http://hotair.com/archives/2014/06/12/sum-of-all-fears-obama-may-have-to-approve-strikes-in-iraq/For a president who owes his 2008 primary and general election victories to his politically beneficial opposition to the conflict in Iraq, it is difficult to think of a more frustrating development than the renewal of that conflict.
For Obama, who campaigned on and successfully achieved a near complete American withdrawal from Iraq, even over the objections of policy makers who warned of the potential for that chronically unstable nation to again erupt in violence, being forced to contemplate revived military action in that country represents a political Sophie’s Choice. Abstain, and risk being haunted by the impression that he presided over the loss of the Middle East having surrendered the tenuous gains in Iraq and allowed conflicts in Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia to metastasize. Accept, and the Obama presidency’s raison d’ętre – a mandate for retrenchment and a renewed reliance on smart power – collapses.
It’s a tough call, but it wasn’t so difficult a decision when the escalating violence in Iraq was not front page, above the fold material. According to a New York Times report on Tuesday, the United States was approached by the Iraqi government on multiple occasions with request that they carry out airstrikes against targets where extremists were basing. They were refused
