" Are you better off than you were four years ago?" Ronald Reagan asked at the close of the sole debate in the 1980 election, ticking off a list of things — the economy, unemployment, the country’s world standing — that had all headed south with the Democrats’ "leadership," and the country agreed they were not. And so from now till the polls close in 2016, Republicans should ask the American people if the world is now better off than it was when Obama took office, and point at the ways it is not.

Iran and Vladimir Putin are both better off, and Islamist extremists are better off beyond their wildest dreams of six years ago, but that about does it. Israel is not better off — its relations with us are worse than the weather; Ukraine is not better off — it is being slowly dismembered; Syria, Libya and Yemen are not better off — they had dictators then, but were not yet a war zone — Denmark, France and Australia are not better off — their cities were not yet the targets of Islamist extremists; and Iraq — the subject of so much intense misrememberance — is perhaps the least better-off of them all.

In 2009, when Obama took over, Iraq had been pacified, al Qaeda was beaten, and the future seemed bright. But don’t take our word for it: high-ranking Democrats had been positively euphoric, bubbling over as they thought of the good times in store. "I am very optimistic … about Iraq," Joe Biden said on Larry King Live in February 2010, claiming the results as his own party’s doing. "This could be one of the great achievements of our administration. ... I’ve been impressed how they have been deciding to use the political process rather than guns to settle their differences," and he predicted a "representative government" would arise before long.

But he was restrained when put next to Obama, who hosted an event at the White House in December of 2011 with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as he prepared to exit Iraq. Saying the American forces were leaving "with honor and their heads held high," he called the prime minister "the elected leader of a sovereign, self-reliant and democratic Iraq" that faced a glowing future of domestic tranquility and economic success: "Millions have cast their ballots … In coming years, it’s estimated that Iraq’s economy will grow even faster than China’s or India’s … despite continued attacks by those who seek to derail Iraq’s progress, violence remains at record lows."

Of course, "Iraq’s progress" was rudely derailed in June 2014, as the Islamic State (aka the "junior varsity," as Obama had called it), crossed the border from Syria, killing and torturing thousands of people and seizing huge swathes of land that had been won back from al Qaeda by Iraqi and American forces alike.

Iraq did not fail; it had been invaded (due in part to Obama’s failure to leave a garrison force in that country), but before that Obama and Biden had been quite explicit in insisting Iraq had been won. Do you leave a debacle with your "head held high," and with honor? If you praise a country’s progress toward democracy, does it mean "nation building" can work? If the Iraq war in 2003 unhinged the whole region, why did it wait until 2013 to unravel; and how can an achievement have been a mistake? Republicans should throw the Democrats’ words at them and make them explain them; and ask people to compare the world that Bush left with the one that Obama (and Clinton) are leaving, and let them make up their minds based on that.

Noemie Emery, a Washington Examiner columnist, is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and author of "Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families."