This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, August 13, 2014.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The Islamic State as it moves through an unstable Iraq is more than willing to display its brutality, just as the president begins a new round of air strikes in the country.

Chris Preble, Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute Institute evaluates the situation now unfolding.

You know, I think we see this intervention, the latest intervention in Iraq, the president

announced last week and kind of explained a little bit more before he went on

his vacation to Martha's Vineyard what this all entailed and you know there's

obviously concern on a couple levels, ISIS, the Islamic State, making some gains, you know, persecuting this group.

The UZEDES is under enormous pressure. And so there was a humanitarian component but I think perhaps

more important for the United States at least at some level is the is the threat posed to Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish territory, you know, a very important city where they had made some gains.

The Kurds initially didn't seem capable of stopping them.

I think there was some concern there. And then always there's the doubts about the Iraqi

government and the inability of Nure al-Maliki and the governing

coalition to maintain enough support.

So there's a lot going on in Iraq over the last week.

I think there are two types of criticisms

of the president's intervention.

On the one hand, you have people mainly on the left but not exclusively who are concerned about the

risk that a limited intervention either just purely for humanitarian purposes or to protect

Americans in Ere Biel, that limited interventions don't

stay limited.

This is a valid concern.

...