Add mission creep to the list of talking points.

Via AZ Central

President Barack Obama, in charting a new phase of American military engagement in Iraq, pledges that his war-weary country will not be “dragged back” into a lengthy conflict or become ensnarled in “mission creep.”

But recent U.S. military history is full of warning signs about the difficulty of keeping even a limited mission from expanding and extending. The prospect that this latest mission in Iraq could follow that pattern is particularly risky for Obama, given that he has staked so much of his legacy on having brought America’s long war there to a close.

Already some of the White House’s closest allies worry that Obama’s plan to send in 300 special operations forces to train the Iraqi military could be the first step in pulling the U.S. back into Iraq’s violent sectarian fight.

“I think that you have to be careful sending special forces because that’s a number that has a tendency to grow,” said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, one of Obama’s staunchest supporters.

Anna Galland, the executive director of the liberal group MoveOn.org, said even a limited mission “is a dangerous and troubling development that threatens to lead to broader military engagement.”

Indeed, the U.S. has seen small operations escalate before.

The conflict in Vietnam started with Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy sending limited numbers of military advisers to train and assist local forces. But those numbers increased over time and set the stage for what ultimately became a years-long combat operation.

The wars that began in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last decade were intended to be combat missions from the start.