President Obama had his “mission accomplished” moment today in Iraq, declaring an end to the aid drops on Mount Sinjar and taking credit for the resolution of the Yazidi refugee crisis, which yesterday was revealed to have been largely untrue.
And like all American presidents declaring mission accomplished in Iraq, the war is clearly just going on like before, as Obama insisted the end to the aid drops will not end the airstrikes, nor the plans to arm the Kurds.
The Pentagon is still calling it a “humanitarian mission,” even if the humanitarian air drops are over, and are talking up the expansion of the air war as they look around for more “human suffering” to address in the country.
“Nobody is doing high-fives here at the Pentagon because there are fewer people on the mountain than we thought,” noted Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby, adding that there “may yet be humanitarian needs elsewhere in Iraq” for them to address.
And by address, of course, they mean bomb. The airstrikes will continue at the current levels for now, with an eye toward future escalation whenever a pretext can be found, and reports also have ground troops heading to the Anbar Province, because the post-mission accomplished period of Iraq wars is always when things start getting worse.
In other words, we have an excellent script writer on the front line.