As the U.S. expands its war against the Islamic State, the Army is preparing to deploy a division headquarters to Iraq. Officials have not identified the division that will deploy — the first division headquarters to go to Iraq since the U.S. withdrawal in 2011. An official announcement is expected in the coming days. But Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno recently confirmed the Army “will send another division headquarters to Iraq to control what we’re doing there, a small headquarters.” It’s unclear how many soldiers will be sent, or how long they will deploy. Division headquarters average between 100 and 500 soldiers and deploy for one year.

And they will only be providing command, control, and communications for the small number of US advisers already in Iraq. What could go wrong?

Overnight the Coalition of the Useless conducted six, count them, six, airstrikes in Iraq and Syria:

New airstrikes targeting ISIS militants in Syria were conducted overnight, a U.S. official said. There were a total of two airstrikes in Syria overnight along the border with Iraq. Four other airstrikes were conducted in Iraq, the official said.

I’m sure the six airstrikes were extra-super special ones that stopped ISIS in its tracks because we know that Obama personally signed off on them, but in warfare it is axiomatic that quantity has a quality all its own.

My view is that Obama is simply running out the clock on ISIS, hoping that eventually an electorate that is more than a little uncertain where Syria is on the map will forget there is a war going on there. He is also using the Clinton’s “wag the dog” strategy to try to enable the Democrats limp past the November elections with no more damage than our air campaign has inflicted on ISIS. To that end, Democrat insiders are already talking about an “October Surprise”:

The polls may suggest Republicans will see gains in this November’s elections, but former Democratic strategist Bob Beckel thinks they shouldn’t get too comfortable. The Five co-host mysteriously signaled Democrats have something up their sleeve. “I’ll tell you: I would expect an October surprise,” Beckel said on Thursday. “I think I know what is — I’m not going to say it, but I think I know what it is — and it is going to shake things up, and it has to do with national security.”

and this from Juan Williams:

Get ready for bombs bursting in air and this election’s October Surprise – President Obama’s air strikes to “degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIS. … In this midterm race there simply is not enough time for such a dramatic reversal. Even if the skeptics are right and the airstrikes prove insufficient to diminish the threat from ISIS the subsequent dispatch of American forces to do a time-limited job of clearing out the bad guys is likely to stir even more patriotic fervor. The president’s leadership role during this fight has the potential to pump up his public approval and that will benefit several Democrats locked in close senate races.

This simply continues the government by virulent narcissism that has been the guiding principle throughout the Obama administration.