Owen West, "Why Obama’s Plan to Send Advisers to Iraq Will Fail": Actually, Obama Is More Interested in Neutralizing Israel

In a must-read New York Times guest op-ed entitled "Why Obama’s Plan to Send Advisers to Iraq Will Fail," Owen West, who "served two tours in Iraq with the Marines," explains why Obama's "lily-pad" strategy to prop up Iraq is destined for failure. West writes:

"LAST week President Obama approved an additional 450 troops to join the roughly 3,000 already in Iraq. Living inside secure bases nicknamed 'lily pads,' they will train Iraqi soldiers for a few weeks via lecture and drill instruction. The graduates will then be sent outside the wire to fight the Islamic State.

This strategy is no more resolute than a lily pad, and our generals know it. It is tokenism that reflects confusion at the top, and it will fail.

Mr. Obama has declared that advisers are not combat troops. But in fact, to influence battlefield performance, the adviser’s first job is to set the example in combat. The goal is to instill in the local force a sense of professional aggression — of seizing the offense — that must be demonstrated firsthand.

Put simply, if the president wants to destroy the Islamic State, he will eventually renege on his ephemeral pledge not to engage in ground combat."

I agree with Mr. West that Obama's "lily-pad" strategy will fail; however, the opinion piece does not consider the possibility that Obama and friends don't care if it fails. The "lily-pad" strategy is not designed to succeed. Rather, it is window dressing intended to allow the president to finish his second term of office without making waves and leave the problem to his successor.

Mind you, I am not suggesting that the US return to Iraq with ground forces to confront the Islamic State. Iraq no longer exists as a country, and there can be no motivating Sunni troops in the service of the government to fight the Sunni Islamic State while Iranian-backed Shiite militias are perpetrating atrocities against Sunni villages.

Moreover, it is only a matter of time until one or more US soldiers are captured by the Islamic State, notwithstanding their confinement to "lily-pads." How will Americans react to a video of the beheading of a US soldier available on the Internet? Will Obama again respond by expressing his outrage and then hit the links, as he did in the case of American journalist James Foley?

Does the president want to destroy the Islamic State? I don't know. Meanwhile, he appears more intent upon empowering Iran to neutralize Israel. In this regard, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has just refused US Ambassador Dan Shapiro's request to publicly disassociate himself from former Israeli Ambassador to the US Oren's contention in his new book "Ally" that Obama has abandoned Israel.