I largely agree with this post, particularly the section that Phocas may not have been as bad as he was painted. Remember that he took the throne as a commoner who deposed an aristocrat, and was himself deposed by an aristocrat. Given the aristocracy were the ones writing the histories, it's hardly surprising that Phocas should have been viewed with horror. By far the best portrayal I've ever seen of Phocas is in Pururauka's excellent TL, where he's described as a chippy peasant who's in over his head and is sinking into depression and despair.
ANYWAY, I digress.
Phocas did take immediate action after the Iranian invasion, and between 602 and 608, while there were defeats, the Roman front in Syria/Mesopotamia didn't collapse entirely. The fact that there were defeats at all may be attributable to Phocas' reluctance to strip troops from the Danube, a campaign he had himself fought in and presumably felt some attachment to. It was only Heraclius' revolt that really tore the empire apart, and it's not surprising that Heraclius' propagandists should have placed the blame on Phocas rather than themselves.
Not to defend Phocas too much, he clearly wasn't the best of monarchs. But I do find these threads find it all too easy to canonize Heraclius, whose reign was arguably the most disastrous in the long term of any Roman Emperor.
