Let's Make Sure Obama Knows

I truly do not want to look at the news in a month to read a report about president Obama announcing that he learned of the Iranian takeover of southern Iraq from TV news reports and that he is "mad as hell" about it and is going to launch an investigation to get to the bottom of it.  Events in the Middle East are clearly moving in that direction and America has got to have a strategy how to deal with the impending disaster.  As the Sunni terrorists linked to al Qaeda take over city after city in the northern half of Iraq, no one is helping the Shiite majority government in Baghdad.  Prime Minister al Maliki is watching his army fall apart due to mass desertions (latest estimate is 30,000 soldiers fled Tikrit and Mosul in the face of 6000 armed terrorists).  He is also watching as the new rulers round up those who were prominent supporters of the Baghdad government and behead them.  (Estimates put the numbers of such executions in the thousands.)  Surely, the Iraqi Prime Minister does not want to watch his country fall to the terrorists so that he and his supporters can be slaughtered.  Surely, al Maliki will turn to the only country offering help:  Iran.  In one simple move, inviting Iranian help, al Maliki will be able to transform an Iraqi disaster into an international disaster.  He will be able to make certain that the fighting in Iraq is clearly Sunni versus Shia.  He will guarantee a level of brutality in the fighting that will be similar to that in Syria where nearly 200,000 have died.  He will also destroy whatever is left of the good done by the American effort in Iraq.

It may be that the best thing America can do right now is nothing.  On the other hand, it might be best to reintroduce American forces into Iraq today.  Right now, I am not advocating either course or anything in particular in between.  I just want Obama to focus himself and his administration on this impending disaster that will transform the nature of the Middle East.  I don't want to hear in the future that we were unprepared to deal with the problem.  I would like to see Obama actually act like a president, even if it is only this one time.  There is too much at stake for Obama to spend his time golfing and shooting hoops.