Pentagon: Huh, maybe we should get those people off that mountain instead of just dropping supplies to them

Nothing gets by these guys. Having been chased by the homicidal monsters known as ISIS to the top of a mountain, where they have no way to get food and water, Iraq's Yazidis might need a little more than a supply drop, no matter how helpful that might be when it doesn't explode upon landing.

What they need is a way to get off that mountain, as the Rhodes Scholars in the Obama Administration have finally figured out:

When President Obama authorized military force last week, it was for the dual purpose of protecting American personnel and helping Kurdish forces as they try to aid members of the Yazidi minority trapped in the Sinjar mountain range. They were driven there by militants with the Islamic State (IS), and have been relying largely on international aid drops for food and water. Officials say any relocation effort likely would involve international partners. The planning, though, is complicated by the administration’s directive not to send ground troops. Absent that, the U.S. would have to pursue an airlift mission.

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Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told Fox News on Tuesday that both an airlift mission and an operation to create safe passage for the refugees to leave on their own are among the options being considered. This would be important, he said, to avert an act of "genocide." One official told Fox News that even the most "Herculean effort" to lift the refugees off the mountains would take hundreds of flights and 10 days or more of constant missions.

Note the passage in bold. In order to really get the job done, we would need ground troops on hand. That is a problem, not because ground troops are not available or capable. They are both. No, it is a problem because Obama has made a domestic political calculation that he must not, under any circumstances, send ground troops back into Iraq. To do so would compromise his number one priority, which is to be President Not George W. Bush. So he has made this promise publicly, making it clear both to ISIS and to the Yazidis that we will act only to the extent that doing so doesn't complicate Obama's political calculations. This is what Obama always does. His first priority is always to get out, and he has no trouble promising this publicly because it's very much what he wants and intends to do. He has no interest in doing anything about the problem, and when he finds he has no choice, he instinctively seeks the most minimalist approach possible. Whether he will keep the no-ground-troops promise at this point is impossible to say. He can't just let those people die up there, but he really doesn't want to take responsibility for getting them to safety either. Being president would be a great gig if you didn't have to take responsibility for things that happen, especially when that puts you in conflict with idiotic promises you made to keep your political base happy. Maybe we should change the job of the president to make it more to Obama's liking. He can do whatever he wants via executive action, but he is never responsible for actually solving any problem. Then it would be a much nicer experience for him, and that's really what it's all about, isn't it?