“The nature of the strikes shouldn’t be broad and open ended, it should be targeted, precise, and principled,” he said. “There is no win or lose in this type of conflict. The focus should be to degrade the capacity of ISIS and other groups that threaten the Iraqi state and U.S. national security.”

◼ Obama’s Favorite Think Tank: We Should Prepare to Bomb Iraq - Daily Beast

◼ THEIR WAR, NOT OURS - Patrick J. Buchanan/Human Events

(N)othing that happens in Mesopotamia is going to threaten the existence of the United States. As for the terrorist threat from ISIS, for us it is neither greater nor less than it was a week ago.

The existential threat here is to Iraq. Its survival as one nation is now in question, with the possibility it could be torn apart in a civil and sectarian war. But this is preeminently Iraq’s problem, not ours....

Vladimir Putin lately raised a valid question: Why, in Syria, are the Americans on the same side as the people who took down the twin towers? Indeed, why are we?

And who is fighting al-Qaida and ISIS in Syria, battling those McCain calls an “existential threat” to American security?

Bashar Assad. Hezbollah. Iran. Russia.