As Glenn Reynolds likes to say, Nobel Peace Prize update: Obama Says More Troops to Iraq Possible.
We’re told that the 1,500 additional troops sent last week are for “training” purposes. What difference will training make at this point, if all the training of the last decade failed so miserably? The problem isn’t training: it’s that large numbers of Iraqi troops dropped their weapons and ran at the first sight of ISIS. Another round of training isn’t going to fix a lack of courage.
I have a different theory. Our Baghdad embassy has 5,000 people—our largest in the world I think. I’m guessing the troops are really there as a contingency force to defend the embassy from attack. It is one thing to lose four people in a backwater consulate in Libya. But it would end a presidency if it happened to hundreds at our largest embassy. I’m wondering if our intelligence community thinks there is a risk Iraq may still fall apart from ISIS pressure.
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