The special forces will be deployed in teams of 12 to advise Iraqi military command centers and brigade-level headquarters in and immediately around the capital. Much of their mission is to identify security gaps and assess whether more U.S. troops will be needed to help foster stability. They are not expected to fight in any battles directly.
American aircraft, both manned and piloted remotely, will conduct surveillance patrols over areas where the ISIL is most active. Military officials described an around-the-clock surveillance effort to locate the insurgency and, likely, advise Iraqi troops on how to rout them.
But with more than a half-million Iraqi security troops in the country, there's almost no chance the small U.S. teams will have any impact on more than just a tiny fraction of them.
And even the limited assistance will likely amount to nothing if Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, refuses to take dramatic steps to calm the violence through political means - namely, sharing more power with Sunnis who increasingly are seeing the insurgency as a popular uprising against the government.
The Obama administration has demanded that al-Maliki quickly move to embrace Sunni concerns, and some U.S. officials have suggested privately that the prime minister give up his post to send the strongest possible sign that he seeks peace for Iraq above all else.
Iraqi officials say there is no indication that al-Maliki will step down, and the stalwart prime minister likely sees the new U.S. military assistance as a slap in the face that falls far short of airstrikes and other help that his government has been seeking urgently.
Already, al-Maliki's Shiite allies in neighboring Iran have signaled they are willing to fill Iraq's security void - a move that all but certainly would enforce crackdowns on Sunnis and further push the country into civil war.
Ken Pollack, a Mideast expert and former CIA analyst now at the Brookings Institution, said the new U.S. military assistance "is too small in number" to have much impact and raised concerns that the mostly Shiite Iraqi forces will not fully cooperate with the American troops.
But Iraq is currently dependent on the American-made weaponry and ammunition that it has gotten from the U.S. over the years - meaning Baghdad may, for now, have its hands tied if it tries to push Washington away.
And though U.S. officials are not planning to have the special forces teams call in airstrikes, they did not rule out the possibility of calling in such attacks if necessary. That will serve as a powerful incentive for al-Maliki to cooperate with Washington's demands without the U.S. having to make any explicit promises.
"At the end of the day, the only leverage we have is that al-Maliki may want greater American support," Pollack said. "How much does he want it?"
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EDITOR'S NOTE - Lara Jakes has covered national security and foreign policy for The Associated Press since 2005, including as AP bureau chief in Baghdad.
