WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama said Thursday that he will send as many as 300 U.S. military advisers to help the Iraqi army battle an insurgency and is prepared to take additional "targeted" action if necessary.

The advisers will work with the Iraqi army to set up joint operations centers to coordinate intelligence and planning with the Iraqis without engaging in the fighting, he said.

"American forces will not be returning to combat in Iraq," Obama said after meeting with his national security team at the White House.

The president declined to say whether the U.S. continues to have confidence in Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whom the administration blames for inflaming sectarian divisions in Iraq. Al-Maliki's political rivals in Iraq have launched an effort to replace him.

"The test is before him and other Iraqi leaders," Obama said. "The fate of Iraq hangs in the balance."

The deployment raises the U.S. profile in Iraq three years after Obama ended the combat mission in the country, which began with an invasion to depose Saddam Hussein in 2003. Amid questions about the long-term viability of the central government, Obama is under pressure from some Republicans to intervene aggressively -- and from some Democrats to refrain from a deepening engagement.

A Sunni insurgency led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an al-Qaida breakaway group, has overrun the forces of al-Maliki's Shiite-dominated government in sections of the country. The violence is closing in on the capital, Baghdad, and threatens to spill over Iraq's borders.

"It is in our national security interests not to see an all-out civil war inside of Iraq," Obama said, warning that the Islamic State jihadists might find a haven in the chaos.

The conflict threatens to draw in regional powers, including Shiite-ruled Iran and Sunni Persian Gulf Arab states. Obama said Iran can play a constructive role if it reaffirms the message that Iraq's government must be "inclusive."

Secretary of State John Kerry will leave this weekend to consult with allies in the Middle East and Europe, Obama said.

Islamic State insurgents have seized cities north of Baghdad and engaged in a pitched battle to capture the Beiji oil refinery, the nation's largest. Crude shipments from southern Iraq, where most production is located, have mostly been unaffected by the fighting, but Brent crude, which is used to price more than half of the world's oil, rose Thursday to a nine-month high in London of $115.12 a barrel.

Iraq has asked the U.S. to use airstrikes against the Sunni fighters. Obama made no commitment on that Thursday.

"We will be prepared to take targeted and precise military action if and when we determine that the situation on the ground requires it," he said.

The U.S. already is conducting reconnaissance flights from an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. Those flights, including drones and piloted aircraft, are capable of conducting around-the-clock coverage of battle zones.

The 300 Green Beret special operations forces Obama plans to deploy to Iraq will be focused on assessing the state of the Iraqi security forces, which have struggled to hold off the insurgent advances and in some cases have deserted their positions. Initially the deployments will be limited to several teams of about a dozen soldiers each, which will operate mainly in Baghdad at various Iraqi military headquarters.

More broadly, the role of the advisers is to gather intelligence and share it with the Iraqi forces, and assess how best to increase the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces in their fight with the insurgents.

While they won't be involved in fighting, they will have the right to defend themselves if attacked, an official said.

The U.S. will be evaluating over the next several weeks whether additional military action would provide enough of a window for formation of a more inclusive Iraqi government, the official said, adding that the U.S. won't put forward a preferred candidate to lead.

The special operations forces may make the Iraqi army more effective, said Colin Kahl, a professor at Georgetown University in Washington who oversaw Middle East affairs at the Pentagon during Obama's first term.

"The concept seems to be to deploy them as part of intelligence fusion cells to help Iraqis integrate their on-the-ground information with U.S. technical means, including video from surveillance drones, to more accurately and efficiently target" the Islamic State, Kahl said in an emailed statement. "This is not a direct combat role, but could still make a meaningful difference on the battlefield."

The military advisers will join up to 275 U.S. forces that Obama previously announced would be positioned in and around Iraq to provide security and support for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and other American interests.

Mindful of what he called "the deep scars left by America's war in Iraq," Obama was adamant that U.S. troops would not be returning to combat.

"We do not have the ability to simply solve this problem by sending in tens of thousands of troops and committing the kinds of blood and treasure that has already been expended in Iraq," Obama said at the White House. "Ultimately, this is something that is going to have to be solved by Iraqis."

Obama also said he was reluctant to get drawn deeper into the civil war in neighboring Syria, where the Islamic State has been clashing with other groups that oppose President Bashar Assad. Obama cited the difficulties in deciding whether to arm members of the more moderate opposition.

"If you have former farmers or teachers or pharmacists who now are taking up opposition against a battle-hardened regime," he said, "how quickly can you get them trained?"

Reaction in Congress after Obama's remarks Thursday largely fell along party lines, with many Republicans pushing for more action.

"The steps he announced are needed, but fall short of what is required to stop this al-Qaida offshoot from gaining more power, which must include drone strikes," Republican Rep. Ed Royce of California, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an emailed statement.

Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, complained that Obama's "half-step" wouldn't resolve the crisis. McKeon pressed for a comprehensive course of action but provided no specifics on what that should be.

Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the Foreign Affairs Committee's top Democrat, said he backed Obama's "decision to assist the Iraqi security forces" as well as his emphasis that "this crisis must ultimately be solved by the Iraqi people."

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia and Independent Angus King of Maine welcomed the limited U.S. military support to the Iraqi forces.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., speaking in advance of the president's announcement, voiced concern about dispatching even a small contingent of Americans to Iraq.

"I think that you have to be careful sending special forces because that's a number that has a tendency to grow," she said.

Meanwhile, the secretary of state on Thursday brushed aside recent Republican criticisms of the Obama administration's Middle East policy, taking exception to assertions that Washington has been too passive in the face of surging terrorism in the region.

Kerry noted the failure of the United States to secure a continuing military arrangement with Iraq's government after U.S. combat forces left. "We didn't have operational theater capacity at the time" of the surge in violence spawned by Islamic State militants, he said in an interview on NBC.

On the broader issue of Mideast policy, Kerry said the administration has been "deeply engaged" in the region and is the largest source of humanitarian assistance. He said violence is on the rise in Iraq because Assad, who has been under siege for at least three years, "is a magnet for terrorists of all walks."

Asked about former Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that Obama has been wrong all along about the Mideast, Kerry replied, "This is a man who took us directly into Iraq. Please."

Information for this article was contributed by Margaret Talev, Mike Dorning, David Lerman and Terry Atlas of Bloomberg News; by Julie Pace, Hamza Hendawi, Diaa Hadid, Lara Jakes, Matthew Lee, Robert Burns, Lolita C. Baldor, Donna Cassata and staff members of The Associated Press; and by Mark Landler, Eric Schmitt and Peter Baker of The New York Times.

A Section on 06/20/2014