Subscribe 

Stepping warily onto the battlefield

For President Obama, this is gut-check time on Iraq. He is moving the nation back onto a pitiless battlefield, with a war plan that is long on good intentions and short on clarity about the ultimate mission. It’s a wrenching moment: A president who for several years seemed allergic to U.S. involvement in the Iraqi […]

David Ignatius writes for the Washington Post:

For President Obama, this is gut-check time on Iraq. He is moving the nation back onto a pitiless battlefield, with a war plan that is long on good intentions and short on clarity about the ultimate mission. It’s a wrenching moment: A president who for several years seemed allergic to U.S. involvement in the Iraqi and Syrian wars is being drawn into this conflict by circumstances that even the skeptics agree require U.S. action. Obama kept his distance despite the deaths of 200,000 Syrians but apparently can’t do so any longer after the beheading of two Americans.