Iraq: Out of the desert into Mosul (closed)

[JWing]

The U.S. has been pushing Baghdad to reform the Sahwa but the government is split on the issue. New PM Abadi seems open to it and has ordered discussions with sheikhs in Amman and Irbil. He's also talked about forming a National Guard. In Anbar they are trying to recruit 3,000-5,000 tribal fighters and they will be in part be trained by U.S. trainers at Al-Assad. The problem is that his coalition is far from convinced of this policy. Many of these tribes were with the insurgency and then when IS became more dominant flipped to the government such as the Albu Nimr that's been facing executions by IS recently. Others were with Baghdad from the beginning such as Abu Risha and the Hayes brothers in Anbar. The Jabour tribe in Salaahddin was split with some welcoming IS and some fighting. The point being the tribes are all over the place and there are many Shiite parties that are therefore weary of supporting them in the fear that they will just turn on the government again. That's the reason why the legislation to form the National Guard is stuck in parliament. Also the first group of tribal fighters were said to have graduated from Al-Assad but if the announcements of the recruiting and when they finished training are true they only got 1 week of classes at best. Also a tribal sheikh said that Baghdad had only provided weapons for 100 fighters to the Al-Assad base. Overall it's very complicated with a whole number of issues and therefore may not be effective any time soon.

[jcustis]

The U.S. has been pushing Baghdad to reform the Sahwa but the government is split on the issue. New PM Abadi seems open to it and has ordered discussions with sheikhs in Amman and Irbil. He's also talked about forming a National Guard. In Anbar they are trying to recruit 3,000-5,000 tribal fighters and they will be in part be trained by U.S. trainers at Al-Assad. The problem is that his coalition is far from convinced of this policy. Many of these tribes were with the insurgency and then when IS became more dominant flipped to the government such as the Albu Nimr that's been facing executions by IS recently. Others were with Baghdad from the beginning such as Abu Risha and the Hayes brothers in Anbar. The Jabour tribe in Salaahddin was split with some welcoming IS and some fighting. The point being the tribes are all over the place and there are many Shiite parties that are therefore weary of supporting them in the fear that they will just turn on the government again. That's the reason why the legislation to form the National Guard is stuck in parliament. Also the first group of tribal fighters were said to have graduated from Al-Assad but if the announcements of the recruiting and when they finished training are true they only got 1 week of classes at best. Also a tribal sheikh said that Baghdad had only provided weapons for 100 fighters to the Al-Assad base. Overall it's very complicated with a whole number of issues and therefore may not be effective any time soon.

I watched these sort of fledgling efforts wallow around before; in 2004. It was a #### show then, and with a precedent that powerful we can expect to see it happen again in 2015.