When President Obama stood at the podium of the White House briefing room on Friday to announce that all American troops would be departing Iraq by the end of 2011, the contrast with his predecessor was stark.

George W. Bush, of course, notoriously announced an end to combat operations in Iraq in 2003 aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, with a banner displaying the words “Mission Accomplished.” He spoke only hours after arriving on the aircraft carrier in a flight suit. That absurdly premature speech became the most infamous of his presidency, and it stands as one of the few things Bush has admitted to regretting.