How did that go?? "I will side with....
It’s Sunday morning in America. How many churches do you think will mention the Christian children being beheaded in Mosul this morning? Maybe .05% at best.
Obama can’t get up there and announce that we’re restarting military operations in Iraq to help a bunch of Christians. His liberal base would go ballistic.
Instead he’s framing things in terms of the Yazidis who he knows are a more acceptible victim to his base. He knows the image of dropping humanitarian supplies to helpless Yazidis on a mountaintop will appeal to them. That’s how he’s going crack open the door to military action in their minds.
But he’s going to do more than just help the Yazidis. We know this because while he did not emphasize the Christians in his speech, he was careful to include them. And he has said that this is going to be a long term effort, not just a quickie. So whatever plan Obama and his military advisors have decided on goes well beyond the Yazidis.
He can’t say it out loud, or at least can’t e emphasize it, but the Christians will be helped by this larger effort (as will other minority groups). I think he has seen the barbarity of ISIS and has been persuaded to take serious action against them. Perhaps more importantly he sees that the humanitarian aspect gives him political leeway to get back in Iraq and undo some of his major league screwup in not negotiating a SOFA earlier.
I think he’s going to start off by helping the Yazidis, get the photo op from that, then pivot to other operations with humanitarian significance. In the background we will be hammering ISIS in ways that have only military significance. Meanwhile he will attempt to use the ISIS crisis and the lever of US military assistance to pressure the Iraqi government into accepting the reforms he was pushing back when the SOFA fell through.
These reforms will take time and will require a US military presence to make the “space” for them. It will be under this rubric that Obama keeps US forces in Iraq from here forward. Then it will be up to the next president to figure out what happens next.