It looks like the real war will start now and history will repeat itself.
The first US troop deployed to assist the falling, wailing and yielding Iraqi army against the mighty force of the growing Sunni militant insurgency, has arrived. And their entry opens a new chapter in the book of violence and bloodshed in the Iraqi soil, which Obama once thought he had left behind in history.
But it is perhaps for a good reason they say: history is not just the study of what happened in the past; it is also lessons on what is happening and what is yet to happen.
Nearly half the 300 special operations soldiers that Obama promised to send – although he has clearly expressed his reluctance to be fully drawn once again in an Iraqi war – are in Baghdad or on the front lines of the fight.
This comes as the US Secretary of State John Kerry, who arrived on Monday in the Iraqi capital, called for the regional unity and cooperation to repel the growing power of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants. The jihadist group has, over the last three weeks, swallowed a major chunk of the northern Iraq and is in the verge of making their dream of creating a caliphate state in the areas extending from northern Iraq to Syria, come true.
The Pentagon – which seems lately to be drowning in the mire of fear and apprehension faced with the prospect of dealing with the growth of a new jihadist group which will clearly threaten Washington in future – has said two teams totaling 40 US troops have begun assessing and helping Iraqi troops on the front line.
An additional 90 personnel, who might arrive within days, are expected to set up a new joint operations command centre. There will be four more teams of 50 troops each arriving in the war-torn country shortly.
Obama has clearly stressed that those troops are not meant to fight with the Iraqi army but will only advise the Iraqis and provide intelligence in order to help defeat the notorious sunni Al-Qaeda break-away group, who have been justifying killing all Shiite Muslims whom they call impure and disgraceful.
The Iraqi Shia government currently headed by Nouri al-Maliki had asked for American air power to assist the fight but Obama decided to sent 300 troops instead – who will not even fight in the front line.
But no matter what the America purports to show, the war - that has already claimed at least 1,075 lives in Iraq in June alone – will not end without the pages in history reflecting the involvement of the US in the conflict that is set to cause irreparable damage in the Iraqi and Syrian lands.
