We Need To Protect Our People And Defend Our National Security Interests

First and foremost we have to do everything possible to make sure all Americans in Iraq are secure and not swept up in a Sunni-Shiite civil war. We have more than 2,000 people in the country, and given the volatility of the situation, we need a plan to get them out safely and expeditiously - now. Likewise, we need to be mindful that the up to 275 additional Marines that President Obama has informed Congress he may deploy to conduct security at the embassy in Baghdad do not become isolated targets of terrorism.

We also have to be very clear that any mission we might undertake in Iraq is directed to protecting the national security interests of the United States, not based upon the ephemeral goal of achieving political reconciliation in Baghdad. Degrading the lethality of the vicious ISIS terrorists who threaten America and our allies might well be in our interests. Partnering with the Islamic Republic of Iran would not be.

Whatever the history of U.S. intervention in Iraq, our priorities now should be to protect our people and defend our national security interests, not to try to resolve an intractable religious divide some 1,500 years in the making.