Barack Obama snoozes then goes on vacation out west while it all falls apart in Iraq

Obama’s latest jive is to sweep the dust of the Iraqi defeats from his pseudo-presidential shoulder boards  —   Can’t you hear him, “That’s just the ‘JV team’ playing ‘JV ball’  -  What’s that got to do with me, I don't play in a 'JV league'  ! ! ! ”

Obama says he’s going to think about it   —   What is it that he’s got to think about ?   —   It’s either leading, following or just getting-out-of-the-way

Is this the real reason Obama might be refusing to lead ?   By now it might be he knows that too many real Americans will not follow him

In January this year  —  New Yorker editor David Remnick pointed out to President Barack Obama that the Al Qaeda flag had been seen flying over Falluja in Iraq and the same flag was flying in certain locations in Syria; and thus, it might be fair to say that the terrorist group had not been “decimated” as Obama had repeatedly told the nation during his 2012 reelection campaign. In response,  Obama compared the Al-Qaeda-linked militants in Iraq and Syria to junior varsity basketball players, and he downplayed their threat as akin to little-league. At the time. The president Obama told David Remnick a feature reporter for New Yorker Magazine that, “The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant....  I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.”  The New Yorker’s David Remnick described  Obama’s jayvee (JV) analogy as “uncharacteristically flip” (See “Annals of the Presidency - Going the Distance - On and off the road with Barack Obama” by David Remnick, 1/27/14, New Yorker Magazine [http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/01/27/140127fa_fact_remnick?currentPage=all]; for a critical view of the same material see “Obama Dismisses Al-Qaeda Resurgence: They’re JV” by Sharona Schwartz, 1/20/14, The Blaze [http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/01/20/obama-dismisses-al-qaeda-resurgence-theyre-jv/]).

Fast forward to the present  —   To judge from President Obma’s remarks on Friday the descent of Iraq into a virtual open civil war during the past week has not fundamentally changed Obama’s view that this is a conflict of JV teams, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, “a terrorist organization that operates in both Iraq and in Syria” and the government of Iraq (See “Obama to Iraq: Your Problem Now” by Amy Davidson, 6/13/14, New Yorker Magazine [http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2014/06/obama-to-iraq-your-problem-now.html]).

According to the more recent New Yorker article, while speaking on the South Lawn of the White House, Obama argued that this was not just a matter of what the American people would accept, or the limits of our capacity to make sacrifices for humanitarian goals. It’s more that he doesn’t see the point. As he sees it, after all our investment of lives and money, “extraordinary sacrifices,” the Iraqis have not been willing to treat each other decently, and until they do our air strikes won’t help. “This is not solely, or even primarily, a military challenge....” Obama did concede, however, that it was alarming that the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham [the Islamist Caliphate of Syria], had made what he called “significant gains” in Iraq (The fact that several cities in Iraq up to the suburbs of Bagdad have already fallen to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria would cause the president’s remark to rate as a monumental understatement.) He said that he wasn’t entirely surprised, because things in Iraq had not been looking good for a while. The President then added this ominous note: “Now Iraq needs additional support to break the momentum of extremist groups and bolster the capabilities of Iraqi security forces....  Nobody has an interest in seeing terrorists gain a foothold inside of Iraq.” However, the President wound it all up by saying, “We will not be sending U.S. troops back into combat in Iraq.”

From Obama’s perspective, the Iraqi government of Nuri al-Maliki has all-too-many problems that are not Obama’s. The only hesitation that he has  is in the realization that some of Iraqi President al-Maliki’s problems are ours, as well. After all the United States did invade the country, setting off years of warfare in which, there were thousands of American losses, and tens or even hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed.

Some very big questions have arisen, but have yet to be spoken. They are simply put like this: First, if President of the United States Barack Hussein Obama might choose to lead us back into war in Iraq, are there any who will follow  — Second,  perhaps a more important question is this: Are there loyal and patriotic Americans, especially in the armed forces,  that will see it as their duty to resist Obama's orders and seek follow the more reliable lead of another or others ?