ISIS/ISIL conflict in Syria/Iraq (No OpEd, No Politics)

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Mission Accomplished was bull, Yet Bush kept up the Pressure.

Click to expand...

Jeff Head said:

The Press and left like to pull out the video of Bush's mission accoimplished speech amd make fun of it, and discount it.

But it was not bull. He gave that speech on the carrier after the Iraqi military had been defeated and Saddam Hussein had fled. THAT mission was accomplished. Saddam's army...on paper...ws potentially very lethal. Saddam was recognized as a brutal tryant who was not likely to go away quietly.

Yet, his armies were defeated and he fled. There was understandable relief at the acocmplishment of what otherwise would have been considered a very difficult and long mission in so short a time. PArtuclarly with so few losses.

I do not believe Bush believed for a moment things were "over," as the press and left likes to try and point out.

I do believe that his senior advisors severely underestimated what it would take to passify a nation of that size and they made some serious mistakes. In effect, they left a vaccuum. There were not enough Americans to do the job and they didn't want US soldiers to be turned into police officerss. So, we had to take the time to train a lot of Iraquis and we ultimately had to accomplish the surge there before we got a final handle on it while Bush was in office...but it was still far from over...though the insurgency had dwindled and Al Queda thenmselves admitted they had lost there.

But by that time, Obama was coming into office and he had run on evcuating American from Iraq...and he did.

This is still not the prime reason Iraq is having problems. We spent billions arming and training a very decent sized and powerfukl Iraqi military that out numbers these ISIS forces 15 to 1 and outguns them by orders of magnitude.

The difference is pretty simply IMHO.

Most of the Iraqi personnel, as it turns out, are not willing to fight and maybe die for what we would call "their" freedom. They just do not have the cultural or emotional, or ideological grounding in, or attchament to their freeedom. So when threatened by people who obviously are willing to fight and die for what they believe in...irresepctive of the fact that it represents tyranny from our perspective...they have turned and run.

Perhaps they will yet stand and fight. They still have the numbers and the equipment. We will have to see...but so far they have not showed any kind of stomach for it.

Click to expand...

​

Wall Street Journal said:

June 12, 2014 1:05 p.m. ETBEIRUT, Lebanon—Iran deployed Revolutionary Guard forces to fight in Iraq, helping government troops there wrest back control of most of the city of Tikrit from militants, Iranian security sources said.

Two battalions of the Quds Forces, the overseas branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps that has long operated in Iraq, came to the aid of the besieged, Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, they said.

Combined Iraqi-Iranian forces retook control of 85% of Tikrit, the birthplace of former dictator Saddam Hussein, according to Iraqi and Iranian security sources.

They were helping guard the capital Baghdad and the two Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, which have been threatened by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, an al Qaeda offshoot. The Sunni militant group's lightning offensive has thrown Iraq into its worse turmoil since the sectarian fighting that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Shiite Iran has also positioned troops along its border with Iraq and promised to bomb rebel forces if they come within 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, of Iran's border, according to an Iranian army general.

In addition, Iran was considering the transfer to Iraq of Iranian troops fighting for the regime in Syria if the initial deployments fail to turn the tide of battle in favor of Mr. Maliki's government.

The Iraqi government has signaled to the U.S. it would allow airstrikes against insurgents and asked Washington to speed the delivery of promised weapons.

That raises the prospect of both the U.S. and Iran lending support to Mr. Maliki against ISIS insurgents, who are seeking to create a caliphate encompassing Iraqi and Syrian territory.

Gen. Qasem Sulaimani, the commander of the Quds Forces and one of the region's most powerful military figures, traveled to Baghdad this week to help manage the swelling crisis, said a member of the Revolutionary Guards, or IRGC.

Qassimm al-Araji, an Iraqi Shiite lawmaker who heads the Badr Brigade bloc in parliament, posted a picture with Mr. Sulaimani holding hands in a room in Baghdad on his social-networking site with the caption, "Haj Qasem is here," Iranian news sites affiliated with the IRGC reported on Wednesday. "Haj Qasem" is Mr. Sulaimani's nom de guerre.

At stake for Iran in the current tumult in Iraq isn't only the survival of an Shiite political ally in Baghdad, but the safety of Karbala and Najaf, which along with Mecca and Medina are considered sacred to Shiites world-wide.

An ISIS spokesman, Abu Mohamad al-Adnani, urged the group's Sunni fighters to march toward the "filth-ridden" Karbala and "the city of polytheism" Najaf, where they would "settle their differences" with Mr. Maliki.

That coarsely worded threat further vindicates Iran's view that the fight unfolding in Iraq is an existential sectarian battle between the two rival sects of Islam-Sunni and Shiite—and by default a proxy battle between their patrons Saudi Arabia and Iran.

"Until now we haven't received any requests for help from Iraq. Iraq's army is certainly capable in handling this," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afgham said Wednesday.

Despite those assuring comments, measures by the Iranian government in the past day indicated that an air of crisis had enveloped Tehran. Iran's army and border guards have been placed under full alert along the country's long border with Iraq, Iranian media reported.

Iran's President Hasan Rouhani cut short a religious celebration on Thursday and said he had to attend an emergency meeting of the country's National Security Council about events in Iraq.

"We, as the Islamic Republic of Iran, will not tolerate this violence and terrorism….We will fight and battle violence and extremism and terrorism in the region and the world," he said in a speech.

Iran's chief of police, Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, said the National Security Council would consider intervening in Iraq to "protect Shiite shrines and cities."

ISIS's rapid territorial gains in the past few days appeared to have caught Iranian officials by surprise and opened a debate within the regime over whether Iran should publicly enter the battle, citing the country's strategic interest and ideological responsibility. Iranian officials also privately expressed concern about whether Mr. Maliki was capable of handling the turmoil.

"The more insecure and isolated Maliki becomes, the more he will need Iran. The growth of ISIS presents a serious threat to Iran. So it would not be surprising to see the Guards become more involved in Iraq," said Alireza Nader, a senior policy analyst at the Rand Corp.

Quds Forces have been active in Iraq since shortly after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and have helped create, train and fund Shiite militias that fought U.S. military forces. Their reach and influence extends from Iraq to Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories.

The two IRGC battalions moved to Iraq on Wednesday were shifted from the Iranian border provinces of Urumieh and Lorestan. Their task is to help secure the holy Shiite cities of Karbala and Najaf and tighten security around Baghdad, according to IRGC members in Iran.

Revolutionary Guards units that serve in Iran's border provinces are the most experienced fighters in guerrilla warfare because of separatist ethnic uprisings in those regions. IRGC commanders dispatched to Syria also often hail from those provinces.

Click to expand...

Solarz said:

To put it simply, no matter how powerful you are, you cannot rebuild a nation unless you are also willing to rule it. The US was guided by one fundamental misconception, that if you bring "democracy" (i.e. elections) to a country, everything else would fall into place.

The narratives on both Afghanistan and Iraq was built on that assumption, and that assumption turned out to be very, very wrong.

Click to expand...

solarz said:

I wonder if this is the whole idea behind Obama's Pacific Pivot. He's trying to make peace with Al-Qaeda so he can concentrate on China...

Click to expand...

Jeff Head said:

ANd so it begins...

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

Jeff Head said:

You are right. And of course it does not just "fall out," because of elections But to be fair, the Bush pnd the plan was never for it to just do that.

They severely underestimated what it woudl take...but once they got that right...the plan was for the US military to remain in place for years to help make it happen.

That's what it took in Post War Germany and Japan.

It was going to take that there too...if it could be done at all. There were unconditional surrenders in Germany and Japan. There were populations that wanted to put the war, strife, and conflict behind them and become proposerous again.

I do not believe those conditions have ever existed for a majority of people in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Until people want those things...personal liberty, free markets, a willingenss to allow others their personal libery, including religious libety, and a constituional republic that enshrines all of that...and then wants it badly enough to fight and die for it...they will never become stable or be able or willing to defend themselves in it.

Click to expand...

delft said:

The main thing was the destruction of the Iraqi economy. First by sanctions which sharply decreased the respect for the occupation forces from the side of the middle classes, the natural allies of the US, when they came in. Then by abolishing the Iraqi security forces and stopping the pay of its members. Then by employing many people from many countries outside Iraq rather than Iraqi's. Anyone acceptable to the occupiers, as Mr Maliki, was in a weak position. He did what he could to create distance to the US and succeeded in our eyes but not in the eyes of many Iraqi's.

Click to expand...

solarz said:

Sounds like Iran could play an important role in stemming the tide of Islamism in Iraq.

The thing is, the Iraq War was sold the American people, and people worldwide, as a necessary action to defend *Americans* from Saddam's WMDs.

Click to expand...

solarz said:

The removal of the Baathist regime was a secondary thought in the narrative (at least until the WMDs turn out to have never existed, at which point this suddenly became the primary justification of the war).

Click to expand...

Jeff Head said:

Which was a huge mistake. Did not need to do that. HUssein had violated every accord he agreed to to end the 1st Gulf War and we could easily have gone in on that pretext alone. I believe Bush was setting up a fly trap fo Al Queada...and that part ended up workimg...but he went about it using the wrong reasoing IMHO.

Actually, they did exist. Just not nuclear.

Saddam had used WMDs in the Iraq-Iran war. We found his chemcials and some biological weaponry (that he had used on his own people). Again, huge mistake to infer we had to go in there to get nukes. If he had left at WMDs he may have gotten by with it...but that was not the real reason he went in in any case. It was to bring Saddam down and any potential support of those terrorists we were fighting and to set up a fly trap for Al Queda and draw them out where they could be destroyed.

But, guys...this is the World News Thread. The reasoning behind the Iraq War is now a decade old...no need to rehash it now. It's also off topic.

Let's get back on topic.

The development of Iranian troops entering the battlefield to assist Iraq is huge news.

Yes indeed...they may well help Iraq avoid being taken by the Al Queda affiliated ISIS...but they will not do it for free. Iran is going to grow in power and influence as a reult.

Click to expand...

delft said:

As you describe it, Jeff, I'm anew impressed by the madness of the Bush presidency. And if it leads to Iran being able to stop the sponsorship of terrorists by other countries in the area, well, good for them. Perhaps we'll be able to thank Bush, a very little bit.
I'm not in any way connected with Iran but it seems to be the only strong country in the area with a well thinking leadership.

Click to expand...