How quickly could Baghdad fall?  Very quickly -- and we better have a plan to protect the personnel there.

My fear is grounded on a simple reality:  ISIS is not afraid of President Obama.  In other words, they've concluded that President Obama will not fight them, even if Baghdad falls.

ISIS is not all alone.   Richard Cohen is concerned that President Obama lacks "menace":

"Menace is essential in a world leader if he (or she) is going to be feared as well as admired.

Obama falls into the admired category -- the leader who won the Nobel Peace Prize with mere good intentions, a guy who had a new attitude toward Russia (a reset) and Iran (an approach) and China (a pivot) and, of course, to the Muslim world -- an appreciation from a president who had broken the mold.

We know him now as someone miscast: a rational man in an irrational world."

Yes, that's what ISIS thinks too: Obama lacks menace.  (There is a street translation for "menace," or the thing that President Obama does not have,  but I won't say it here because many ladies read American Thinker)

President Obama's chief problem is he keeps talking about what we won't do rather than we are willing to do defeat ISIS.  Unfortunately, such a message confuses allies, as Bret Stephens wrote.    It tells our allies that we will sit in the bleachers and watch a vicious army rape and cut-off heads without consequences.  

It also emboldens enemies and that is why ISIS is planning to take Baghdad and the 1,000 or so US personnel in the US Embassy.   It's only a matter of time and I pray that we have a plan and guys ready to go!

P. S. You can hear my chat with Richard Baehr here & follow me on Twitter @ scantojr.