Former Staff Sergeant Michael Golembesky told the hosts of MSNBC's The Cycle that the 2011 withdrawal from Iraq has limited the U.S. military's ability to respond to the ISIL threat in Iraq and Syria.
"You can't say if we'd have stayed two years longer this wouldn't have happened," Golembesky said. "The only thing I can say, when we withdrew, we didn't maintain a large air base. We had no way of having a staging or leaping point in to the region should an incident like this happen. When we withdrew, we didn't maintain a large air base like al-Assad. We had no way of having a staging or leaping point into the region should an incident like this happen."
Golembesky, author of Level Zero Heroes, said that the rise of ISIL is indicative of a larger regional-cultural issue.
"Eventually we're going to have to leave," Golembesky said. "The answer is not 24-hour baby sitting of the region. That's just not going to work. And then you come full circle to the whole cultural and regional problem going on in the Middle East. It's really a shame."
However, Golembesky noted that because of the Iraqi army's failure to stand up to the advances of ISIL, he "wouldn't put them on any high level of regard."