WORLD_ Why Barack Obama authorised military action in Iraq

Why Barack Obama authorised military action in Iraq

By Tom Rogan - World - Last updated: August 8th, 2014
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*** Tom Rogan is an American writer and blogger based in Washington DC. He's a columnist for The National Review and has written for The Guardian, The American Spectator, CNN, Fox News and The Atlantic. He grew up in London and was educated at King's College London and SOAS. He tweets @TomRtweets.


Facing a massacre and Isis's potential capture of American citizens in Erbil, President Obama had to do something major.

And so, following a long day of consultations with his national security team, the President announced that American military forces have returned to operations in Iraq.

Humanitarian aid drops have already begun. Air strikes are likely to follow. After all, Obama is aware that Isis/Isil/"the Islamic State" will not relinquish their lust for power unless restrained by force. Totalitarians driven by hatred for anyone who does not yield, they seek an empire of "purity" in the heart of the Middle East. And pursuing its 'ordained' mission, Isis welcomes death as its mechanism towards humanity's deliverance. It's a nonsensical ideology, but also a brutal one.

Correspondingly, over the past couple of days, as Obama received intelligence reports on the latest ISIS victories (capturing a dam and smashing Kurdish Peshmerga formations), it would have become increasingly clear to him that America had to act. Though the President publicly asserts that his "red line" failure in Syria doesn't matter, he knows that his foreign policy credibility has taken a battering in the aftermath of that incident. Ultimately, Obama could not afford to allow the Yazidi people to be slaughtered like the gassed children of Syria. As I suggested yesterday, the Yazidi crisis isn't simply about the Yazidi. In equal measure, it's about America's perceivable reliability on the part of its allies. The President hinted at his recognition of broader strategy last night, stating, "We support our allies when they're in danger."

Still, the President is also clearly aware that many liberals will be deeply uncomfortable with his orders of action. Seeking to reinforce his political base, Obama has thus been equally keen to highlight the humanitarian urgency at stake, "We can act, carefully and responsibly to prevent a potential act of genocide." That word, "genocide", is designed to unify the American people behind this task.

Does Obama's return to Iraq represent a change of strategy: an abandonment of prior hesitancy to use US military force? I don't think so. Isis has been on the march for months now, and while the US has been steadily building up intelligence operations in the region alongside (as I recently noted in regards to Syria) US military forces, Obama is very much focused on November's midterm Congressional elections.

Instead, this US action in Iraq is the result of three joined factors. First, the urgency of this humanitarian crisis; second, the President's desire to consolidate America's influence in the region; and third, the fact that only America has the capability to save these civilians.

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