The Dallas Morning News

Iraq’s worst nightmare is rapidly unfolding as radical Sunni Islamist forces consolidate their control of major cities, including the northern provincial capital of Mosul. Americans have every reason to ask: We sacrificed the lives of nearly 4,500 U.S. troops for this?

Additional Photos

Iraqi Shiite tribal fighters raise their weapons and chant slogans against the al-Qaida inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Baghdad's Sadr city, Iraq, Saturday.

The Bush administration justified its decision to invade Iraq in 2003, in part, as necessary to halt the expansion of al-Qaida. Both the Bush and Obama administrations acquiesced to the withdrawal of all U.S. troops by the end of 2011 with full knowledge that Iraq was not yet stable or prepared to fend for itself militarily against hardline Sunni and Shiite insurgencies.

But neither Washington nor Baghdad accounted for the rise of an Islamist group so radical that even al-Qaida would disavow it. That group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, is the same force that has helped lay waste to Syria and foil attempts to oust Bashar Assad’s dictatorship.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki demanded that all foreign troops leave in 2011, even though he knew these extremist elements remained active. When Syria’s civil war erupted later that year, ISIS forces found they could roam with relative impunity between the countries. They acquired weaponry and battlefield expertise in Syria and now are putting those assets to work in Iraq.

Al-Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government made matters worse by enacting discriminatory policies against Iraq’s moderate Sunni minority, which now sees little reason to support the government. With autonomous Kurdish forces rushing to take the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, this uprising has all the makings of a full-blown civil war.

U.S.-trained government forces crumbled during the Mosul siege, allowing ISIS to seize weapons and armor. The White House must be sorely tempted to deliver a big “I told you so” message to al-Maliki for his short-sighted, anti-Western, sectarian politics.

But the United States has invested far too much blood and treasure in Iraq to let it disintegrate like this. Americans must recognize what’s at stake and support a campaign of airstrikes against ISIS strongholds and emergency measures by al-Maliki to mobilize forces, rally the nation and fight back.

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