President Obama’s response to the Iraq crisis has been criticised as too cautious by some Republican opponents in Washington.

Representative Edward Royce, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs committee, said “the steps he announced are needed but fall short of what is required to stop this al Qaeda offshoot from gaining more power, which must include drone strikes”.

But many foreign policy experts have welcomed what they see as a reasonable approach, including two top Bush administration officials
who spoke to euronews.

Former US Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said: “It shows a commitment to look at possible military action and gives us credibility to those waiting to see what the US will do, particularly whether they will use force and gives us leverage to push on the political track which I think is necessary.”

Another former US Ambassador to Iraq and ex-US Deputy Secretary of State, John Negroponte, said: “It was important to show that we are prepared to provide additional moral and material support to the government of Iraq at this particular point in time. I think the greatest urgency is to arrest this offensive by ISIS and to recuperate some of the territories lost at the same time.”

For war-weary Americans, long, costly conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken their toll, as our correspondent in Washington, Stefan Grobe, explained.

“The American pubic is overwhelmingly against any new US involvement in Iraq – an opinion that brought President Obama into office. And his decisions in the Iraqi crisis so far reflect that,” Grobe said.

“But whatever he does, the problems in Iraq will likely not go away. They might even get worse.”