our efforts to, uh, dismantle, uh, and destroy, uh, al-Qaida’s core.” Meanwhile, according to Susan Rice, “Core al-Qaida is diminished.” Remember Mitt Romney’s assertions in the 2012 campaign that “al-Qaida is certainly not on the run and certainly not hiding.” That’s painfully clear in Iraq this week. As Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) put it, “The administration is unable to lay out a coherent strategy for the region.”