President Barack Obama’s decision to deploy up to 300 military advisers — as opposed to the anticipated 100 — indicates a high level of concern about the sectarian divide between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq, further deepened by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's lack of serious commitment to an authentic political partnership with Sunnis and Kurds.
This was a surreptitious indictment, indirectly recommending a leadership in Iraq that can bring about reconciliation by drawing Sunnis into the political system. Obama hinted that discrimination has isolated the broad Sunni constituency to remove any temptation to be permissive of a role for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).
