“We’re leav­ing behind a sov­er­eign, sta­ble and self-reliant Iraq, with a rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment that was elect­ed by its peo­ple.” – Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, Decem­ber 15, 2011

The Pres­i­den­t’s illu­sion that we accom­plished our mis­sion in Iraq evap­o­rat­ed this past week, when Sun­ni mil­i­tants call­ing them­selves the Islam­ic State of Iraq and Syr­ia (ISIS) and fly­ing the black flag of Islamism over­ran Mosul and Tikrit. The embat­tled Iraqi gov­ern­ment still holds Bagh­dad, but its sov­er­eign­ty, sta­bil­i­ty and self-reliance have been exposed for the arti­fice they long have been.

The truth is that things began to unrav­el in Iraq two and a half years ago, when we declared vic­to­ry and with­drew our troops. “This is the start of the Iraqi civ­il war that was so obvi­ous­ly going to break out after we washed our hands of it,” Ken­neth M. Pol­lack of the Brook­ings Insti­tu­tion told the Wash­ing­ton Post.

Yet this lat­est in a series of for­eign pol­i­cy fail­ures may actu­al­ly work to our advan­tage.  Hav­ing Sun­ni and Shi­ite mil­i­tants and the Iran­ian Army cross­ing swords in Iraq may not be the worst thing from the per­spec­tive of US interests.

The alter­na­tive is for the US to inter­vene mil­i­tar­i­ly in a mean­ing­ful way.  That won’t hap­pen under this Pres­i­dent.  His actions so far have fol­lowed the tra­jec­to­ry of his response to recent events in Syr­ia and Ukraine.

Step One:  Express sur­prise and plant sto­ries sug­gest­ing that the “intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty” failed to see trou­ble coming.

Step Two: Declare that all options are on the table.

Step Three: Sug­gest that he is lean­ing toward mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion (or “short-term mil­i­tary things,” as he quaint­ly sug­gest­ed a few days back).

Step Four: Equivocate.

Step Five: Blame oth­ers for the dete­ri­o­rat­ing situation.

Step Six: What­ev­er the out­come, declare a for­eign pol­i­cy tri­umph because “we nev­er fired a shot.”

We seem to have arrived at step five with the Pres­i­dent con­di­tion­ing mil­i­tary assis­tance on Iraqi Pres­i­dent Nouri al-Mali­ki under­tak­ing polit­i­cal reform.  So if the US doesn’t come to Maliki’s aid in arrest­ing Iraq’s slide into the abyss, it won’t be Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s fault.  The blame will lie with Mali­ki because he failed to form a gov­ern­ment suf­fi­cient­ly inclu­sive to appease the Sun­nis and Kurds.

The President’s lat­est posi­tion is irres­olute and seems a bit weasel­ly, but inac­tion in the face of bru­tal­i­ty and aggres­sion has been the hall­mark of what he likes to call the Year of Action.

In this case his options for action aren’t all that good.  Even Repub­li­cans shrink back from deploy­ing US troops there.  They pre­fer Libya-style airstrikes.  They envi­sion hit­ting – from high in the sky — “columns” of ISIS mil­i­tants “advanc­ing” on Bagh­dad.  But wars like this can’t be won on the cheap.  With­out reli­able intel­li­gence from the ground, airstrikes and drone attacks risk killing civil­ians, stir­ring more anti-Amer­i­can antipa­thy and spread­ing pop­u­lar sup­port for ISIS.

The argu­ment is that these airstrikes could suc­ceed if they were con­duct­ed in sup­port of ground troops field­ed by … whom exact­ly?  The Iraqi army is melt­ing away in the face of the ISIS offen­sive.  They are report­ed­ly being replaced by bit­ter­ly anti-Amer­i­can Shi­ite mili­ti­a­men and, poten­tial­ly, the Iran­ian army.  Do we want to pro­vide air sup­port for those groups?

Iran has to this point been the biggest ben­e­fi­cia­ry of America’s dimin­ish­ing influ­ence in the Mid­dle East.  The Ira­ni­ans have bol­stered their sway in the region by, among oth­er things, stir­ring reli­gious divi­sions among their Arab neigh­bors.  That strat­e­gy now appears to be back­fir­ing, as Sun­nis threat­en the Shi­ite gov­ern­ment in Iraq.  Iran is reap­ing what it sowed.

Mali­ki is their guy.  He spurned the Sun­nis, feed­ing sec­tar­i­an griev­ances, much to the delight of Iran’s gov­ern­ment.  Iran also cheered his deci­sion not to allow the US to leave behind a small con­tin­gent of forces that might have helped pre­vent the ISIS insur­gency.  It’s true that our Pres­i­dent lacked the nego­ti­at­ing skills that would have result­ed in a need­ed resid­ual pres­ence, but the fact remains that Mali­ki and the Ira­ni­ans got their way.  Now they want us back.  While our return might serve their imme­di­ate needs, it’s not clear how it would advance our own interests.

Some have argued that Iran and Shi­ite mil­i­tants are the less­er evil com­pared with the Sun­ni fanat­ics of ISIS.  They are indeed a bad motor­cy­cle gang, so mani­a­cal that even al Qae­da broke ties with them.  When the Ira­ni­ans and promi­nent Shi­ite cler­ics call you a ter­ror­ist, you have earned the title.  Their esti­mat­ed $500 mil­lion in gold bul­lion and cur­ren­cy reserves  sur­pass­es the resources of the Tal­iban, Hamas and Hezbol­lah.  If ISIS con­sol­i­dates con­trol over a swath of land strad­dling Iraq and Syr­ia, per­haps they will incu­bate ter­ror­ists that will com­mit atroc­i­ties of the sort that made al Qae­da infa­mous. The argu­ment is that if we don’t crush ISIS in Iraq, we will have to deal with them at home.

But a rag­ing sec­tar­i­an war in Iraq and Syr­ia may be the best way to keep ISIS at bay.  That war has begun with­out our insti­ga­tion or involve­ment, though it is the prog­e­ny of the Admin­is­tra­tion’s ser­i­al for­eign pol­i­cy fail­ures.  The unpleas­ant truth is that the Pres­i­dent has made such a hash of things that his options for putting them right are few and unlike­ly to succeed.

Stand­ing aside as rad­i­cal Islamists kill oth­er rad­i­cal Islamists wouldn’t be pret­ty.  One shud­ders at the thought of blood­shed to come.   But if the fight­ing weak­ens Iran and occu­pies ISIS, it may serve our inter­ests bet­ter than some half-heart­ed intervention.

It may not be a bril­liant for­eign pol­i­cy suc­cess, but in the cir­cum­stances it will do.