Posted on 06/11/2014 4:44:37 PM PDT by kristinn
Two and a half years after the last U.S. soldier departed, an al Qaeda offshoot is in control of Mosul and headed for Baghdad—and Iraq’s prime minister is requesting U.S. air strikes.
It seems like only yesterday that Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, was celebrating as the last American soldiers left Iraq. Now, with an al Qaeda offshoot threatening to take Baghdad, Maliki’s government is quietly asking at least some troops—specifically airmen and drone pilots—to return.
While Iraq’s government is not requesting a surge in U.S. ground forces like the one President Bush ordered in 2007, Maliki’s government has been asking for the U.S. to conduct targeted air strikes and the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance work to find those targets.
And there are plenty of new targets. On Tuesday, the al Qaeda offshoot known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham (ISIS) overran Iraqi military positions in Mosul, the country’s second largest city. On Wednesday, reports from Iraq said the terrorist group was pushing toward Iraq’s capital, Baghdad.
If President Obama agrees to launch drone strikes in Iraq, it would not be unprecedented for the region. The United States is playing a similar role in Iraq’s neighbor, Yemen, with intense counterterrorism training and drone strikes. But Obama also has boasted that he ended the U.S. war in Iraq and thus far has been hesitant to reenter the conflict.
“What we really need right now are drone strikes and air strikes,” said a senior Iraqi official Wednesday. But the official stressed that so far the Obama administration has been reluctant.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
The non-al-Qaeda types should have fled by now. I want to see the closing credits of Apocalypse Now.
Obama want do it though. They're family.
spillover from Obamas failed Syria policy
The whole Muslim world is an utter waste of time.
Nope. Not another drop of blood for Islam.
I agree, especially since our guys love to blow things up and their training time has been sliced. Practice makes perfect.
Fish, meet Barrel.
Remember when Affirmative Action General Colin “I’m a Republican, sort of” Powell advised Bush 41 to end the Gulf War prematurely because it looked bad when we attacked Saddam’s retreating Military?
Because of that, and the ridiculous “Cease Fire” that should have been “Unconditional Surrender”, we lost 4,000 more Troops because we had to go back and discovered Saddam had murdered hundreds of thousands of the Kurdish Population.
“I wonder how President Jarret will respond...?”
The Iranian? She wants this.
Try the Canadians, they're one border up.
I never knew it was powell and that fills a big piece of the puzzle.
Hey Iraq and the whole mid east,
Eat pooh and die.
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