U.S. Troops Fight ISIS In Western Iraq

by JASmius



Alternate headline: "Mosul summit meeting between President Obama and Caliph al-Baghdadi in mortal peril":

U.S. soldiers clashed with ISIS militants, helping the Iraqi army repel attacks against the town of al-Baghdadi in the Western Anbar province, Al Jazeera TV reported Saturday, as Kurdish forces advanced in the north.

The U.S. troops were from al-Assad military base, the biggest in Anbar, First Lieutenant Muneer al-Qoud from the Iraqi police said by phone today. U.S. Central Command is aware of the reports and is looking into them, a spokesman said today.

Translation: "What the hell were you doing engaging ISIS in ground combat?  This isn't supposed to be a REAL war!"

The clashes may mark the first time U.S. ground forces have engaged Islamic State militants since President Barack Obama authorized air strikes against the al-Qaida breakaway group in August. A ground conflict would mark a policy shift for Obama, who made pulling the U.S. out of Iraq the centerpiece of his first presidential campaign and oversaw the withdrawal of combat forces from the country in 2011.

This is nothing of the kind.  Obama's ISIS policy - pretend to fight the jihadists for public consumption while doing nothing militarily to actually slow them down, much less defeat them - is unchanged.  There is no "policy shift".  Which is why U.S. Central Command is "looking into" reports of American-ISIS ground combat.

But that's the funny thing about war.  As the old saying goes, "No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy".  In other words, war is unpredictable.  Things happen that you don't anticipate, no matter how thought-out and detailed the plan.  And then you have to adapt and adjust to them on the fly.

Put another way, war isn't politics and propaganda.  It cannot be orchestrated once it has begun.  I will guarantee what you already know: This clash was not part of the script.  Barack Obama desperately doesn't want a ground war with ISIS.  Even having to pretend to pin-prick Islamic State positions from the air was humiliating enough.  And now the man whose proudest boast was "ending the war in Iraq" has the ground war in Iraq that he never imagined and never wanted.

Which begs the question: How do you pretend to fight a ground war?  At least without getting a whole lot of U.S. soldiers killed?  Because we can count on this: Backing into wars is costlier than waging them head-on, and the American people are not going to accept significant casualties if we are not committing to winning.

But, then again, isn't all Barack Obama has to do is sign an Executive Order declaring peace in Iraq and Syria?  Caliph al-Baghdadi and his berserker followers will lay down their arms and obey their master - won't they?  It worked on House Republicans, after all.