On Thursday, President Barack Obama said the U.S. would send 300 advisers to Iraq. For war-weary American’s this was not a welcome announcement.

America’s National Interests

For many Americans, when it comes to the idea of America getting involved in the Iraq Crisis all over again, America’s national interests cannot be seen for the faces of active duty family members, friends, and dependents (husbands, wives, sons and daughters). However, protecting that forest of loved ones back home—that is in America’s national interest.

Iraq’s National Crisis

If Iraq’s government is allowed to fall then the Iraq Crisis, funded by Iraq’s captured oil fields, will visit all free nations. Like a stone tossed in a lake, the Iraq Crisis ‘wave’ is driving Iraqis from their homeland—those that aren’t caught in the undertow. Already the Iraq Crisis is eroding the stability of its neighboring countries as their borders are overrun by waves of refugees—Iraqis fleeing sectarian violence; often with little or nothing but the clothes on their backs and their children in tow.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) used to be the known as al-Qaeda in Iraq. However, ISIS and al-Qaeda have parted company. Like a bad marriage their break-up was foretold years ago; mutual interests more than shared ideology are what kept this couple together. Ultimately, ISIS became too violent for even al-Qaeda. After the two groups divorced, al-Qaeda issued an official communique disavowing any further connections with ISIS, February 2014.

The Alliance for A Strong America

On June 2014, Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney, announced the formation of the Alliance for a Strong America. Stated on the website, this alliance intends to advocate for the policies needed to restore American power and preeminence. Good intentions aside, it could effortlessly be argued that it was the audacity, “The issue is that [Saddam] has chemical weapons” (Cheney, 2002), of American power and preeminence, “I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators” (Cheney, 2003), which helped to create the Iraq Crisis. Given Dick Cheney’s truth pedigree, conventional wisdom demands that the American public questions the information and explanations put forth by Dick Cheney’s “Alliance”.

America’s National Interest: A Respectfully Inclusive Iraq

“Above all, Iraqi leaders must rise above their differences and come together … for Iraqi’s future,” said President Obama this week, “Shia, Sunni, Kurds—all Iraqis—must have confidence that they can advance their interests and aspirations through the political process rather than through violence.”

There are questions about the long-term viability of Iraq’s central government. However, there seems to be little doubt about what comes next if ISIS succeeds in toppling Iraq’s government and takes control of an area of oil lands in eastern Iraq and western Syria, roughly the size of Belgium.

An America at War or Peace

A Shia Muslim himself, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, has built a Shia sectarian state, and made the ISIS problem worse. He has refused to take steps to by inclusive of Sunnis and their interests. Under his leadership police have used anti-terrorism laws to mass-arrest Sunni civilians and police have killed peaceful Sunni protesters. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki seems to have lost both American and Iraqi support, but is he big enough to see that the fate of Iraq is bigger than one man—even if he is that one man?

Already, concerns from the global oil market, due to fears that the ISIS conflict could disrupt the big oil-producing areas in Iraq’s southeast and northeast areas, have precipitated the drums of war—veiled in patriotic rhetoric—here in America. “Al Qaeda [sic] and its affiliates are resurgent and they present a security threat not seen since the Cold War,” said Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

If an inclusive Iraq government cannot be established, America’s leaders could face a war on two sides: a war with ISIS in Iraq and a war at home as war-weary Americans are forced to endure yet another war in Iraq and bury more American soldiers.

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