How should the U.S. respond to the situation in Iraq?

There are no good choices. At one end of the range of choices is for us just to stay out of it and let them settle their differences between themselves. At the other end we can go back in, re-invade the country, kill another few hundred thousand innocent civilians, blow another trillion dollars, and THEN withdraw and let them settle their differences between themselves. Since the ultimate result is going to be the same, I would support a more non-interventionalist strategy.

And I think that's about what Obama is going to do. He'll order a few drone strikes, target who we believe to be the 'bad guys', but eventually they're going to have their civil war.

When GW Bush invaded Iraq, all his real military experts told him it would take 500k troops to pacify and stabilize the country. He didn't listen to them, largely because we don't HAVE 500k troops! With all our military capability, there is nothing we can do to turn Iraq around. We're not gong to spend the money or time it would take, and the American people are sick of fighting there.

When there is nothing you can do, the best you can do is to do nothing!

The Sunnis want their country back---they ruled for 13 centuries in Iraq bfore the ILLEGAL invasion by the U.S in 2003 removed them from power with no plans of letting them be included in their own "new" (Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld-picked) Malakai government. There are a few reports that the Sunnis were now hooked up with a violent extremist group that might, if in power, pose a threat...so the international community (and the U.S.) is keeping a watchful eye, intelligence wise.

Keep out of it other than for UN mandated humanitarian reasons.

Accept that Iraq will be divided.

Permit the Iranians to occupy and protect the Shias in the South.

As muslim fundamentalists so clearly want to kill the 'Golden Goose', find something other than oil to power motor cars and make plastics.

Too late to do much that is useful. If the US had continued giving some kind of meaningful support to Iraqi democracy, it could have made a difference in the long term. But now, the Iraqis who fought to overthrow Saddam and institute democracy, as well as UN troops who helped them, have lost what they gained.

Now we are looking at the likelihood of another Sunni dictatorship. Whether it will be worse than Saddam remains to be seen.

There is no easy answer. If The U.S. does not help them out now ISIS will take over Iraq and continue to move on other countries, dominating regions with thier kooky nonsense- that would eventually become even more troublesome for western countries, more so then it is now.

If U.S. does help them out, with at the least air assults, It may stop ISIS from gaining anymore ground for now. But its a continuous cycle with those nuts, and there is surely more of them waiting in the wings to take up where ISIS leaves off.

Either way, the U.S. has these countries calling to bail them out without even putting up a fight because they expect the U.S. will just come in and fight thier fight for them.

Im just sick of the mid east fvcked up countries who always have one hand on the phone - speed dial to the U.S. and the other hand flipping US off. Do they not have any one of the other power countries phone numbers? Please, call UK for a change, Australia is not busy right now, call them for help.

Not in any manner. In 2011, the Iraqi PM kicked the US out of Iraq. The US invested a decade, $4T, and 5K American lives. We owe Iraq nothing else.

Either bomb the whole country to a crater or stay out.

P.S. We (the US) should never have gone in in 2003 and I agree with then 5 star US General Colin Powell who resigned his entire career in protest of invading Iraq 2003/ 2004.

The US should not get involved. As history shows it will only destabilize the region further and lead to an increased loss of life.

I think the simple solution can be applied to all the troubles out of terrorists and all the other trouble-makers in that region. That solution is the dropping of nerve gas bombs in every country over there.

iraq was fine before USA came with democracy and bullshit , now we have to fix it and kick strangers out