Caligula or King Canute?

Reports are that President Obama is about to declare victory on or over Iraq’s Mount Sinjar where tens of thousands of Yazidis and other minorities have been stranded in peril of starvation or slaughter.

Supposedly, the President’s military advance men have told him that a few symbolic air strikes on exposed ISIS artillery pieces and relief airdrops on the mountain have been enough. No American “ground troops” need to be reinserted in that painful quagmire (or orifice)—perish the thought!

Other reports are a bit less sanguine. One suggests that ISIS is merely repositioning its American-made artillery and armored vehicles (kindly provided it by Iraqi army deserters and/or turncoats) in urban neighborhoods. There, Generalissimo Obama will no doubt demonstrate to the Israelis how you deal with such a threat without being “disproportional.”

In any case, the ostensible good news requires celebration and commemoration. One possibility is Obama likened to Moses going up Mount Sinai and coming down again with the Ten Commandments (or the Quranic facsimile).

I prefer more aquatic analogies. First, there is Caligula who told the Roman Senate and people that he had conquered Neptune at the Battle of the English Channel armed only with pebbles.

For those in a more sardonic mood (like me), there is the legend of King Canute ordering the North Sea to roll back its tides.

In actuality, the Caligula analogy is unfair—to the Roman emperor. Recent archaeological digs suggest that, rather than fling pebbles, he ordered a series of coastal forts built along the Channel Coast preparatory to a serious invasion of England that never occurred because his Praetorian Guard cut the plan and the emperor short.

No “boots on the ground”—then or now! (Coincidentally, Caligula had acquired from his father’s troops the affectionate nickname “Little Boots.” No analogies here with Obama intended or implied.)