Is the US in Danger of Mission Creep in Iraq?

When the last convoy of United States troops pulled out of Iraq in December, 2011, President Barack Obama said the U.S. would not be going back.

The U.S. did continue to support then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, but despite gains by the "Islamic State of Iraq and Iraq and the Levant" in the early part of 2014 – such as their control of Fallujah, a city that resonates with many Americans because of the pitched battles fought there between U.S. troops and al-Qaeda – Obama more or less did nothing, despite pleas from al-Maliki for more arms or air strikes.

All that has changed. Obama is still swearing that there will be "No American boots on the ground" – U.S. combat troops back in Iraq.  If you want to get an idea of the new American position after the lightning strikes of the now re-named "Islamic State", which conquered key areas of the north of Iraq, however, then look at the latest offering of Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Clay Bennett of the Times FreePress of Tennessee.

The drawing shows an American soldier, dressed for combat, walking on his hands saying, "We said 'No Boots on the ground in Iraq.'"

After staying out of Iraq's fray, it was the situation of the Yazidis and their impending massacre by IS fighters that jolted Obama into action. The president originally authorized air strikes ONLY to protect the refugees who were trapped on Mount Sinjar or to help them escape from the siege.

Then, a few days later, American jets launched further attacks on IS troops and vehicles that were advancing on Kurdish territory, including the key city of Erbil, ostensibly to protect the 70 or so American military 'advisors' who are stationed there.

And on Sunday (August 17th) in response to a request from the new Iraq Prime Minister, U.S. aircraft – jets, bombers and unmanned drones - supported the advance of Iraqi and Kurdish pesh merga troops on the strategic Mosul Dam, which had been seized by the Islamic State 10 days before. With the U.S. air support, Iraqi and Kurdish commanders told the Washington Post that they were making rapid advances and that "we expect to finish this in hours" in the words of one pesh merga commander.

So the question becomes 'How far will the U.S. go?' Will the role be limited to air strikes or will Obama be forced to send U.S. troops into combat in Iraq, despite reluctance to do so? Already many neoconservatives and some hawkish U.S. Republican Senators are calling on him to do more.

American commentators say White House officials were anxious to calm rising concerns about a 'slippery slope' to a US combat role in Iraq, as the Pentagon announced it was sending 130 additional personnel to Iraq to assess the humanitarian crisis in the north on and around Mt. Sinjar."

Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, speaking to reporters from the president's vacation headquarters on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, said that "What [Obama] has ruled out is reintroducing forces into combat on the ground in Iraq,"

But as the Monitor noted, "Pressed to clarify if that means the president has ruled out putting any troops on the ground in Iraq, even as part of a humanitarian operation, Mr. Rhodes left the door open. US troops, he said, are not going to be 'on the ground in a combat role fighting ISIL', the acronym the White House uses for IS. As for whether the US would act to establish humanitarian 'corridors' for the Yazidis and other religious minorities including Christians to escape the IS threat, Rhodes said it was too early to say. 'The president will be making decisions after the [assessment] teams report back,' he said."

As a result, the question of the effectiveness of airstrikes had been much debated in the U.S. media and in Washington D.C.

In a series of opinion pieces about the strengths and limits of air power on the New York Times website, James Franklin Jeffrey, the Philip Solondz distinguished visiting fellow at The Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy, wrote "Will this succeed in stopping ISIL offensives? Of course, as long as we put enough resources into it and keep the tempo up. We have seen effects already…Can this lead to ISIL's final defeat? Not directly, but stopping its attacks is important for tactical and humanitarian reasons. It also demoralizes ISIL personnel and encourages our local allies."

Mark Clodfelter, a professor of military strategy at the National War College in Washington however, says, "ISIS is unlikely to keep fighting in a way that makes them vulnerable to bombing — they have demonstrated a ruthlessness that makes human shields a natural move for further military action, plus they are adept at spinning any air attack, whether or not it causes collateral damage, into a bombing 'mistake' viewed on Facebook and Twitter as well as news media. Air power can help improve a situation if the conditions are right, but it cannot independently achieve political objectives. Asking any military instrument of power to do so is asking too much."

Others say it's time for Obama to stop proclaiming that he won't send troops back.

In a conference call organized by the Wilson Center in Washington, Samir Sumaidaie, former Iraqi ambassador to the US and the UN, said "The US should cease talking about 'no boots on the ground'. The stick has to be waved, and it has to be waved credibly."

Ultimately, it may be the American people who 'help' Obama decide. All recent polls show that Americans, by a large margin, do not want to send combat troops back to Iraq. They've had enough. For Americans, It's Iraq's problem and in the end, Iraqis have to fix it.