Lurch has seen the future and it is so bright he has to wear shades.
Via Star and Stripes
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry raised the possibility Wednesday that U.S. troops might be committed to ground operations in Iraq in extreme circumstances, the first hedging by an administration official on President Barack Obama’s pledge that there will be no U.S. boots on the ground to battle the Islamic State.
Kerry made the comment during a news conference after a day of meeting with Iraqi officials, who he said hadn’t requested or shown any desire to have U.S. troops or forces from any nation in Iraq to confront the Islamic State, the extremist organization that’s now in control of more than a third of the country’s territory.[…]
Kerry didn’t elaborate on what dramatic change might prompt the U.S. to commit ground forces, and it wasn’t clear whether his statement reflected administration policy. The White House declined to provide on-the-record reaction to the comment, but former Rep. Lee Hamilton, an Indiana Democrat who chaired the foreign affairs and intelligence committees when he was a member of the House, called it “a loophole a mile wide.”[…]
Kerry said he thought Iraq’s new government, sworn in Monday night, was a historic step forward and that Iraq’s leaders seem determined to keep the country together.
“Every single leader I talked with today in the strongest terms possible affirmed that they had learned the lessons of the past years” and were determined “to move in a different direction from the direction of years past,” he said.