Paul Pillar, a former top CIA intelligence analyst for the Middle East, argues that the war in Iraq was one of the biggest and costliest blunders in the history of U.S. foreign relations. "It is in my view a clear failure, a horrible waste of resources and effort and lives," he told HuffPost "We are now out of it, but we have left behind a regime that is very sectarian, increasingly authoritarian and whose biggest friend is Iran."