If you’ve been reading these blogs, you know how much I abhor war. I especially loathe war in the Mideast. And war in iraq is about as loathsome as it gets.
But sometimes you don’t really have a choice. America has to jump back into that pit of Hell.
President Obama cannot abandon the Kurds after all they’ve done for America. And after all America has done to Iraq.
He cannot in conscience abandon the thousands of Yazidis, including women and children, trapped on a barren mountain where temperatures rise to 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
ISIS must be stopped. The maniacal militants cannot be allowed to to take Iraq. That would just be the first step in an area-wide conquest. The United States would sooner or later be in grave danger – this time for real.
Pray that troops on the ground will not be necessary. Pray that the Kurds, a formidable warrior race, and the discredited Iraqi army will get the job done with US air cover and US arms.
But if they don’t, US troops will have to go back – horrible though that might be.
If only America had not meddled in Iraq in the first place….
But regrets are futile.
As the Persian poet Omar Khayyam expressed it many, many years ago:
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
It is what it is. And it is heartbreaking.
