This insight is courtesy of our special contributor, Jim O’Brien. For more of Jim’s work, please check out baconbooksandbullets.com.

In a tragic and deadly game of cat-and-mouse, the American-led joint Iraqi-Allied assault on the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul may be collapsing.

The offensive to retake the city in northern Iraq is the apparent victim of the Obama administration’s attempts to score political points on behalf of Hillary Clinton, while caring less about a military victory for the forces fighting terror.

Donald Trump’s warnings about President Obama’s feckless foreign policy and the commander in chief’s telegraphing our military moves to the enemy appear to be coming true. Here’s what my sources say:

The decision by the Obama administration to first announce the Mosul assault — and then wait several weeks to launch it closer to election day, hoping it will lead to a second Clinton presidency — seems to be getting American troops and innocent Iraqis killed. Especially Kurdish civilians and the very few remaining Christians in Mosul are being murdered.

The White House thought it would get a quick victory in Mosul to validate the president’s strategy — supported by the Democrat nominee — of waging proxy wars against ISIS in Iraq and Syria days before Americans head to the polls. That strategy looks like it’s failing.

While the British, French, American, and Iraqi forces moved into Mosul after weeks of delays and loud declarations regarding our military plans, new reports from the ground confirm that ISIS forces largely escaped from the city in advance of the coalition assault.

They left behind only a handful of fighters, some as young as eight years old, while the main fighting force of the terror group swept behind the Iraqi military units to their southeast and west –- splitting their forces into two armies, each of which would be more vulnerable and less effective.

Now ISIS — armed with information freely offered to them by the Obama administration as though it were a spy network providing valuable intel — just launched a coordinated series of counter-assaults on undefended positions in the region.

As of three days ago, the oil-rich city of Kirkuk was on the brink of total collapse. The BBC is reporting that ISIS militants are now openly walking in the streets of Kirkuk. This is a reversal from the city’s recent successes in ridding itself of the Islamic terror fighters.

Rutba, Iraq, a city to the west of Mosul, is also said to be collapsing. After days of sustained attacks, ISIS now has the last remaining large Christian community in Iraq within days of extermination. Compliments of what appears to be a politically motivated series of press releases from the Pentagon, ISIS knows that the U.S. will not patrol that area of Iraq over the coming months.

Meanwhile, ISIS destroyed multiple oil production facilities in what appears to have been a well-planned smoke screen to disrupt U.S. and allied aircraft from achieving their military objectives.

The successful ISIS attacks on positions south of Mosul have hurt the ability of U.S. close ground support aircraft to assist Iraqi forces. ISIS was apparently warned as early as August by the Obama administration which announced the trajectory (Anbar Province) from which assaults would be launched.

Enemy forces had plenty of time to prepare and position.

So, sadly but predictably, Donald Trump seems to have been proven right. The “pre-game” announcements of the coming invasion of Mosul enabled ISIS to redeploy assets, dig in and wait.

Now that the bulk of Iraqi forces and allied aircraft are stuck in Mosul, ISIS is free to attack multiple targets in Iraq at once. They will also finally achieve their objective of exterminating Iraq’s last remaining Christian community of any size.

What a fantastic legacy for Barack Obama, the president who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize almost before he’d finished unpacking at his new home at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

What an admirable, freedom-supporting move to assist Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign by openly announcing just how tough the U.S. would be on its ISIS adversaries.

What a travesty that the much-heralded assault on Mosul has only gotten more people killed — helpless civilians, besieged Christians, and military personnel caught in the political crossfire — including U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Jason Finan.