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The US returned to Iraq in a big way yesterday as Obama authorized the Air Force to attack ISIL positions near US troops stationed in the north east region of the country. But there's only so much you can do from 20,000 feet up. At some point, even though he pledged not to, Obama will have to put troops back in Iraq to kill the ISIL network. It will be an open-ended engagement and the US will expend still more blood and treasure fighting a guerrilla war against a determined and well-armed ideological opponent, in a country we should have never invaded in the first place. At least that's my prediction. War has a way of taking on a life of its own and making decisions for you.

As a scary aside, I've heard reports that many sympathetic men of Arabic descent who attend European schools and live in European cities and even some Americans have joined ISIL to fight in Iraq. When that's done, they can return to their own countries and the US because they hold travel credentials already, and are not on any no-fly list because we don't know who they are. We could be looking ahead to scores of Boston marathons and Ft. Hoods in the coming months or years.

Either way, letting ISIL get this far dug in before acting against them was a huge mistake and there isn't a poistive outcome that I can see.