The man who won the presidency in 2008 because he opposed the Iraq war and then ended it now finds himself facing this dilemma: Once you’re back in, how do you get out? That very dilemma, according our reporting, was PRECISELY why President Obama until yesterday hadn’t committed U.S. force against the militant Sunni group ISIS, even as many in the intel community and on his own national security staff were urging him to act sooner. The fear: You get in even incrementally, and it’s hard to get out. Because how do you STOP helping if the initial help doesn’t work? But Obama’s main calculus changed yesterday when he announced the authorization of force -- because ISIS is on the march against the Kurds in Erbil. And if you lose the Kurds, you lose Iraq. (The United States has also authorized the use of force to help the Yezidi whom ISIS has chased into the mountains; Obama used the word “genocide.”) In his statement last night, the president vowed that U.S. soldiers won’t set foot in Iraq. “I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq. And so even as we support Iraqis as they take the fight to these terrorists, American combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq, because there’s no American military solution to the larger crisis in Iraq.” But it’s never easy to be half of the way in, especially when the United States makes the determination that ISIS can’t overrun the Kurds. Obama right now is a reluctant warrior, and that’s probably an understatement. The second-guessing about acting on ISIS has been taking place for months and may take place for years.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/barack-obama-gets-dragged-back-iraq-n175961
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