The White House is making it clear – whatever the US decided to do to help Iraq’s Shi’a government protect itself against the advance of Sunni Islamist militants who’ve taken control of several cities and towns, American ground troops will not be involved. 

That said, air strikes and drones are on the table, says US President Barack Obama.  But for now, the White House is concentrating on getting Americans in Iraq out of harm’s way, evacuating defense contractors working with the Iraqi military to safer areas.

“We can confirm that US citizens, under contract to the government of Iraq, in support of the US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program in Iraq, are being temporarily relocated by their companies due to security concerns in the area,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

Fighters with the group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, sometimes referred to as ISIL) are threatening to march on Baghdad.  They’ve solidified control in Mosul, and issued edicts such as ordering women to wear “loose clothing” and to avoid going outside, step one of their goal to impose strict sharia law.

The battle of Mosul, by many accounts, pit hundreds of ISIS fighters against tens of thousands of US-trained and equipped Iraqis.  Yet it was the government troops who dropped their arms and uniforms are fled.  US Hummers and troop-movers fell into the hands of the ISIS fighters, who took some of the vehicles into Syria to use against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.  It’s believed that more than half a million civilians are on the run.

If this isn’t already a civil war, it’s certainly heading there.  In the west, the Sunni ISIS fighters are in control.  In the south, the Shi’a government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is struggling to hang on.

In the north, Kurdish forces took advantage of the government’s impotence to take control of Kirkuk, home of one of the world’s biggest oil fields.  The Kurds have demanded their own state for a century, and appear to be taking it.  That will no doubt rattle nerves in Syria, Iran, and Turkey, which have Kurdish minorities in their border regions.