Tag Archives: Iraq

Is the US trying to build a new case for war in Syria?

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Various hints become more concrete today as the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff suggested that ISIS could only be stopped by entering the Syrian civil war directly:

Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday afternoon that it would not be possible to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria without attacking its fighters in Syria.

General Dempsey, speaking at a news conference with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, did not commit the United States to carrying out airstrikes in Syria, and the Obama administration’s broader strategy for defeating the Sunni militant group remained unclear.

 
Although I think it’s fair to say that acting against ISIS in Iraq only would not really defeat or destroy them, I also don’t think that’s an automatic case for escalating to jump into the mess in Syria. The policy so far has been a sort of updated version of the Cold War “containment doctrine,” but taking the further step of intervening in Syria (rather than just Iraq) would be a bit like the U.S. trying to contain the spread of communism into South Vietnam by attacking North Vietnam from the air. On paper, it may have made logical sense (cut the external support, contain the threat outside the borders), but we never really had a coherent plan there either — since we didn’t invade the north and we never really committed to toppling the regime or replacing it with anything — and look how that turned out.

I’m sure they think it’s a similar situation and therefore also shouldn’t be done piecemeal (like Vietnam was, which bled us out). But going into Syria at all opens the door to having to go in completely. Containment requires enough energy on its own without having to go the extra mile of ending the threat everywhere and filling the vacuum it leaves behind.

I’m particularly frustrated by the fact this is coming up again, given that members of Congress and the US public (as well as the UK parliament and British public) made very clear last August and September that they were not interested in getting U.S. forces directly involved in Syria’s civil war. On top of today’s pronouncement by Dempsey, there were claims last weekend by Syrian rebel leaders who oppose both ISIS and the Syrian government that the US had asked them to try to drum up global support for U.S. military actions in Syria. Which, combined with the official outrage over the beheading of an American photojournalist, makes this all sound like a manufactured government effort to whip up public outrage and by extension support for military actions the public rejected a year ago.

In other words: if at first you don’t succeed (in rallying public support for illegal, unilateral involvement in a quagmire by choice), try, try again … 365 days later.
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ISIS ushers in era of new good feelings among Kurds, Turks

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Middle East alphabet soup of harmony: ISIS brings together PKK and KDP, with AKP blessing, in a fascinating turn of events for the Middle East.

The respective military wings of Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) from Turkey and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) from Iraq, which essentially hate each other, are now working together in Iraq against ISIS.

The President of Iraq’s Kurdish region, Massoud Barzani, visited fighters of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) for the first time last week, after the PKK joined Kurdish Peshmerga forces to expel the Islamic State group from the town of Makhmour.

In a video published online, Barzani thanked the PKK fighters: “We are brothers. They [Islamic State fighters] are the enemy of the people of Kurdistan. We have one destiny; we will do everything, what we can,” Barzani said.

 
kurdistan-map-ciaThe Iraqi ex-insurgency KDP has often sparred directly with — and even allied itself militarily against — the PKK insurgency in Turkey for many years. This is partially due to infighting, as two of the three biggest Kurdish factions across the region, over who is the “leader” of the pan-Kurdish national liberation movement (if one exists) in Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Turkey. But it’s also due to Turkey’s tendency to threaten the Iraqi Kurds if they are seen as helping the PKK. After a while, it just became easier to oppose the PKK out of self-preservation. Plus, since Turkey is a NATO member, all the NATO members including the United States are supposed to support Turkey’s counterinsurgency operations against the PKK separatists. Since the US is the main international supporter of the Iraqi Kurds, including the Kurdish Democratic Party, aiding and abetting the PKK was a big no-no.
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August 13, 2014 – Arsenal For Democracy 95

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AFD-logo-470

Topics: Big Ideas in U.S. Reform – Guaranteed Incomes vs Job Creation; Higher Education Reform. Iraq analysis. People: Bill, Persephone, Nate. Produced: August 10, 2014.

Discussion Points:

– Big Idea: Should government guarantee minimum incomes or guarantee jobs? What is the purpose of employment?
– Big Idea: What is the government’s proper role in reforming and regulating higher education?
– Iraq: How far should the current U.S. intervention go?

Part 1 – Income vs Jobs:
Part 1 – Guaranteed Incomes – AFD 95
Part 2 – Higher Ed Reform:
Part 2 – Higher Ed Reform – AFD 95
Part 3 – Iraq Intervention:
Part 3 – Iraq Intervention – AFD 95

To get one file for the whole episode, we recommend using one of the subscribe links at the bottom of the post.

Related links
Segment 1

– Vox: A guaranteed income for every American would eliminate poverty — and it wouldn’t destroy the economy

Segment 2

– Slate: The Dangerous Conservative Idea for Making College Cheaper

Segment 3

– AFD: Questionable complaints from Baghdad
– AFD: Analysis of Mosul Dam, Mount Sinjar, U.S. Airstrikes
– AFD: Who are the Yazidis at Mount Sinjar right now?
– AFD: ISIS rolls back Kurdish forces in Iraq. What’s next?

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U.S. begins direct weapons shipments to Iraqi Kurds

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Last week, Kurdish fighters had faulted severe ammunition shortages and lack of help from Baghdad for the loss of a number of key northern cities and the abandonment of some strategic targets and vulnerable civilian populations. I predicted that, despite years of fearful resistance by the central government politicians to the idea of the United States re-arming the semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government without going through Baghdad, the United States would be forced to exactly that and fast. The New York Times reports that U.S. direct weapons supplies have begun:

The Central Intelligence Agency has begun directly supplying weapons to pesh merga fighters, administration officials said, after weeks of pleas and demands from leaders in the country’s semiautonomous Kurdish region for help in fighting ISIS. But it remains unclear just how much weaponry the United States has funneled through to the Kurds so far; Defense officials said they would probably begin sending small-arms munitions soon, too.

 
The move is sure to further infuriate the Sadrist Movement — Shia hardliners — and probably some of the Islamic Dawa Party members aligned with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (who appears to be strenuously resisting attempts to replace him), who have opposed anything that might decentralize power in Iraq.

An unnamed U.S. official also commented on the apparent disjunction between the hard-earned fierce and competent reputation of the Kurdish peshmerga troops and their repeated retreats in recent weeks (which continued today):

“The pesh merga are composed of capable, disciplined forces who deserve their reputation as fierce mountain-war fighters,” a United States official said. “However, it’s been almost a decade since their mostly light infantry brigades have been tested in battle, so it’s not surprising that they’ve taken some knocks from ISIL.”

 
That was what I was starting to hypothesize myself, in recent days: They were such effective guerrilla resistance forces that everyone eventually just left them alone, which then meant that after a while they were no longer “battle-tested.” In contrast, ISIS had battled its way across Syria and Western Iraq for more than a year, fighting against two central governments and competing insurgent forces. But with proper supplies, the Iraqi Kurds have a better shot than anyone else in the region for turning back ISIS.
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Questionable complaints from Baghdad

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The current whinging by the Sadrist bloc of Shias in the Iraqi parliament is absurd. They’re mad that the U.S. won’t give the Shia-run central government more fighter planes, but they keep using their planes to drop anti-civilian barrel bombs on Sunni towns.

And they’re mad that the U.S. is only conducting airstrikes now that the Kurdistan Region is being shelled and hit with missiles, but we’ve been allied with the Kurds since the early 90s and they’ve essentially never been anything but nice to the United States.

In contrast, the Sadrists arguably take orders from Iran, and their Mahdi Army repeatedly attacked U.S. forces in Iraq from 2004 to 2008. I’m sorry, but you don’t get to cry about us not giving you weapons after you used your weapons before to attack us.

Here are some of the complaints quoted in the New York Times:

“Obama’s speech did not delight Iraqis,” said Hakim al-Zamili, a leader of a main Shiite bloc in Parliament, the Sadr faction, who were among the strongest opponents of American involvement in Iraq. “They are looking out for their own interests, not for ours.”

“They should have provided Iraq with weapons,” Mr. Zamili added, possibly alluding to the United States’ suspension of deliveries of F-16 fighter jets and combat aircraft to Iraq.

Another Shiite leader, Sami al-Askari, who is close to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, said Mr. Obama’s call for airstrikes had come “too late.”

“They should have made this decision when hundreds of Shiites and Sunnis were being killed every day,” Mr. Askari said.

Mr. Askari accused the Obama administration of being interested only in “protecting the Kurdish regional government and Christians, not the rest of Iraq.”

Can’t you just feel the sincere concern from the politicians whose forces conducted ethnic cleansing?

Summary of developments in northern Iraq for August 9, 2014

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The Obama Administration is apparently determined to prevent the fall of Erbil, Kurdistan Region’s capital, at all costs (or at the very least whatever it takes short of ground troops — though that might be on the table, too, as discussed below). It’s one of the advantages of being a longstanding protectorate and ally of the United States. The President ordered airstrikes on ISIS missile launchers and mortars as soon as Erbil came under long-range attack because most of the U.S. presence in Iraq (outside Baghdad itself) is located there and locals were already evacuating in a panic. The concern was that mass evacuation left Americans at the Erbil consulate and other sites even more vulnerable.

The U.S. military also asserts that the ISIS capture of Mosul Dam poses a risk to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, so I suspect it’s within the realm of possibility that we may see U.S. Special Forces land to re-take it very soon. Presumably this would be a very limited action to eject ISIS troops from the dam facilities and (one hopes) set up more secure defenses to help local paramilitaries and the Iraqi security forces hold it against future attacks. The destruction of this Tigris river dam, as attempted unsuccessfully by Saddam Hussein in 2003, would likely release quasi-apocalyptic flood conditions on the rest of Iraq to the south. That, however, would require ISIS to make the calculation that destroying the city of Mosul and much of their own territory in the process was worth the destructive power further south. It seems more probable they will use the dam, which is the country’s largest hydroelectric dam, to cut off water and power to the south. A 65-foot tall wall of water smashing through Mosul, the most important city in ISIS hands, seems a bit too Hollywood. Thus, it might not make much sense for the U.S. military to try to re-take the dam.

On the other northern front, Syrian Kurdish forces say they have broken out 10% of the Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar, which is located near the Iraq-Syria border. They will be taken across into an anti-ISIS rebel-held area of Syrian Kurdistan.

The mountain, which is perhaps better described as a 25-mile-long and 10-mile-wide ridge, is a dozen or so miles from the Syrian border.

USGS Satellite Image of Mount Sinjar ridge. Dark, bent line in the upper left corner is the Syrian border.

USGS Satellite Image of Mount Sinjar ridge. Dark, bent line in the upper left corner is the Syrian border.

It’s a very distressing situation. Before any evacuations, 40-50,000 people were trapped on a mountain without food or water, completely surrounded by ISIS forces. The latter are reported slowly starting to move in and are snatching women and girls. U.S. and Kurdish relief aircraft are continuing to drop food, water, and other supplies on to the mountain — reportedly under enemy fire.

Meanwhile, the Kurdistan Region has had to absorb 200,000 internally displaced Iraqis since Monday alone. On top of that, tens of thousands of local residents started moving southward within the region on Thursday in an effort to evacuate before ISIS invades.

Who are the Yazidis at Mount Sinjar right now?

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Yesterday, U.S. and Turkish relief military operations began to try to help tens of thousands of displaced Yazidi Iraqi civilians who have been surrounded without food or water at Mount Sinjar, a Yazidi holy site, by ISIS forces.

These civilians belong to a long-suffering minority religious sect based in Iraq, and their latest oppressors at ISIS have shown themselves to be deeply inflexible toward even their own fellow Sunni Muslim Arabs. The Yazidi adherents are a predominantly Kurdish-speaking people but are very close-knit and inward-looking, like many of the very small Middle Eastern minority religious groups, most of which also prohibit marriage outside the faith on pain of death.

For global perspective, the Yazidi population has faced over 70 different concerted attempts in history to exterminate their entire population. This is done on the grounds they are “devil worshipers,” in an apparent misinterpretation of their monotheistic fusion doctrine that merges elements of Islam, Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, and a range of other Mesopotamian, classical, and pre-modern Middle Eastern faiths from the northern Iraq and western Iran areas. The primary point of contention is that they believe God’s most favored archangel (Azazel/Lucifer) did not fall from grace (to become Shaitan/Satan) and should be revered for refusing to bend to mankind on the orders of God, because he was actually complying with earlier orders from God not to bow to anyone, and God made him the leader of the archangels as a reward for remembering that.

The Yazidis are now a relatively small sect worldwide (no more than 700,000 and possibly less than 250,000). There are 40,000-50,000 members trapped on the mountain right now. It’s difficult to keep track of their current numbers after more than a decade of nationwide unrest in Iraq, but that figure may amount to more than half the remaining homeland/Iraqi population of Yazidi followers.

In 2007, New York Times reported at the time, terrorists detonated four bombs that were so big they flattened two entire towns full of Yazidis. The eventual death toll was estimated at just under 800, making it the second worst terrorist attack in modern world history — and one that further shrank an already endangered community.

Location of Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq. (Credit: Urutseg on Wikimedia)

Location of Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq. (Credit: Urutseg on Wikimedia)