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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIraq Asked U.S. for Strikes, Officials Say
As the threat from Sunni militants in western Iraq escalated last month, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki secretly asked the Obama administration to consider carrying out airstrikes against extremist staging areas, according to Iraqi and American officials.
But Iraqs appeals for military assistance have so far been rebuffed by the White House, which has been reluctant to open a new chapter in a conflict that President Obama has insisted was closed when the United States withdrew the last of its forces from Iraq in 2011.
The swift capture of Mosul by militants aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has underscored how the conflicts in Syria and Iraq have converged into one widening regional insurgency with fighters coursing back and forth through the porous border between the two countries. But it has also cast a spotlight on the limits the White House has imposed on the use of American power in an increasingly violent and volatile region.
The Obama administration has carried out drone strikes against militants in Yemen and Pakistan, where it fears terrorists have been hatching plans to attack the United States. But despite the fact that Sunni militants have been making steady advances and may be carving out new havens from which they could carry out attacks against the West, administration spokesmen have insisted that the United States is not actively considering using warplanes or armed drones to strike them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/12/world/middleeast/iraq-asked-us-for-airstrikes-on-militants-officials-say.html?hp
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)I don't want to lose any pilots for a country whose soldiers piss their pants and flee, leaving behind the expensive shit WE gave them.
Rex
(65,616 posts)I would.
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)be organized and equipped enough to defeat. The Iraqi army is dropping its shit and running.
Rex
(65,616 posts)Seems like they don't really have an army anymore. What always worries me is WHAT are they leaving behind for their enemies to pick up an use? I'd much rather see a weapon destroyed, then picked up and used by the enemy.
Maybe we broke the Iraqi army for good.