For ten months the Obama administration has presided over the "Arab Spring," a geopolitical gambit years in the making, and executed simultaneously in multiple nations throughout the Middle East and North Africa in the beginning of 2011. The regional conflagration was stoked by a steady stream of first, denial, even feigned surprise, with covert support for US-backed opposition groups, then more overt support, and finally NATO airstrikes, weapons, training, and special operations forces lent to the rebellion in Libya and weapons and support sent to Syria's militants. These collective efforts stretching from Tunisia and leading up to Iran's doorstep serve a singular agenda -that is, to contain and ultimately overturn the reemergence of Russia as well as containing the rise of China.
The US is at least peddling the illusion it is clearing out its holdings in Iraq, leaving a symbolic force for a reason - a reason that has to do with a final gambit to be played against Iran, the last domino to fall in the US-contrived "Arab Spring." These are two possible scenarios:
1. Leave a small symbolic force for the Iranians to attack in Iraq after a "unilateral" Israeli airstrike. Whatever Iran decides to do, it may not be able to do sustainably, but will do viciously in the opening phases. By leaving a symbolic force in Iraq, the US can garner the necessary sympathy and anger politically at home to launch a wider operation against Iran in "retaliation."
2. Feign as if the US is disengaging from the Middle East so when a false flag terror attack or other provocation is perpetrated against the US, it will look like an egregious act of war by Iran. While a shrinking US presence in the Middle East would logically engender even more patience in Tehran, the script writers of the latest DEA-Saudi bomb plot took special care to ensure the "Iran has become bolder" talking-point made it repetitively on air and into the minds of unsuspecting Americans.