The situation unfolding in Iraq is troubling.

Al-Qaida-linked militants allied with some Sunni tribes have been battling Iraqi military forces for several weeks now and have made significant gains. Fallujah, Tikrit and Mosul have fallen, and the militants are within 30-plus miles of Baghdad. These terrorist forces reportedly possess American military hardware, including heavy machine guns, artillery, tanks, ammunition, Humvees, personnel carriers, a few Blackhawk helicopters and possibly Stinger missiles that we sold to the Iraqi government. 

Now, we have learned that they have taken control of Iraq’s largest oil refinery.

It has been reported that the Iraqi military is trying to mount a surge against these forces, but the Iraqi government has stated it needs help from the United States.

We should give it to them. We agree with President Barack Obama that we shouldn’t send a large military contingent to Iraq, but we should send advisers to help the Iraqi military, conduct airstrikes on the enemy’s military hardware or use drones to target terrorist leaders. It has been announced that Obama will be sending 100 special forces troops to direct from the ground aircraft or drone strikes. Obama has sent several warships to the Persian Gulf and 275 Marines to guard and help evacuate U.S. civilians from the embassy in Baghdad.

While this is a good start, time is of the essence to help the Iraqi government.

Obama needs to act immediately. 

When we invaded Iraq in 2003, we liberated its people from a ruthless dictator, Saddam Hussein, and over the years helped build and rebuild infrastructure in that country, such as schools, homes, libraries, city buildings and water lines. We, along with our allies, also provided, through the liberation of that country, the people the right to vote in free elections.

What’s more important is that many U.S. servicemen and our allies lost lives liberating that country. Many more are dismembered and will have life-lasting wounds from fighting in Iraq.

Those deaths and injuries should not be in vain, as they will be if Iraq becomes a safe haven for attacks against the U.S. and our allies.

The naysayers reading this will say Iraq was former President George W. Bush’s fault.  

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Bush, along with nearly a dozen other countries, including France, provided us with the same intelligence in late 2002 and early 2003 and that was that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

People will say such weapons did not exist. But President Bush, the majority of members in Congress on both sides of the aisle and our allies believed they were there, which is why coalition forces from 27 countries invaded Iraq.  

Near the end of his presidency, Bush said he would make a decision about withdrawing troops from Iraq based on conditions on the ground, meaning he listened to his generals, not political polls or his base.

Obama, who has called Iraq “the bad war,” is the complete opposite. He had a clear agenda by announcing a withdrawal date of 2011. Obama seems too disengaged in foreign policy, and we are paying the price in Iraq and elsewhere. He was too eager to give up gains the U.S. military and coalition forces had secured in Iraq. Nor did he give his predecessors the credit they deserved for what they had done with the surge.

In December 2011, Obama stood side by side with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and declared victory in Iraq.

Isn’t this the same president who repeatedly bashed Bush for his “Mission Accomplished” banner and speech?

Obama pulled troops out of Iraq for two main reasons. He was playing to his anti-war liberal base and he wanted this as part of his legacy.

What is occurring now is not entirely Obama’s fault, but he does bear responsibility. In pulling out of Iraq hastily, Obama failed to successfully negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement that would’ve maintained a residual U.S. military in Iraq.

Because of that failure, there is now a sectarian civil war with strong al-Qaida involvement.

A lot of the blame also falls on Maliki. He failed to create a genuine political coalition amongst the Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites. Maliki promised that all three groups would be full partners in the Baghdad government.

Instead, the Shiite prime minister set out to subjugate the Sunnis and to marginalize the Kurds.

Maliki became an autocratic ruler, like Hussein was, but without the same degree of repression and brutality.

Maliki should come to the bargaining table with the Sunnis and the Kurds to try to make an agreement in which they all have a meaningful voice in the Iraqi government.

The U.S. is reportedly in talks with Iran, trying to get them to step in and help quash the bloodshed. National interests can certainly create strange partners.

We hope progress is made on these fronts. The lives of many Iraqis who helped U.S. forces are at great risk.

Only time will tell what Obama and Maliki will do, but if the terrorists keep advancing on Baghdad, we urge Obama to use military airstrikes to push back the enemy so that the sacrifices we and our allies made there aren’t lost and the Iraqi people have a government that truly looks out for the interests of all religious and ethnic groups.