海角大神

As I noted late last week, the policy that President Obama is now following in Iraq聽doesn鈥檛 seem to be designed to accomplish anything, other than provide him political cover聽as Dave Schuler noted in a comment聽to that post. Inevitably, this has led to critics on the left and the right to call on the president to 鈥渄o something鈥� regarding the threat that the Islamic State poses to Iraq and, allegedly, to the rest of the world. On the left, these calls are mostly centered around the humanitarian crisis that the group鈥檚 attacks are posing to Shiite, 海角大神, and other religious and ethnic groups in Iraq and Syria. The criticism from the right, though, is centered more on the fact that the president isn鈥檛 being aggressive enough in fighting a terrorist threat. In some cases, the critics end up contradicting themselves, such as when they criticize the President for not following through on his 鈥渞ed line鈥� comments regarding Syria last year despite the fact that the majority of Republicans opposed intervention in Syria聽补苍诲听the fact that they are essentially arguing that we should have intervened in Syria on the same side as ISIS and the other radical elements of the Syrian rebellion.

Missing from both criticisms, though, is the argument that perhaps the best option for the United States in Iraq is to not act at all,聽an argument that the聽Ramzy Mardini makes in聽The New York Times:

Daniel Larison聽comments:

Mr. Mardini鈥檚 points strike me as being largely spot-on. In the end, there is little that military action by the United States can do that will actually make a difference on the ground in Iraq. Even accepting the probability that we could do serious damage to the military capabilities of the Islamic State, they have demonstrated sufficient skill and support to be able to recover from those setbacks. Indeed, it鈥檚 quite probable that such attacks would only serve to rally support to their side from the Sunni communities in Iraq and Syria, while the Shia regime in Baghdad continues to twiddle its thumbs and the Kurds continue to go about creating an independent state in the north with little concern at this point for the survival of a 鈥渦nited鈥� Iraq. To some extent, we are fighting for something that the people with the power in Iraq don鈥檛 even seem to want at this point. As long as that鈥檚 the case, we鈥檙e basically just wasting our time.

That point was brought home late last night when the efforts to create a new government in Baghdad seemed to descend in to chaos.聽After it became clear that Iraq鈥檚 Kudish president would most likely not be reappointing him, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki took the airwaves saying that he would not heed calls for him to step aside, asserting that Iraq鈥檚 president is violating the country鈥檚 constitution, and asserting that he would file some sort of 鈥渃omplaint鈥� against thep resident regardless of what action was taken with regard to the appointment of a new commissioner. By Sunday evening US time, there were vague reports of tanks in the streets of Baghdad and some fears that Mr. Maliki and his supporters would attempt to stage a coup. While those reports do appear to be unfounded at least at the moment, Maliki鈥檚 action did result in a strong rebuke from Secretary of State John Kerry, who is currently in Australia. This morning reports say that Iraq鈥檚 president has named the deputy parliament speaker, a Sunni, as the new prime minister. How Maliki will react to this remains to be seen.

Given these developments, one has to wonder what the heck it is the United States is supposed to be defending with this mission that the president has authorized. Ultimately, the threat that the Islamic State poses to Iraq is rooted in the political instability in the nation itself, and it seems hard to believe that this is something that is going to be solved nearly as easily as the president seems to think, or that there鈥檚 much that the United States itself can do about situation.

Doug Mataconis appears on the Outside the Beltway blog at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/.