President Obama gave a speech which indicated that the mission to save the Yazidis from ISIS was accomplished despite the United Nations disagreeing to such an announcement.
Speaking at a press conference, Obama said, “We broke the [ISIS] siege of Mount Sinjar. We helped vulnerable people reach safety, and we helped save many innocent lives.”
Yet minutes before Obama spoke, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) held its own press conference in which it stated that several thousand Yazidis were still stranded on Mount Sinjar and that the situation was far from over.
This difference is largely due to the difference between the US and UN’s objectives for the Yazidis. While the UN is looking at the bigger picture with thousands of Iraqis now displaced, the United States is looking at the plight of the Yazidis stranded on this mountain.
Also, the United States does not wish to carry out any further humanitarian airdrops nor is it interested in conducting a military rescue mission since Americans do not want re-invade Iraq.
Still, it seems to be singular how narrowly the United States has set its goals considering how the United Nations is ringing the alarm bell while it has declared ‘mission accomplished’.
What is clear is that Obama doesn’t want to risk another Black Hawk Down disaster and is only sticking to the narrow directives of this mission – a thing that he should be lauded for.
That said, it is unfortunate that the situation that the Yazidis find themselves in, according to the United Nations, is still far from over. For the simple reason that a number of them have escaped into Syria from Iraq, which is just as dangerous a war zone as Iraq is.