U.S. just send a divisional command to run a training mission for the Iraqi forces and sent three teams out into the field one in Diyala and two to Anbar. One is being assigned to Al-Assad base in Anbar which was under attack yesterday. First step by Obama administration to rebuild ground forces in Iraq, but only a baby step. Here's a link to my article.
Bob's world
The problem with creating a Sunni state in Iraq is that it would be unsustainable. There are few resources to build an economy around in the Sunni regions of Iraq, plus they are not contiguous.
I will posture the following---as long as the US maintains bombing and does not introduce ground troops which is really what the IS wants the Sunni's will keep the Shia bottled up for the coming months as all attempts by the Shia militia and ISF has shown they have no abilities in throwing the IS out of Sunni territory.
That includes bottling up Baghdad.
The question become through with the falling oil prices just how long Baghdad can afford to fight and how long with the Iranians hang on?
The KSA and Kuwait are signaling a level of 60 is fine for them--but can Iraq and Iran go along---not really?
So the Russian are suffering now via the oil prices for their support of Assad---notice the KSA is not fighting hard to support the oil prices that support the Russian budget--makes one wonder of the KSA is also targeting Iraq and Iran?
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 10-16-2014 at 03:30 PM.
Here is the impact on Iran.Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09
Los Angeles Times ✔ @latimes
Drop in global oil prices threatens to hit Russia and Iran harder than Western economic sanctions have done:
http://lat.ms/1tYDt2g
True, but those are solvable problems and it paves the way for getting to sufficient trust for natural stability to re-emerge.
The best one can achieve by simply attacking ISIL and committing to the re-establishment of the status quo is to re-set the conditions of failure and change who the next leader to emerge to address these conditions will be.
The worst is that we completely alienate Sunni Muslims globally in a manner that lends even more strength to AQ; and also stoke this small fire into a conflagration that erupts within other disenfranchised Sunni populations across the Arabian Peninsula.
Better to attempt a difficult strategy that has the potential to succeed, than to take an easier course that is doomed to fail.
Robert C. Jones
Intellectus Supra Scientia
(Understanding is more important than Knowledge)
"The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)
About 90 years ago, Britain created just such a state that was named 'Transjordan'.
For the first 40 years of its existence, this was completely dependable on British financial support.
...which is a reason more to wonder why is Obama showing such restraint and even 'understanding for higher Iranian national interests' - in upholding the Assadist regime in Syria.
There is no explanation for this... well, except Iran has what a pal of mine tends to call 'assets not publicly known'. Though, existence of such would then really 'explain everything'.
*********
BTW, Outlaw: I am still waiting for a 'translation' of your question above. No problem to answer it - all provided I would understand it.
The legend is that Transjordan was "Churchill's thumb" - that he placed his fist and thumb on the map, traced a line around it and proclaimed it to be the new Transjordan.
Inherently illegitimate, and as accurately pointed out here, void of the fundamental resources to be a true state.
We cannot draw the new borders, but we can create the conditions for fighting to stop, new lines to form and negotiations to ensure that each entity that emerges has the fundamental basics to support a functioning state.
Drawing lines for others, creating governments for others, and overly attempting to preserve an increasingly irrelevant status quo by suppressing conflict are all activities that are increasingly inappropriate or even infeasible in the emergent environment.
Robert C. Jones
Intellectus Supra Scientia
(Understanding is more important than Knowledge)
"The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)
Bob's world: "True, but those are solvable problems and it paves the way for getting to sufficient trust for natural stability to re-emerge."
What is "natural stability"? there is no such thing. There are existing patterns of culture and ethnicity and religion that make some solutions easier than others, but the elastic limit is not easy to know in advance. There was an Iraqi state, it was "unnatural" (with a Sunni Arab minority lording it over Shias and Kurds), but it held together for 80 years and could well have held out longer. Could even recover from its current disunion, though that does not look very likely. Sunni Arabs armed with Islamist ideology may not accept whatever limited territory you are going to grant them. Or they may. Its not that one of these arrangements is NECESSARILY going to work or is impossible.
I am not really disagreeing with your call to reassess the "mission". I just think that the ideological glue that will hold any Sunni Iraqi statelet will (today and in the near future, not some eternal essence) be Islamist in nature and will demand expansion into "naturally" shia and Kurdish areas, making "natural stability" very difficult. Isolation of ISIS led Iraq until military defeat is the only option there, though one can make the case that it is a job for Saudi Arabia and Iran and other neighbors..and whatever mercenaries they can bring to bear, not necessarily for the US. Some of them may opt to join ISIS-led Iraq rather than fight them. That too may not be an American problem, though it is a problem for people in the region...
In short, I dont think America can easily come up with a BETTER solution than the current muddled policy, but CAN get itself to the sidelines (or be clearer about what it will and will not do and what it CAN and CANNOT do).
A bad situation for years is pretty much guaranteed. You dont have to take my word for it, but I am not the only one saying that...
American mistakes helped bring this about. But American good sense will not necessarily make it all good in any reasonably short time frame. The caliphate Jinn is out of the bottle.
See this video from the TTP in Pakistan. The guy in the video is an ex-army doctor. When he talks about what Islam demands of us, I can hear my teachers in military school 40 years ago. Sure, it was possible that future generations of students would take the ideology of Pakistan as non-seriously as most of us did, but after 20 billion dollars pumped in for the Afghan Jihad etc, that option is now officially closed. #### happens.
http://www.mediafire.com/watch/?75piv2l2qtc6s6w
btw, notice that the good doctor was able to get to TTP-land after being arrested in Croatia and deported to Pakistan for being a jihadist. The ideology is attractive to people, even to people deputed to fight it...
Last edited by omarali50; 10-16-2014 at 09:04 PM.
Artificial stability is when the primary purpose of security force is to protect the government from the people. This is the essence of military stability operations. Such a system requires tremendous security "energy" to sustain. Often we create this and think we have solved the problem, leading us to remove the very energy that is keeping revolution in check. The results are predictable. Thus the rise of ISIS, and coming soon, the re-emergence of the Taliban with the government of Afghanistan compressed once again to the ring road and control of a handful of cities.
Natural Stability is when the primary purpose of security forces is to protect the people from each other so as to allow society to go about the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness in the context of their respective culture. This still requires security energy, but much less and with a very different focus.
You have to impose one to get to the other. But one has to address fundamental drivers of revolution if one hopes to make that transition. Our dedication to restoring the status quo of Iraq as we left it creates conditions that make ever getting to natural stability largely infeasible.
Robert C. Jones
Intellectus Supra Scientia
(Understanding is more important than Knowledge)
"The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)
^^...which is actually a very simple concept: indeed so much so, I do not understand why are there so many people who know nothing about it?
I just interviewed Georgetown's Daveed Gartenstein-Ross about the Islamic State's commander responsible for the on going offensive in Anbar and IS's general tactics and strategy. Here's a link.
with oil heading to 60 per barrel---there is no impact on Iran--come on...AND Opec increasing pumping and not worrying about 60 per barrel--can Iran get up not really.....
I'm at home sick from work but I was still able to write a short piece on how Premier Abadi has announced that the fake bomb detectors will finally be replaced in Iraq. These have been one of the biggest corruption scandals in Iraq that have cost the lives of thousands. It's a small but important move by the new premier. Here's a link.
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