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"The United States "cannot turn a blind eye" while innocent families face the prospect of "genocide," Obama said, justifying U.S. military action that could eventually include airstrikes." -USA Today. Airstrikes would prevent militants from reaching Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish region, also home to a U.S. Consulate and joint U.S.-Iraqi security base. The most immediate crisis, however, involved the Yazidis, a small religious minority, whom ISIS has chased from their homes and stranded on a mountaintop without access to food or water.