Obama Fiddles while Iraq Burns

Dear Editor;

While Obama fiddles, Iraq burns. And with it, the future peace and stability of the western democracies.

The march to Baghdad by Islamic fundamentalists in the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) (a mere 12,000 fighters) appears to be unchecked by a demoralized Iraqi Army (was 193,000 troops).  Since the United States left, that Iraqi Army now appears to Sunni Arabs as a tool of Iraq’s Shia leadership.  Various news reports indicate the western Sunni tribes have aligned themselves with ISIS to fight the Shia government. Only the Kurdish Peshmerga (190,000 troops) appear to be holding their own, primarily to protect Kurdish semi-autonomous zone in northern Iraq.

Without the employment of American and NATO airpower, it is likely Iraq’s current government will fall and a new Islamic fundamentalist state will emerge posing a global/regional threat far more dangerous than Afghanistan’s Taliban.  While ISIS engages in beheadings and executions, the Obama Administration has reportedly rebuffed an Iraqi government request for airstrikes.

The analysis is simple. An Islamic fundamentalist government in Iraq will provide another hostile neighbor to our allies in Turkey (NATO member), Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.  Iraq will be positioned as a base of operations to recruit, train and employ Islamic terrorists and/ or easily engage in subversive activities in those states thereby threatening friendly government collapse and facilitating ISIS and al-Qaida goals.  The seizure of Iraq’s oil fields will provide the revenues for global Islamic terrorist activities.  Controlling the Iraqi city of Basra will enable ISIS to conduct operations hindering the free-flow of oil in the Persian Gulf; oil needed by western economies. The collapse of the oil producing allies will further eliminate the supply undermining western economies.  ISIS will be positioned to interfere in the Gulf’s freedom of navigation. Should Turkey collapse, the vital Turkish Straits will be lost compromising freedom of navigation to the Black Sea, critical to our support of regional partners in Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine. It will pose a direct threat to NATO ally Greece and NATO interests in Cyprus as well as Israel. There lie the implications for the United States and U.S. National Security.  At some point in these turn of events, the United States will have to act. This means American boots on the ground. Here’s where it will hit our hometowns because those ‘boots on the ground’ will include local men and women in uniform.  Bottom line: It will be more costly in American lives and treasure to act later than to employ airstrikes now.

President Obama says “The world is less violent than it has ever been.”  For some reason, I have two images permanently seared into my mind: one of Neville Chamberlain declaring “peace in our time” and the other of an American helicopter evacuating people from an embassy in a city once called Saigon.

It is imperative the U.S. act now rather than later. Tell Congress to ‘bomb the bastards.’

 Greg Eanes, Colonel, USAF (Retired)