The United States has finally decided that Iraq's security and humanitarian situations require immediate military intervention. US President Barack Obama's Aug. 7 speech consolidated this decision and spelled out the US mission on two levels: implementation of "limited" military aerial operations, and a humanitarian intervention to save Iraq from the ethnic cleansing of its minorities.
The US intervention, however, conveys different messages on timing and goals. When it comes to timing, the United States exerted serious pressure on all Iraqi parties to reach a settlement over the formation of an Iraqi consensus government. Iraqis themselves would have to liberate their land, but not before unanimously agreeing upon the clear foundations of the Iraqi state.
