Editorial: US had no choice but to act against Islamic State

U.S. President Barack Obama. Photo / AP

Barack Obama has always been reluctant to involve the United States in conflict. In that, he has the support of most of a war-weary nation's people. Yet there are times when refusing to intervene is not an option.

The situation that has prompted the first American military involvement in Iraq in three years, through a series of air strikes, is one of those.

The US, whose invasion of that country was the precursor to the present crisis, could not, by any moral yardstick, stand aside as the threat of genocide hung over the Yazidis, Christians and other Iraqi religious minorities.

On both humanitarian and military grounds, the reaction to the Islamic State's rapid advance into northern Iraq had to be swift and serious. The plight of the many thousands of Yazidis forced up barren Mt Sinjar by the Islamic State's ultimatum to convert to fundamentalist Islam or face death or sexual slavery was dire. So was the need to support the Kurdish Peshmerga forces who were being overwhelmed by well-armed Islamic State fighters. There was no time for United Nations approval, no matter how desirable that may have been. Nor was there an alternative means of curbing the brutal excesses of the Islamic State.

The American intervention has two aims. The first is to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe. This is being achieved through air drops of food and water to the Yazidis, and jet strikes that have driven back the Islamic State forces and relieved pressure on the Kurdish stronghold of Erbil. In the longer term, the US is now committed to preventing the spread of the Islamic State and the destruction of Iraq.

President Obama insists there will be no boots on the ground. American assistance will be limited to aerial strikes and the dispatch of arms and military advisers. Some believe more must be done. But that disregards the successful use of air power in the overthrowing of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. It took five months but the onslaught by the US and its allies was pivotal in destroying much of Gaddafi's arsenal and diminishing his troops' will to fight.

Most immediately, the Americans will be intent on bolstering the stocks of the Peshmerga. In pursuit of the dream of an independent Kurdistan, it has carried the fight to the Islamic State. But it has found itself outgunned by the Islamic State forces, who have seized US arms from fleeing Iraqi forces.

The air strikes appear, initially at least, to have turned the tide of the conflict. Equally, they have signified that the jihadists miscalculated if they thought the US would allow them to sweep aside all opposition.

In the long term, the Americans will want to see the Iraqi national forces taking the fight to the Islamic State far more forcibly and effectively. The replacement of the Shia-leaning Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister is a key part of this. During his two four-year terms, he was a divisive figure, alienating the country's Sunni minority and creating fertile ground for the Islamic State.

Following inconclusive elections in April and a series of military setbacks, Haider al-Abadi, a moderate Shia, has finally been appointed Prime Minister. He has 30 days to form a new government and, thereafter, to work with all factions to foster a nation inclusive of all religious and ethnic groups. Only if this is achieved will Iraq be able to wage an effective fight against the Islamic State.

The US intervention is not without risk. It may prompt a surge of recruits to the Islamic State. There will, as President Obama noted, be no quick fix.

But nor, given the appalling barbarity of the jihadists, was there any realistic alternative.