Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, tells me: “Iranian influence in Iraq started much sooner,” than 2011. “The United States had essentially lost Iraq the minute it invaded Iraq but had no plan for the day after . . . The idea that Iraq somehow fell in Iran’s after 2011 is simply wrong. Just listen to the very same critics who before 2011 were arguing that Iran has too much influence in Iraq.”