Monday, October 20, 2014

Iraq's Third-Largest Military Base Is In Danger Of Falling To The Islamic State

Iraqis Desperate For Air Cover As U.S. Moves Warplanes To Kobani -- McClatchy News

IRBIL, Iraq — With the U.S. seemingly focused on helping Kurdish militias fight off an Islamic State advance at Kobani on the Turkey-Syria border, Islamist militants this week have seized one key military base in Iraq’s Anbar province and have laid siege to another, with no major increase in U.S. air support for the beleaguered Iraqi security forces.

Reports from Kobani indicate that intense U.S. airstrikes there have driven back Islamic State fighters, while in Anbar the militants’ advance has been unrelenting. On Tuesday, the Islamic State captured heavy artillery and an unknown number of weapons including machine guns and ammunition when it overran an Iraqi base outside the city of Hit. Now the group has surrounded the Ain Asad air base, northwest of Hit, the country’s third largest military facility.

Read more ....

Update: Iraq's Third-Largest Military Base Is In Danger Of Falling To ISIS -- Business Insider

My Comment: The blows against the Iraqi army just keeps on coming.

11 comments:

James said...

Pin our focus on Kobane while taking Baghdad. Kobane for Baghdad not a bad trade.

Unknown said...

I for one said Obama and the Democrats would be over if Kobane fell.

Maybe they read the polls. You would expect so, since they are politicians.

But is not a quid pro quo. We are using 2% of our air power. We have commitments elsewhere in the world, but I would think we would have enough for Anbar, the Mosul Area and Kobane.

So the American military force is being hollowed out form one that could fight a 2 major wars to one that cannot support 2 major battles.

Either we cannot support 2 major battles or our leaders are feckless.

But I will say this for our leaders. If you donate 500,000, you too can become ambassador to Belgium.

"We live in the best of all possible worlds"!

James said...

We do Aizino, but if my guess is correct ISIS knowingly or not made Kobane a photo op battle that Obama can't lose. If Baghdad falls or even becomes a larger photo op battle, then what does ISIS care about Kobane? Either ISIS (on purpose) or the Administration (unwittingly) has made this whole US involvement not just a military problem for the US, but more importantly a do or die political problem for the Administration.

Publius said...

I agree with the comments above. The erosion in the Iraqi Government's position in Anbar (and ultimately Baghdad) is much more important than whether Kobani stands or falls to ISIS.

We must recall that there are four main players, not two, in the coalition against ISIS. I wonder whether the fiasco in Anbar reflects disputes among them:

1. The Iraqi Government. As usual, the Iraqis are trying to get somebody else to do their fighting for them. It is not clear, to me at least, that the Iraqi Army will fight at all, even with the knowledge that ISIS will cut all the heads off their surrendering soldiers. The U.S. spent 10 years, over 4,000 American lives, many Americans wounded, and trillions of dollars, and after all that, the Iraqi Army still can't defend its own bases, let alone territory. When one adds the contributions in blood and treasure of the other Western coalition, the contribution to Iraq over the past years was even larger. I am not eager to rush in now to help such a valiant ally.

2. The West. The United States, plus the other Western countries (such as the UK, Canada, etc.) are ideal allies from the perspective of the Iraqi Government. We have the best militaries. We do not drive a hard bargain for our help. Moreover, we are not neighbors, and when this war end we will leave. For those reasons, Iraq naturally wants help from us, and their public pleas are designed for our consumption. But as noted above, the West has already spent massive blood and treasure in Iraq, and what did we get for it? Western reluctance to save Iraq again implies that the real target of Iraq's pleas is

3. Iran. The conquest of Iraq by ISIS would be a major defeat for the West, but it would be calamitous for Iran. Iran already has armed forces in Iraq and Syria fighting ISIS. The Iranians naturally prefer to fight ISIS using Americans, and they won't intervene in earnest unless we stay out. The Iranians will drive a hard bargain for their support, i.e. significant influence over the Iraqi Government, money payments, and veto power over certain Iraqi decisions, and even the Shiites in Iraq likely recognize the danger of Iran's embrace. Nevertheless, I think that if it becomes clear to Iran that the West won't save Iraq, the Iranians will have to intervene. I would like to think that the West's intervention in Kobani (but not in Anbar) is designed to remind Iran that we don't have to intervene everywhere. Unfortunately I fear that the current Administration does not think this way. Iran's forceful intervention will hasten the partition of Iraq, but one could argue that partition has already happened. This brings us to

4. Saudi Arabia and Iraq's Arab neighbors. As Sunnis, they are sympathetic to ISIS and have provided funds and suicide bombers for ISIS. But they likely prefer not to have ISIS rule them, and they are eager to channel ISIS' energy against Iran, their common enemy. A prolonged war between ISIS and Iran achieves multiple objectives: it bleeds Iran, it draws off their own radical youth who want to kill for Allah, etc. For them, whether Iraq remains united does not matter much, and partition may even be desirable if it foments war between ISIS and Iran. This calculation explains why the Arab air forces don't seem to have intervened much in Anbar so far.

James said...

Publius,
What has me wondering is what indicator would Iran use to decide that the West isn't going to save Iraq and therefore commence a large scale intervention? Is it the imminent fall of Baghdad? Or would hold off until the oil fields and Basra were threatened?

Publius said...

James,

Thank you for your comment.

My guess is that Iran has already developed a working map of "Shiitestan", i.e. that portion of Iraq that the Shiites/Iran will control once Iraq splinters. From Iran's perspective, that state would ideally require:

1. Defensible boundaries, which may mean using rivers and Shiite local populations, rather than imaginary lines in the sand.

2. Water. That may require Shiitestan to control at least some dams upstream of Baghdad.

3. Oil. Those oil fields not already controlled by the Kurds, although Iran may try to grasp Kurdish controlled fields back.

4. Strategic depth, i.e. no shared border between Iran and "Sunnistan".

I have no idea where Iran may draw those lines, i.e. whether Baghdad is inside or outside the line. Wherever Iran has determined those lines to be, I would guess that two things will precede Iran's intervention:

A. Iraq's demonstrated inability to hold that territory; and

B. Western refusal to intervene decisively enough to save Iraq. Ultimately, given the Iraqi Army's poor performance to date, I think ground combat troops will be required to save the situation. Ultimately, I think the West will not send ground troops in sufficient numbers to save Iraq.

James said...

Your welcome. For what it's worth my money says Iran won't let Baghdad fall. They can't lose what levers of power in the Iraqi government they possess there and the PR value of Baghdad in the Islamic world is pretty big. Well we'll see.

Unknown said...

1. Defensible boundaries

You have to have invisible lines in the sand. There is just too much land south & west of the Euphrates that is arable and is farmed by shiites.

There is no large river west or immediately south of Karbala.

There will have to be an invisible line stretching form west of Karbala to the Kuwait border.

You did have the caveat or addition of shiite population. the city of Karbala would qualify of course.

***

One reason the the Palestinian Israeli conflict is not settle is due to the watershed.

The amount for water that would be allowed to flow south would have to be worked out.

Mexico and the U.S. has an agreement for the Colorado River. Not sure how good it is, but supposedly there is one.

Unknown said...

What if Iraqi Kurdistan merged with Iran?

It would bolster the Kurds already in Iran and give them a big voting bloc.

Sitting between a hostile Turkey, a hostile Islamic State and a neutral and use to be hostile Iran, it might make sense for the Kurds to join Iran. they are related languages.

Bring in so many Sunnis in might irrevocable change the character of Iran slowly & subtly but surely. But it might be a good thing for everyone and I mean everyone.

Unknown said...

The Iraqi army does not have a good track record.

But Iran has had a better track record of retraining the Syrian Army. They are in the process of training some of the Iraqi army or some of the militias

The Iranian trained Shiite militias might have a much better time of holding the line and rolling back some gains in areas that are not 100% Sunni like Diyala province.

I am not saying there won;t be war crimes & I am not condoning them. I am just saying that Iranian trained soldiers have done better against ISIS than regular Iraqi or Syrian army units.

Unknown said...

The Sunni Kurds are genetically and linguistically related. Also the Kurds want to feel safe and the Turks or the Sunni Arabs just don't do the trick.


My understanding is that the Shia sent missionaries into Iraq over 2 centuries or so to try convert them and they were successful.

After the 30 years Wars in Europe the Hapsburg dynasty re-catholicized Hungary and Bohemia.
If the Iranians governed with a light hand they could do something similar through financial inducements & propaganda.