From an article by Richard Epstein on Presidential Indecision:

The Obama personal hesitation stems, unfortunately, from reasons unrelated to the military and political issues. Part of his problem is that he cannot bring himself to acknowledge that he was wrong to oppose the Iraqi surge in 2006, and wrong to pull out American troops from Iraq as President. A strong president learns from his past mistakes, but Obama does not.

One reason for his dogged persistence lies in his flawed world view, which deep down, regards the United States (and Israel) as akin to colonial powers, whose actions should always be examined under a presumption of distrust. His ingrained uneasiness with the values of western civilization makes it impossible for him to think and act as the leader of a western nation. Instead, he much prefers to regard himself as a nonpartisan critic and a bystander to world affairs. He has no firm conviction in the rightness of his cause, and hence no confidence in his ability to get others to act as perils mount.

What makes the situation even worse is that Obama receives support from commentators and public intellectuals who think that his reluctance to commit military force should be commended as part of some grand plan to restore American hegemony by gentler means. Just that kind of thinking was evident in a recent column by Thomas Friedman, “Leading From Within,” which refuses to come to grips with the short-term peril that ISIS presents. Friedman accepts the conventional analysis that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a mistake and ignores the current short-term military crisis in order to piece together some long-term strategic plans to make things better.

I am always leery of perspectives that give Obama the benefit of the doubt, that suggest there is actually a strategic view, however wrong it might be, beneath it all. Ill will and hatred for the West are more my thing. But at least he is being driven by the politics of the moment to take actions he would never personally have authorised under any circumstances. In the meantime, he is trying to manoeuvre so that the Democrats in Congress don’t have to take a position right before the election. It is only fortunate that the enemy in this case is so vile, and continues to emphasise just that every day so that no one is allowed to forget, that makes even this limited response possible.