President Barack Obama has plunged the US even deeper into the war in Iraq ordering the bombing of Tikrit at the behest of Iraqi officials. Obama has no authorization from Congress nor has he offered any public explanation as to why this escalation is in the US interest.
The bombing comes on the heels of a campaign by Shiite militias, Iranian troops, and Iraqi government forces to take back territory from Sunni ISIS. The conflict's sectarian overtones are muted in press statements by the Iraqi and US governments but are loud and clear to any reasonably alert observer. The US is, once again, siding with the Shiite majority over a Sunni backed force.
For some reason the US government keeps pretending it is not working with the Iranians in the fight against ISIS in Iraq despite that being impossible as there are Iranian troops on the ground and the Shiite militias are backed by Iran and have come to supersede the Iraqi government forces in strength and resolve. The Iraqi government forces famously retreated en mass from ISIS when the militant group started marching east from Syria.
Now the fiction of non-coordination has been laid bare as the US bombs Tikrit to help Iranian-backed forces take the city from ISIS - forces that were stalled after ISIS blew up a key bridge entering the city and left IEDs throughout the area.
So what happens if the US helps dislodge ISIS from Tikrit and Mosul? It is important to remember that ISIS found allies in Iraq because the Sunni minority felt it was being discriminated against by the majority Shiite government in Baghdad aligned with Iran. If Iran, the US, and the Iraqi government expel ISIS from Iraq what is to stop that discrimination from reoccurring?
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