Obama’s Favorite Think Tank: We Should Prepare to Bomb Iraq

As the White House debates whether to strike ISIS inside Iraq, a Washington think tank deeply connected to the Obama administration is recommending that the United States start getting ready now for U.S. airstrikes.

A new report by the Center for American Progress, the left-leaning policy organization that maintains close ties to the White House, says the U.S. should “prepare for limited counterterrorism operations against ISIS, including possible air strikes.” That is just one of the steps CAP is recommending to help keep Iraq from crumbling and fight the scourge of ISIS and other extremist groups festering in Iraq and Syria.

Several sources at Washington policy organizations told The Daily Beast that top administration officials have been calling around Washington think tanks for days to solicit advice and consultation on the substantive options for responding to the ever-deepening crisis in Iraq.

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“Quite clearly this blitzkrieg by ISIS should be a wake up call for the Iraqi government, for the region, and for U.S. policy,” CAP Senior Fellow Brian Katulis, one of the report’s authors, told The Daily Beast. “The administration is very judiciously weighing a range of options in a dynamic situation. This is largely our own analysis. We tried to strike the right balance.”

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