Here Comes the Quagmire.

The Uruguay V England match begins at 19:00 so you'll excuse me if I'm brief.

As I think we all know in 2012 US President Obama arbitrarily withdrew US troops from Iraq in order to help boost his re-election chances. In December 2013 the Islamic State of Iraq (ISIL) who have been thrown out of Al Qaeda for holding views that are far too extreme seized control of Iraq's larger, western province of Anbar. In the week beginning June 9th (9/6/14) ISIL seized further territory in the north and the east. This put them some 100 km outside of the gates of the capital Baghdad create a very real risk that Iraq's democratically elected government could fall triggering a sectarian civil war so vicious that ISIL hope it will bring about the end of the World.

What Obama should have done was immediately order US airstrikes against ISIL positions in order to impose a no drive zone denying ISIL the ability to move and consolidate their offensive. This would have allowed the Iraqi government to re-group and conduct a counter-offensive. Although no military action is without risk ISIL's air-defences are essentially nil meaning that the risk to American pilots would be extremely low.

Unfortunately this would have required Obama to (a) make a decision and (b) admit that the 2012 withdrawal was a mistake. So instead Obama delayed, procrastinated and evaded. This included a promise that he would not put American boots on the ground even though no-one could see any reason why he would have to.

Funnily enough as Obama has done nothing the situation has not changed so Obama was today forced to announce some form of action. Although done in a nuanced way he has decided to embed up to 300 Special Forces soldiers with Iraqi military. Although they have been labelled as "advisers" it is extremely likely that they will undertake combat operations even if the US will not admit to it. Crucially these troops will not be given any form of air-support to take on the tanks and armoured vehicles that ISIL now have at their disposal.

While it is clear that Obama has not yet come to terms with it to most people it is quite obvious that these Special Forces will eventually be used to identify ISIL targets for US air-strikes. However while Obama continues to procrastinate civilians who had fled ISIL held areas are beginning to return home making air-strikes even more difficult.

So in summary through his dithering Obama has exchanged Low-Risk : High-Reward for High-Risk : Low-Reward.


Of course a large part of Obama's attempts to avoid making a decision have centred on increasing the pressure on the Iraqi government. Today he went so far to describe them as "sect" equivalent to ISIL. As such Obama appears to legitimised the most the most extreme Islamist terrorist group the World has even seen. 

(Orginally Posted) 18:50 on 19/6/14 (UK date).