Peshmerga fighters, or Kurdish warriors, check cars at the entrance to a temporary displacement camp in Khazair, Iraq, for people caught in the fighting in and around the city of Mosul on Thursday, June 26. Vast swaths of northern Iraq, including the cities of Mosul and Tal Afar, have fallen as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, advances toward Baghdad, the capital. The ISIS militants want to establish a caliphate, or Islamic state, in the region, stretching from Iraq into northern Syria. 
A group of women wait outside the temporary displacement camp in Khazair on June 26. 
Smoke rises in the Karakus district of Mosul as clashes between Iraqi forces and ISIS militants on June 26. 
Food is handed out at the displacement camp in Khazair. 
A child walks over discarded water bottles and trash at a registration area at the displacement camp in Khazair on June 26. 
Kurdish Peshmerga take their positions behind a wall on the front line of the conflict with ISIS militants in Tuz Khormato, Iraq, on Wednesday, June 25. 
Peshmerga fighters clean their weapons at a base in Tuz Khormato, Iraq, on June 25. 
Female Peshmerga between 18 and 45 years old form a special unit that is called to serve in any conditions. A soldier is pictured here on June 25. 
A woman gathers bread in a temporary displacement camp for Iraqis caught up in the fighting in and around Mosul on Tuesday, June 24. 
An ISIS fighter takes control of a traffic intersection in Mosul on Sunday, June 22. 
An ISIS member distributes a copy of the Quran, Islam's holy book, to a driver in Mosul on June 22. 
Members of ISIS patrol in Falluja, 40 miles west of Baghdad, on Saturday, June 21. 
Volunteers raise their weapons and chant slogans during a parade in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City, Baghdad, on Saturday, June 21. 
Iraqi men register to volunteer to fight alongside security forces against Sunni Muslim militants and jihadists on Friday, June 20, at a recruitment center in Baghdad. 
New Iraqi army recruits gather in Najaf on Wednesday, June 18, following a call for Iraqis to take up arms against Islamic militant fighters. 
Soldiers with an Iraqi anti-terrorism unit are on guard June 18 in Baghdad. 
A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter injured in clashes with members of ISIS lies in a hospital in Irbil on June 18. 
An MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter lands on the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday, June 17. The carrier moved into the region to give President Barack Obama has said. 
Newly recruited Iraqi volunteer fighters take part in a training session in Karbala on June 17. 
Iraqi tribesmen gather in Baghdad on Monday, June 16, to show their readiness to join Iraqi security forces in the fight against Islamic militants. 
Iraqi Christian children gather inside the Church of the Virgin Mary for prayers in Bartala, Iraq, a town near Mosul, on Sunday, June 15. Militants seized Mosul last week, reportedly leading more than 500,000 people to flee Iraq's second-largest city. 
Shiite tribal fighters raise their weapons and chant slogans against ISIS in Basra, Iraq, on June 15. 
Members of ISIS prepare to execute some soldiers from Iraq's security forces in this image, one of many reportedly posted by the militant group online. CNN cannot independently confirm the authenticity of the images. 
A woman cradles her baby Thursday, June 12, at a temporary camp set up in Aski Kalak, Iraq, to shelter those fleeing the violence in northern Nineveh province. 
A girl fleeing from Mosul arrives at a Kurdish checkpoint on June 12. 
Iraqi men chant slogans outside of an army recruiting center to volunteer for military service June 12 in Baghdad. 
Kurdish Peshmerga forces, along with Iraqi special forces, deploy their troops and armored vehicles outside of Kirkuk, Iraq, on June 12. 
Children stand next to a burnt vehicle during clashes between Iraqi security forces and ISIS militants in Mosul on Tuesday, June 10. 
Civilians from Mosul escape to a refugee camp near Irbil, Iraq, on June 10. 
Iraqis fleeing the violence wait in their vehicles at a Kurdish checkpoint in Aski Kalak on June 10. 
- Gergen, Katz: Reason for Iraq's crumbling could give clue to preventing same in Afghanistan
- Bush administration mostly to blame for wrong calls after launching Iraq Warn, they say
- How after U.S. troops left, did Iraq tumble to civil war? Some blame Obama missteps
- Writers: U.S. left no residual force, Maliki was uncooperative, Obama wanted it over with
Editor's note: David Gergen is a senior political analyst for CNN and has been an adviser to four presidents. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he is a professor of public service and director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Follow him on Twitter at @david_gergen. Daniel Katz, his research assistant, is a graduate of Brandeis University.The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the authors.
(CNN) -- "How did it all begin?"
Exactly a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy stood before students and recalled how in 1914, Prince Bulow of Germany asked that question of the German Chancellor as Europe slid into a catastrophic world war. The chancellor wearily replied, "Ah, if one only knew."
Today, as we watch the fracturing of Iraq, we would be wise to ask a different question: "How does one end a war?" The answer remains elusive, but Iraq is quickly becoming a case study in how not to do it. And unless we learn from this experience, Afghanistan could well be next.
Unfortunately, as Gideon Rose shows in his 2010 book, "How Wars End," this is not the first time we've fumbled the end of a war. He argues that the U.S. has often gone wrong because it failed to leave a sustainable postwar structure in place, citing the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, a prolonged conflict and then stalemate in Korea, the chaos in Vietnam, and so on.
In this case, the administration that launched the Iraq war deserves the lion's share of blame for how badly it has gone. A case can be made that former President George W. Bush's team was misled by faulty intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, but they were the ones who made the wrong calls on going in with too few troops and then disbanding the Iraqi army, turning the country into a cauldron of sectarian hatreds and violence.
But after the 2007 troop surge, the Bush team could also make a credible argument they left an Iraq that was fairly stable and had a decent chance at self-governance. President Barack Obama himself proclaimed in 2011 as he withdrew the last American troops, "We're leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq."
So how did Iraq then tumble into a civil war? How come no top official in Washington saw it coming or appreciated how quickly Sunni jihadists would seize control of a third of the country? Could the U.S. have prevented the breakup?
Syria strikes Iraq 
Will more U.S. advisers in Iraq help? 
Iraq's leader welcomes Syrian airstrikes Speaking with military and national security leaders who have retired in the past few years, one finds a unanimous view that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was the one who blew it since American troops left him fully in charge. Forcing Sunnis and Kurds out of power, establishing an authoritarian, corrupt and often brutal Shia regime, and filling the ranks of his American trained army with cronies and incompetents, al-Maliki invited a rebellion. That's why recent U.S. military leaders think al-Maliki has to go -- immediately!
But these same leaders believe there was a chance -- no guarantees but a chance -- that if the United States had left behind a strong residual force under a status-of-forces agreement, the current disaster might have been avoided.
For one thing, a U.S. force on the ground would have sent a clear signal to insurgents not to mess with things. For another, the U.S. would have kept better intelligence and could more easily head off trouble. Just as important, a top U.S. general, speaking for the President, would have been whispering into al-Maliki's ear. U.S. commanders over the years -- from Petraeus to Odierno -- found this direct line of communication vital to keeping al-Maliki on a reform path and away from power consolidation.
The story of why we failed to leave behind a residual force has been well told elsewhere. One of the best sources is the 2013 book "The Endgame" by Michael Gordon and Gen. Bernard Trainor. This past week, Peter Beinart provided an excellent autopsy in a piece for The Atlantic. Beinart's is the more surprising as he attacks the Obama administration from a liberal vantage point.
Gordon and Trainor report that Obama's top military leadership -- Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others -- wanted to keep a residual force and thought anything less than 16,000 troops would be insufficient. But they ran into resistance on two fronts. The Prime Minister wanted Americans out; al-Maliki had designs of his own for the exercise of power. The Obama White House has long argued that it was al-Maliki who scuppered any deal.
As accounts like those of Gordon and Trainor along with Beinart have shown, however, the White House was always half-hearted about pushing. The President was skeptical of his military advisers and apparently sympathetic to political advisers who wanted to get out of Iraq pronto -- and certainly before the 2012 elections. So, Obama overruled recommendations from his military leaders and presented the Iraqis with a plan for 3,500 continuous troops. Squabbles broke out between both sides and eventually an agreement fell apart.
If Obama was unhappy, he had a strange way of showing it. In the run-up to elections in 2012, he traversed the campaign trail celebrating the fulfillment of his promise to pull every last troop out of Iraq.
We will never know for sure whether a residual American force would have saved Iraq as a sovereign, stable nation -- what it seemed when we left. Sectarian hatreds there run back centuries, and ultimately they must take responsibility for their own destinies. We can't save people who won't save themselves.
But it would not be surprising if in his next edition, Gideon Rose adds to his chapter on Iraq and repeats his argument that America's wars have often ended badly when we fail to put in place a sustainable postwar structure before we leave.
The looming question is whether we will now make the same mistake in Afghanistan. After all, the President has now declared that all American troops will be out of there in 2016 -- just by coincidence, of course, the same year as the next presidential election.
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