Iraq: Out of the desert into Mosul (closed)

[Dayuhan]

It is the core issue of the resolution of the Sunni Shia clash, and the clash of the regional hegomones Iran and the KSA with a rising hegemon Turkey.

These are indeed core issues, but they aren't issues that the US, or anyone else, is going to resolve any time soon. The Sunni/Shi'a or Saudi/Iran clash has been going on a long time, and is likely to go on a whole lot longer: both sides are going to snipe at each other directly and fight with each other by proxy for a long time, with neither able to win and neither likely to accept a negotiated solution. Does the US really need to take sides in that dispute, or to get involved in it?

Not to say the issue with a new Kurdish state that even the EU has stated they do not want to occur.

That's going to be a problem, because the only way to prevent the emergence of a Kurdish state is to keep Iraq together as a coherent nation. Is anyone willing to commit to that objective, and is anyone likely to achieve it? I certainly don't think it's a suitable objective for the US.

[OUTLAW 09]

These are indeed core issues, but they aren't issues that the US, or anyone else, is going to resolve any time soon. The Sunni/Shi'a or Saudi/Iran clash has been going on a long time, and is likely to go on a whole lot longer: both sides are going to snipe at each other directly and fight with each other by proxy for a long time, with neither able to win and neither likely to accept a negotiated solution. Does the US really need to take sides in that dispute, or to get involved in it?



That's going to be a problem, because the only way to prevent the emergence of a Kurdish state is to keep Iraq together as a coherent nation. Is anyone willing to commit to that objective, and is anyone likely to achieve it? I certainly don't think it's a suitable objective for the US.

Totally correct assumptions.

What is going on in Iraq and Syria--let them settle it and offer as far as possible humanitarian aid and advice and consultations towards and end state---it is just the US does not know what the end state is going to be so it should sit tight and wait---the populations on the ground will work it out.

The hegemons Iran, KSA and Turkey although Turkey is still viewed as the Ottomann empire will need in the end to figure it out which they will and as they do so will the Sunni/Shia problem be resolved.

[OUTLAW 09]

Even the Germans are taken notice of the IS battlefield tactics speed coupled with the aggressiveness of swarm attacks, and we supposedly did not see this development in Iraq starting late 2005?

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/auslan...-a-986826.html

[davidbfpo]

Richard Barrett, ex-SIS (MI6) and UN, has been interviewed and is scathing about intervention in Iraq / Syria. I have cited him at length, editing out gaps in the article:http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014...&utm_hp_ref=uk

....does rather play to the [jihadist] narrative that these bad regimes are being supported by outside powers and, therefore, if you get too close to overthrowing them, the outside powers will come and beat you up.

The people who were "going to fight [Bashar Al] Assad or [former Iraqi prime minister Nouri Al] Maliki are now seeing a broader enemy" in the form of the US and UK governments. "The argument that they could also achieve the same [result] by [conducting] terrorist attacks in Western countries becomes stronger [though] not necessarily inevitable.


If ISIS pull back from Mosul, as a result of air strikes, they're not going to disappear, they'll still be out there...Their justification will be: 'If it hadn't been for air strikes we would be fine, establishing our caliphate [in Iraq].. Why did you mess with us? Now we'll mess with you.


(Citing Libya) military intervention without a proper plan to follow up had all sorts of unintended consequences and led to chaos and instability"


He also noted how Cameron has conceded that the struggle against Islamic State and other jihadist groups is ultimately a fight within the Muslim-majority world, between moderates and extremists, but asked: "If that's the case then what are we doing there? Where are the Saudi aircraft? There's a disconnect between what [Cameron's] saying and what's he's doing.


You start with some air strikes then you have a few more, then we need people down there to tell us where targets are [so] we put special forces in, then they're in a pickle and they need force protection, before you know it, we're drawn down this road that has no obvious ending..



Military action, said Barrett, should always be a last resort and isn't the "tool that is going to solve the [Islamic State] problem. Look at Libya, look at Afghanistan, look at Iraq in 2003. It's just reaching for a hammer because it is a hammer and it's to hand."

[JWing]

Outlaw there was a report in a Kurdish paper that the PUK called in Iranian advisers to help it with Jalawla, Diyala. Another story had Iranian mobilization along the border as well.

[JWing]

My latest article on the Shiite militia mobilization in Iraq. Actually started in 2013 in response to renewed insurgency. By Jan 2014 many were pulling their men out of Syria and redeploying them to Iraq. April was major recruitment and Syrian militias started working in Iraq. With the exception of the Sadrists this was all aided and organized by Iran. Shows weakness of Iraqi state which could not protect its citizens, now has Iran running part of its security file, and will not be able to diminish the militias when all is said and done because they have integrated more into government. Also leading to renewed sectarian killings, which Baghdad has said/done nothing about. Here's a link.

[OUTLAW 09]

Interesting article on the IS referencing views of US intel.


http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/po..._islamic_state

[jcustis]

James Foley's beheading was different that anything I've seen before in the barbarism used by jihadists to strike home fear.

The open-air murders of kneeling, bound Iraqi civilians and soldiers dates back to 2003, and they follow a common theme that many of us with access to the raw footage have seen before.

Yesterday was very different, and Foley's captors seem to have taken some lengths to achieve a specific impact, based on several things the video shows.

First, they deliberately shaved his head, and have likely kept it shaved for some time. Considering the wooly-haired appearance of most IS fighter's
Foley's bare scalp showed something else. Perhaps they were trying to message frailty and weakness.

Second, the choice of a barren landscape seems chosen to evoke an image of the purity and strength of IS, as well as its dominating power even though it is being exerted over an unarmed man. As I watched the video, I truly felt as if I was right there watching events transpire. There was no clutter, no other IS knuckleheads in the frame touting rifles and wearing the paraphernalia of jihad. There was one masked murderer and one captive. pure black and pure orange. One lone knife.

The breeze blew at their garments, and the images took me back to every day spent underneath merciless suns in Iraq and Afghanistan. I felt my palms begin to sweat.

It was murder, plain and simple, and I felt so sad for Foley's family, friends and co-workers who have held on to hope that he is alive, only to know he suffered an unimaginable death as a pawn in a larger conflict.

This one seemed markedly different.