Iraqis asking for airstrikes

P. Nash Jenkins has a Time article about the latest in Iraq:

A desperate Iraqi government is pleading for help as militant groups follow their an assault on major cities in northern Iraq by making their way towards the capital. With Islamist militants marching toward Baghdad, the enfeebled government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has expressed a willingness to allow the US to conduct airstrikes on the insurgents.
The US withdrew its last troops from Iraq in December of 2011; a “new dawn” for the country, the Prime Minister said at the time. However, many believe the resulting power vacuum has permitted insurgent forces to gain traction in the country. Over the past week, the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) and other Islamic fundamentalist groups have seized the major cities of Mosul and Tikrit, and have displaced more than a half million Iraqis, according to a report released by the International Organization for Migration.
The country’s Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zabari, told CNN the situation was “mortal.” CNN, citing unnamed officials, said Washington was looking to see what further support it could provide Baghdad besides the the fifteen billion dollars worth of equipment and training it had already given.
A recent seventeen-minute audio recording, purportedly by ISIS spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, urged fighters to “continue their march as the battle is not yet raging. It will rage in Baghdad and Karbala. So be ready for it,” it says.
Washington, however, seems to have little appetite to heed Iraq’s plea for more assistance.
“Ultimately, this is for the Iraqi security forces, and the Iraqi government to deal with,” Rear Admiral John F. Kirby, a spokesperson for the Pentagon, told The New York Times.
Meanwhile, as the insurgents approach Baghdad— Tikrit, the hometown of former despot Saddam Hussein, being less than a hundred miles north of the capital— Washington has warned that Americans in the country “remain at high risk for kidnapping and terrorist violence.”
Speculation that the State Department is exercising evacuation procedures could not be independently verified. A spokesperson told Time that he could neither confirm nor deny that the US embassy would be evacuated.

Rico says that al-Maliki is definitely between Iraq and a hard place, but fuck 'em, we did them a favor once, and that's enough... (And surely we learned our lesson from Iran, and will evacuate the embassy before we have to do it Saigon-style.)