The Iraq Endgame Obama Tried to Avoid

"US airstrikes against ISIL ordered by President Barack Obama last week will not weaken the group's overall terrorist capabilities, despite slowing its advance," a senior US military official said. "We assess that US airstrikes in northern Iraq have slowed ISIL's operational tempo and temporarily disrupted their advances toward the province of Erbil," said Army Lieutenant General William Mayville, Joint Chiefs of Staff director of operations, according to The Hill. "What I expect [ISIS] to do is look for other things to do, to pick up and move elsewhere. So I in no way want to suggest that we have effectively contained or that we are somehow breaking the momentum of the threat posed by [the group]," he said. He added that the mission is helping Kurdish security forces by giving them time to fortify their positions as they receive additional reinforcements and US arms. Mayville said the military had no plans to expand its operations beyond the current mission of protecting US citizens and rescuing refugees, stressing that the effect of the airstrikes was "temporary," The Hill reported. It should be noted that military officers responsible for US airstrikes in Iraq are reporting that ISIS units are digging in and also dispersing among civilian enclaves, making airstrikes less feasible. ~~~~~ Senator John McCain has led the chorus of US lawmakers saying Obama's limited airstrikes in Iraq do not constitute an aggressive and effective strategy to combat ISIS. "I would be rushing equipment to Erbil. I would be launching airstrikes not only in Iraq, but in Syria against ISIS," McCain said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." McCain added, "I would be providing as much training and equipment as I can to ... the Kurds and I would do a lot of things that we can [and] not have to wait for Maliki to leave there. And I would be giving assistance to the Syrian - the Free Syrian Army, which is on the ropes right now because we failed to help them.” The UK's Daily Mail reports that ISIS' reputation in the Middle East is that of a ruthless force, too radical even for Osama bin Laden. According to The Daily Mail, the 9/11 mastermind wrote a letter disavowing ISIS and saying the group was so vicious it could damage al-Qaida's reputation. The Daily Mail says the 21-page letter was found among papers in bin Laden's hideout. ~~~~~ While the debate and handwringing go on, ISIS has subdued a huge swath of Syria and Iraq, blurring the frontier between the two countries in the process. ISIS has staged mass executions and displayed the heads of victims in village squares. Thousands of Syrian and Iraqi Christians have been forced from their homes by ISIS during their march across the region. In some villages, ISIS has forced residents to convert, pay burdensome taxes, or be executed. Some who have chosen conversion were executed anyway. And the Yazidis have been driven to Iraq's Mount Sinjar, stranded there for days before relief efforts began to supply food or water. The US, France and the UK have airlifted supplies to them, but the suffering continues, even though an evacuation is well underway. The question is where to send them that will put them beyond the reach of ISIS. And, ISIS has armed itself with American-made heavy artillery supplied to the Iraq Army and stolen after Iraqi soldiers either fled or were executed. They are also is making millions in black-market oil sales from seized oil fields in the region. And in each captured city, ISIS raids banks and hauls away gold and currency. Private Arabs have supported ISIS financially, and the world should be demanding that, to the extent banks are used, such payments be tracked, halted and prosecuted under antiterrorism laws. Experts are warning that the threat ISIS poses to the United States should not be underestimated, and that the group may be capable of launching attacks on the US mainland, as well as in Europe. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein said Friday that ISIS had been focused on recruiting fighters to send to the West to "attack us in our backyard." The intent [to attack the United States] is there and we are concerned the capability is growing, according to a senior US official quoted by The Hill but not identified by name. ~~~~~ Dear readers, as President Obama scurries to stay ahead of his plummeting favorability ratings, he is facing the dark endgame he created by his own desire to do things his way, and only his way, in Iraq. His goal was to show that he was better, smarter, more sophisticated than George W. Bush. But he has fallen into a trap of his own making. And it is not only Congress and the media that are calling him out. It is also the American military. While nobody is urging the US to rush ground forces to Baghdad, there are now more than 600 US military special operations personnel in Iraq -- in what the White House describes as short term fact-finding and US diplomatic personnel protection missions. They are clearly also helping the Kurdish peshmerga military regroup, while they undoubtedly are trying to breathe life back into the Iraqi army. Vietnam ghosts die hard and many Americans must now be hearing the echoes of White House statements from the 1960s, announcing that American military advisors were being deployed to Saigon. Barack Obama finds himself in the worst of all corners -- he must do something to save the Middle East from being devoured by ISIS, and to prevent its stealth warfare creeping into Europe and America with ISIS recruits returning home -- and whatever he does must necessarily include US troop deployment. There are no other possibilities. The brutal truth is that if Obama had done what was required to keep troops in Iraq in 2011 and if he had led the region to maintain an allied front to control jihadist terrorists, he would not now be staring Vietnam II square in the face.