OUR BLUNDERING POLICIES – AT 3:22 A.M. ET:  One of Obama's worst foreign-policy mistakes was not leaving behind a security force in Iraq, something we've had in South Korea for more than six decades.  A small American force could have added to stability and discouraged foreign adventurers.    Obama was warned that by taking every soldier out of Iraq, we left the country vulnerable.  He wasn't interested. 

Now we are taking at least some action to counter the rise of extremist violence in the country.  From Reuters: 

(Reuters) - The United States is quietly expanding the number of intelligence officers in Iraq and holding urgent meetings in Washington and Baghdad to find ways to counter growing violence by Islamic militants, U.S. government sources said.

A high-level Pentagon team is now in Iraq to assess possible assistance for Iraqi forces in their fight against radical jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a group reconstituted from an earlier incarnation of al Qaeda, said two current government officials and one former U.S. official familiar with the matter.

The powerful ISIL, which seeks to impose strict sharia law in the Sunni majority populated regions of Iraq, now boasts territorial influence stretching from Iraq's western Anbar province to northern Syria, operating in some areas close to Baghdad, say U.S. officials.

Senior U.S. policy officials, known as the "Deputies Committee," met in Washington this week to discuss possible responses to the deteriorating security outlook in Iraq, said a government source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject matter.

COMMENT:  I almost want to ask, why bother?  We know that anything effective will be vetoed by Obama, who has messed up every policy he's pursued in the Mideast.  Does anyone in the region care what he says anymore?

April 27, 2014