Iraq is like a horrible pit we can't crawl out of. I'm really sorry that Bush was so rash as to get us in there on a lie in the first place. I don't like sending troops there either; the distinction between a *combat* troop and a training troop, or operating from bases outside Baghdad and Erbil is, frankly, not clear. In general, the founders of this country didn't want us to have a standing army, to be doing this type of thing has always been imperialistic. On the other hand, I believe there needs to be some kind of action against ISIL, and President Obama is right to not sit idly by. Saw that he sent a letter to Iran's Kahamenei

ISIL is a different story, but Obama did sit idly by for too long.  I understand he wanted a world consensus before doing anything, but it gave ISIL the upper hand initially.

There are no easy issues any more.  Everything is political and there is never anything all good or all bad.

Ron Paul would have not done anything if he had become President, which would have been mostly bad.  We can't totally isolate ourselves as we did during George Washington's days, but we also can't be the John Wayne of the world, as George W. Bush tried to be.

The US has become an extremist nation in most things we do and certainly that includes our politics, as we see in our Congress reaching opposite extremes and seldom coming in the middle for any sort of compromise, which is desperately needed.

And on the distaff side

 America’s words and actions are precedent-setting. If we flout international law restrictions on the use of force, we’d better be prepared for the precedents we’re setting to come back and bite us.

Stop laughing, Vladimir Putin. It’s not very polite.

Dumb, Part the Last: Forgetting the most important question

Tell me how this ends?

I don’t envy President Obama. The challenges posed by the rise of ISIL are complex and difficult, and the politics are extraordinarily tangled. But it all reminds me of a famous line from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who served on the Supreme Court a century ago: “Hard cases make bad law.”

In foreign policy, hard cases make dumb wars.

I absolutely think the writer of that article is reality-based. No one says that there is ever an easy answer to how to treat threats to the world (including, as you rightly say, the Nazis, who the US ignored until eventually drawn into war). The sticking points here, to me, and in that article, are how important it is to have a coalition of partners versus going it alone, and, what's the point of having international law if we're not going to follow it ourselves? 

No argument with having a coalition of nations, but you know it's all political... just as it was when initially the US refused to get involved in the fight against Hitler and the Nazis.  That decision created a world conflict that the bad guys almost won.

Political correctness can get the world in a lot of trouble, as it has currently in the US re: our immigration policies and lack of enforcement thereof.  We can try to create "a circle of allies" but the bottom line is it gives the enemy opportunities.  We have to be more careful in the future in how we act or do not act.

I still think the writer is viewing the issue from a particular viewpoint, which we all do, and I'm suggesting there is more to it.

I think there is a difference between attempting to forge, whether for practical, political, or some other reason, an alliance between interested nations or states when waging war, and being *politically correct*. 

And what occurs with "disinterested" nations or states, as with Turkey this time around?  Turkey didn't want to commit to working with the US and other nations against ISIL, so now Turkey is being targeted by ISIL with rockets and other aggressive acts.  "You snooze, you may lose."  Sometimes, if not careful, you may lose big.

I don't disagree. Alliances don't necessarily mean that all nations are involved. Nonetheless, the method that President Obama is choosing, that of creating alliances and partners, is one I agree with.NY Times

In addition to discussing the election results, the president also responded to questions about his decision to double the number of American troops in Iraq, to about 3,000. Mr. Obama said the added troops will allow the United States and the Iraqi military to go on offense against Islamic extremists, even as he reiterated that American soldiers will not be engaged in combat.

“We will provide them close air support once they are prepared to start going on the offense against ISIL,” Mr. Obama said, using an acronym to describe the extremist group known as the Islamic State. “But what we will not be doing is having our troops do the fighting.”

The president said he could not rule out the possibility that even more American troops could be sent to Iraq. But he said his military commanders have told him that the United States may be able to reduce its commitment of troops as other nations begin helping to train Iraqi soldiers.

Alliance NEVER means you will get all nations on your side.  It never happens.

While it was a mistake to invade Iraq back in 2003, it was a mistake to pull out all out troops.  We knew that the tribes would fight again for control and that terrorist units would become more active again.  It wasn't smart.

Now we're going back in.  We will never "win" a war in Iraq.  It's not going to happen.  Even though Obama now says that "we will not have our troops do the fighting," don't bet the farm on it.  He also had said we would not fight a war in Afghanistan similar to Iraq and yet we are and we are in part of Syria as well.  Obama wants to withdraw 16,000 troops in 2016.  That sounds like we are setting up the same situation as in Iraq.

Re: alliances. Of course, no one said it did. That doesn't mean that any time the US decides to take an action in a country not ours that whoever is in charge should not work to form alliances in whatever countries and as many can join in the fight against a common enemy. 

The Iraq situation is such a mess. Remember that Pottery Barn expression tossed around some years ago "You broke it, you bought it". Informed Comment-"ISIL grew out of Bush's destructin of Iraq's Socialist Economy"

The US invasion and occupation dethroned Saddam but did not deliver the freedom that was promised. Instead, Iraq was sold off to foreign bidders.

Reversing this sell-off will be difficult and may not be possible for a single and, for that matter, relatively weak country to achieve on its own. But starting that process of reversing the neoliberal project in Iraq is where the battle to undermine IS should begin.

The creation of secure and meaningful employment, the rebuilding of infrastructure and the provision of social services may not vanquish IS – but at least the grievances driving many Sunnis to join it in battle may disappear.

Also Informed Comment- When Will US Admit Boots on Ground in Iraq?

That these troops will be sent with Iraqi soldiers to al-Anbar Province belies the administration’s repeated denial that it will put boots on the ground. There will soon be 3000 US troops in Iraq. They will be at the scene of battles, embedded with Iraqi units (apparently in the hope that the Iraqi troops will be too embarrassed to run away en masse again in front of foreign guests)....

If ISIL really is a dire threat to US security, as administration officials maintain, then they should go to the US public with the news that they are going to have to put thousands of US forces on the ground in Iraq. So far they are trying to spin us, and to pretend that there are just some trainers and advisers. It is far more than that; US special operations forces will be operating in Iraq brigades, likely in part to paint lasers on targets for US warplanes to bomb.