With the advance of Sunni insurgents causing for Iraq’s army, Obama recently stated that 300 military advisors will provide assistance.
In clarifying the level of America’s involvement, he said, “American combat troops are not going to be fighting in Iraq again. We do not have the ability to simply solve this problem by sending in tens of thousands of troops and committing the kinds of blood and treasure that has already been expended in Iraq.”
These troops, hand-picked from US special operations forces, will help them launch a counter-offensive on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. While air strikes might be a natural possibility too, Obama did not say yes to Baghdad’s request to order air strikes immediately.
What he did say about air strikes was that they will be in reserve and if prompted into action will ‘precise’ and ‘targeted’.
As for the fighting between troops and insurgents, an intense battle continued to take place near the largest refinery in the country – the Baiji oil refinery. Mosul and Tikrit are also said to be in the hands of the insurgents.
Obama also said that the military advisors will not be drawn into combat as Iraq has the sole responsibility to heal the rift that has taken place between sectarian forces. It is obvious that he said this keeping in the mind the last Iraq war that went on for almost a decade.
While the first team will be based in Baghdad at both the senior-level command centres as well as at the brigade levels, they will also provide the United States with intelligence required to carry out air strikes.