Hey, Obama? Put down the shovel on Iraq

First, Dear Leader announced last Friday, which I blogged about, that he was going to use air strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. In making his announcement, he ignored such things as the possibility that ISIS might have Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.

The fact that he said this:

“I don’t think we’re going to solve this problem in weeks,” Mr. Obama said before leaving for a two-week vacation on Martha’s Vineyard. “This is going to be a long-term project.”

Followed by this:

“The most important time table that I’m focused on right now is the Iraqi government getting formed and finalized,” the president said before boarding Marine One.

And knowing the reality of the last pre-election government under Nuri al-Maliki, made me wonder if he was willing to condone a coup, or a semi-coup, to change course in Iraq.

That said, we now see that Dear Leader is getting derped.

First, there's this: ISIS is playing 11-dimensional chess against Obama on the airstrikes.

So, how does he respond?

By talking about using ground troops for "humanitarian" missions.

On that latter?

“What he’s ruled out is reintroducing U.S. forces into combat on the ground in Iraq,” Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser said. He added, using an alternative name for (ISIS), that the deployment of ground troops to assist a rescue was “different than reintroducing U.S. forces in a combat role to take the fight to ISIL.

And, why is he proposing this in the first place? This, from the same link:

But he added that something would have to be done to help get the refugees off the mountain because “we don’t believe it’s sustainable to have permanent airdrops” of humanitarian aid.

Oh, there's a nice "duh."

Dear Leader proposes the equivalent of a photo op at Mach 2. Gets trumped by Islamic militants having more brains. Then shovels more arms, and arms on the ground, no less, into the mix.

And, overlooks an important "yeah, but," as in ...

Yeah, but ... this is just like the Stinger situation with airstrikes. U.S. troops get shot, and U.S. troops are going to want more manpower to fire back.

In short, this is Shrub Bush's Iraq strategy run through a sieve of neoliberal micromanagement.

And, without any eyeball on the Vietnam parallels.

"Soft bigotry of low expectations" strikes again. Obamiacs and Obots consider Dear Leader a brilliant success just because he's following George W. Bush, even as he repeats some of Shrub's mistakes, and on things like snooping on Americans, even doubles down on Shrub's authoritarianism.

Meanwhile, on a related front?

Iraq's president,  Fuad Masum, who was attempting to shunt aside acerbic, authoritarian current/acting prime minister Nuri al-Maliki by naming a new prime minister candidate,  Haider al-Abadi, to replace Maliki? Maliki says he ain't going anywhere. Now, he's not promising a coup, but he already has asked Iraq's Supreme Court to take a look.

And, if anybody wonders if Masum didn't get a nudge, then a round of applause, from Dear Leader for doing this? Well, of course he did. Read between the lines of this:

But the United States, during whose occupation Maliki first rose to power, made clear again that it has had enough of him - the White House said it would be glad to see an Abadi government and urged Maliki to let the political process move forward.

He is, with his appeal to Iraq's Supreme Court, moving the political process along, by a legal means. Just not the moving along "we" like.