Barack Obama’s Iraq Decision: 12:30p.m. ET

President Obama is scheduled to
make a statement “on the situation in
Iraq” at the White House at 12:30p.m. Last week, the president
indicated he was considering intervening militarily in Iraq. U.S.
forces, of course, left the country in 2011
despite efforts by Obama to extend their stay there.

The White House insisted yesterday the president hadn’t made a
decision yet, and The Hill
reports:

After a meeting with top congressional
leaders Wednesday afternoon in the Oval Office, lawmakers
said they did not think the president would come to them to ask for
authorization for a military strike.

“The president briefed us on the situation in Iraq and indicated
he didn’t feel he had any need for authority from us for steps that
he might take and indicated that he would keep us posted,” Senate
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced a resolution to repeal the
Congressional authorization of the use of military force (AUMF) in
Iraq at the beginning of the year, but the Democrat-controlled
Senate has not acted on it. President Obama, who has generally not
sought any kind of congressional authorization for his various
military interventions, is naturally unlikely to do so here,
especially given the Congress’ inability, or unwillingness, to
repeal the Iraq AUMF.

The president initially said he
wouldn’t be sending troops to Iraq, although a few days later
he
did send troops to Iraq. He’s also
considering air strikes against insurgents in Iraq, something
Iraq’s beleaguered prime minister secretly asked for last month,
before the Islamic State of Iraq (ISIS) made significant gains
across the country.