Iraq: Out of the desert into Mosul (closed)

[carl]

Bill:

The IS goes beyond a dispute among Muslims. Way beyond. This is an ideology that has designs on the world. We underestimate them at our peril. I keep bringing up the Bolsheviks from 100 years ago as a parallel. If that is right, we will regret not taking action, at least to the extent of shipping money and weapons to the Kurds. We won't even do that.

[ganulv]

Bill:

The IS goes beyond a dispute among Muslims. Way beyond. This is an ideology that has designs on the world. We underestimate them at our peril. I keep bringing up the Bolsheviks from 100 years ago as a parallel.

The Bolsheviks were a mix of a lot of thugs, some thinkers, and some sadists. IS appears to be made up of some thugs and lots of sadists.

I get the impression that they’re as vicious as the Khmer Rouge and not as smart. YMMV, but I don’t see how that mix could bode well for their long term fortunes.

[carl]

The Bolsheviks were a mix of a lot of thugs, some thinkers, and some sadists. IS appears to be made up of some thugs and lots of sadists.

I get the impression that they’re as vicious as the Khmer Rouge and not as smart. YMMV, but I don’t see how that mix could bode well for their long term fortunes.

Perhaps. But I figure we have to judge by accomplishments which have been pretty impressive so far. I think we may be reluctant to say the devil incarnate is devilishly intelligent, but if they are we had better recognize it.

Zenpundit comments that one of the aspects of their genius is despite their horrific cruelty, they are still hanging on to a sort of moral high ground in the Muslim world, witness all those young foreign men flocking to their banner. He compares it to the sort of moral high ground the Commies held for decades amongst so many people in the West despite their murdering tens of millions.

These guys are damn smart. It hurts to say that about people so bad but I think it is true.

[slapout9]

Perhaps. But I figure we have to judge by accomplishments which have been pretty impressive so far. I think we may be reluctant to say the devil incarnate is devilishly intelligent, but if they are we had better recognize it.

Zenpundit comments that one of the aspects of their genius is despite their horrific cruelty, they are still hanging on to a sort of moral high ground in the Muslim world, witness all those young foreign men flocking to their banner. He compares it to the sort of moral high ground the Commies held for decades amongst so many people in the West despite their murdering tens of millions.

These guys are damn smart. It hurts to say that about people so bad but I think it is true.

Yes, and can you believe our fearless commander and chief is still going on vacation with his 1% banker buddies at Martha Vineyard. We are a completely leaderless country and the Muzzelims know it. Those folks that have been warning us for years that he is a secret Muslim don't look so crazy now.

[ganulv]

Zenpundit comments that one of the aspects of their genius is despite their horrific cruelty, they are still hanging on to a sort of moral high ground in the Muslim world, witness all those young foreign men flocking to their banner. He compares it to the sort of moral high ground the Commies held for decades amongst so many people in the West despite their murdering tens of millions.

There was a certain kind of Western support for the Soviet project in its earliest years. There was even an analogous emigration to the Soviet Union. There was a very different, at-a-distance support after Stalin Gulag-ed and purged those emigrants. It’s way too soon to see if things will play out the same way with the IS. But AQ in Iraq had decent popular support at one point, too, but they couldn’t help overplaying their hand. And this crew has been rejected by AQ in Iraq for being too hardcore!

These guys are damn smart. It hurts to say that about people so bad but I think it is true.

They’ve done a good job of seeing the opportunity in a crisis, there’s no denying that.

It’s apples and oranges in the end, but after your comparison to the Bolsheviks had sat with me for a couple of hours it occurred to me that as extremist leftist movements go, the IS reminds me more of the Shining Path. They’re completely uncompromising and own up to the violence they perpetrate. They can keep the members of a civilian populace and a government apparatus in states of terror, but they don’t really have much of a plan for maintaining a society. There are societies that have been run on pure fear for decades, but the showrunners came to power singing a different tune. The initial years of Kim-il Sung and Gaddafi had something of a mandate, and those two leveraged their mandates into strangleholds on civil society. There’s really not any indication that the IS has anything like a mandate, is there?

Anyway, just thinking out loud. I certainly don’t think “out of sight, out of mind” is the way to treat the IS, if that isn’t clear.

[Bill Moore]

Bill:

The IS goes beyond a dispute among Muslims. Way beyond. This is an ideology that has designs on the world. We underestimate them at our peril. I keep bringing up the Bolsheviks from 100 years ago as a parallel. If that is right, we will regret not taking action, at least to the extent of shipping money and weapons to the Kurds. We won't even do that.

Carl,

I have written similar comments and still agree with myself , but that still doesn't mean the best way to fight them is to get in the middle of them fighting each other. In my opinion you're damn right they're a global threat, and most importantly to us they're a threat to our nation and our interests. There is no daylight between us on that aspect.

Where we tend to diverge is how to deal with the threat, do we gain strategic advantage by getting bogged down in a quagmire in Syria? I don't think we do, and since there are already many countries providing support to the various separatist groups and Assad we won't bring much to the table to begin with, and we sure as heck IMO don't want to own the Syrian problem if Assad does fall. That plays into the AQ strategy of weakening our economy through prolonged asymmetric warfare. I also suspect we're providing covert support, and covert means you shouldn't be aware of it, but we can still suspect it. Again comments that we're not doing anything may not be accurate. This is one reason low visibility and covert operations are a difficult policy tool for democracies, since voters want to see action, or politicians risk getting tossed out. In many cases, again IMO, covert action would be the most intelligent approach, but political pressure often denies the President that option. The commis on Fox News beat the drums that it all the President's fault, while the commis on CNN want to have a hug fest with Hamas and wonder why Israel actually needs to kill people to defend themselves, but I digress.

For Iraq, I think the situation is presenting us with an opportunity to strike AQ while maintain legitimacy. The President may prove to be right in his decision to postpone striking to let the situation evolve and put pressure on the Iraqi government to reform or die, and also to remind the people just how bad AQ is, so they'll be willing to rise up against them when the time is right. As a nation we don't have strategic patience, but these would seem good approaches to me to decisively defeat them in Iraq. I don't know what his calculus is, so while frustrated like most, I'm not passing judgment on his strategy until I understand it.

The best thing that can happen in this fight is that the Iraqi people rise up (with supporting fires from the U.S. and others) and crush ISIS. That would be both a physical and psychological victory that could compel other entities to do the same.

[carl]

Bill:

Very well argued, especially your point about covert action. The problem is too big for just covert action perhaps. From what I read, the Kurds need ammo and heavy weapons. There aren't many ways to provide the quantities needed on the sly. Masses of weapons are masses of weapons.

The other problem is with waiting so people can see how bad IS really is. At best that is an extremely tricky matter of timing, you get it wrong and a lot of people die. The Yazidis are finding that out now. You get it wrong and too, the IS gets that much stronger through the process of terrifying people into inaction or acquiesence (sic). Once their morale is broken through terror it takes a whole lot to get it back to the point where they will act. Watching your son get his head cut off tends to induce inaction I think. By our waiting that terror induced catatonia grows deeper.

The other thing I think is rising up against IS is going to be far, far harder now than it was in 2006 and 2007 because the strongest tribe, the US military, isn't there anymore. They couldn't have done it then without the strongest tribe to back them up. And the longer we wait, the harder it will get.

I do not however advocate sending ground troops back in. Lots of money, weapons, guys like you to guide things, aircraft like the old Air Commandos, AC-130s, the 160th maybe, but only if we do it such a way as to not become the Shia air force. In any event back the Kurds and any Sunni tribes who want to fight. We should have plenty of guys like you who still know the sheiks by first name who can coordinate things.

Anyway, you argue your position well and I think we mostly disagree on timing. I think it is of the essence.