Washington: Bush-era vice-president Dick Cheney savaged President Barack Obama for his alleged Iraq policy failure Wednesday, warning that a shrinking US military posture could fuel terrorism.

In a blistering op-ed in that ‘Wall Street Journal’, Cheney accused Obama of pursuing “fantasy” policies that weaken the US armed forces, embolden terror networks like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and reduce Washington’s ability to influence global events.

“Rarely has a US president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many,” Cheney said in a column co-authored by daughter Liz Cheney, a senior State Department official in the George W. Bush administration.

“Too many times to count, Obama has told us he is ‘ending’ the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — as though wishing made it so. His rhetoric has now come crashing into reality.”

Cheney called for a fundamental reversal of the Obama doctrine.

“Weakness and retreat are provocative. US withdrawal from the world is disastrous and puts our own security at risk,” he wrote.

Cheney was a chief architect of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation.

Obama campaigned for president in 2008 on a call to end the conflict and in 2011 withdraw the last US troops still in Iraq.

He now faces tough choices about possible military re-engagement there amid raging sectarian violence that threatens to tear Iraq apart.

Cheney sought to pin the blame for Iraq’s unrest squarely on Obama.

“When Obama and his team came into office in 2009, Al Qaida in Iraq had been largely defeated, thanks primarily to the heroic efforts of US armed forces during the surge,” Cheney wrote.

“Obama had only to negotiate an agreement to leave behind some residual American forces, training and intelligence capabilities to help secure the peace. Instead, he abandoned Iraq and we are watching American defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.”

Cheney also attacked the president for talking climate change or going golfing while Iraq burns.

“He seems blithely unaware, or indifferent to the fact, that a resurgent Al Qaida presents a clear and present danger to the United States.”

And he expressed disbelief that the Obama administration was considering talking to Iran about how to stop the insurgency in Iraq.

“Only a fool would believe American policy in Iraq should be ceded to Iran, the world’s largest state sponsor of terror,” Cheney wrote.

Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader denounced Cheney’s broadside.

“Those who attack the president for bringing our troops home from Iraq are just flat wrong, and they are out of step with the American people. After a decade of war, I believe the American people have had enough,” Reid said on the Senate floor.

“If there is one thing we can all agree on here, it’s that we should not be taking advice on Iraq from Dick Cheney,” he added.

“To be on the wrong side of Dick Cheney is to be on the right side of history.”