Why Should We Help the Kurds?

Why should we help the Kurds?   Because the Kurds could easily become another democratic island of stability in the Middle East, like Israel.  The Kurds are a group of people united by their own separate language and culture, split between Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The Kurds are definitely not trying to turn the clock back to the 7^th century. The Kurds are mostly secular Sunni Muslims who believe in religious tolerance.  They also include Kurdish speaking Yazidis, Shiites and Christians.  During the ISIS advances, they took in Arab refugees without regard for religion, Christians, Shiites and Sunnis.  They helped organize, train and arm Yazidis and Arab Christian militias.  They have women fighters in their militia units, some trained as snipers.  The Kurds even have regular commercial flights from the Kurdish Regional Capital, Erbil, Iraq, to Tel Aviv, Israel.  The Kurds are as close as you can get to democratic tolerant folks outside of Israel.  Iraqi Kurds are extremely pro American.  They believe the US saved them from annihilation when Saddam Hussein was lashing out after the first Gulf War.  They are trying to get as close to us as they can.  

The Kurds have been the most effective military units fighting ISIS.  In Syria, they are so reliable that it’s an embarrassment.  The Kurds have to recruit and train Sunni Arab defense forces to control the Arab villages they capture from ISIS.  While the villagers are happy ISIS is gone, they will not accept a Kurdish occupation.  To keep the villages free of ISIS, the villagers need weapons and training.   ISIS never captured any Kurdish weapons in working condition during their original advances.  When Kurdish militia retreats it's because they're out of ammo or taking horrendous casualties. 

Original Article (May require subscription):

https://www.wsj.com/articles/syrian-kurds-deserve-a-seat-at-the-negotiating-table-1483914439#lf_comment=181780162:632979006

Kurds Get Close Air Support, Promise of Direct US Aid

 Kurdish forces, along with ethnic allies, recently seized the town of Sinjar in a 48 hour battle.  Very efficiently done.  The report I read says that the vast majority of ISIS casualties were the result of coalition air strikes.  The results described mean that someone was calling in close air support very effectively.  It could be US, Canadian or British Special Forces.  It could be Peshmerga trained to do the job for themselves.  But the big difference from earlier battles is how close the air support is.  Previously, we were hitting ISIS targets that were a distance away from any ground contact with friendly forces.  We wanted to avoid "friendly fire" accidents like the one reported December 17, where 10 Iraqi Army soldiers were reported killed by a coalition air strike near Fallujah.  There seems to have been much tighter coordination with the Peshmerga.

The other part of the announcement is also startling.  It seems to say the US is going to deliver a lot of heavy equipment directly to Iraqi Kurdistan.  Up to now, US policy was that all arms deliveries had to be physically delivered or at least authorized by the Baghdad government.  The quoted statement does not seem to have any such qualification.  However, Secretary of State Ash Carter included enough obscurity in his statement that it will not be taken as a new beginning for US military aid policy until the weapons actually are delivered in Erbil.

Article I reacted to:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/islamic-state-routed-in-iraq-battle-u-s-officials-say-1450404452#lf_comment=431282008

(Subscription may be required)

Baghdad's Corrupt Army Has Usual Historic Flaws

One original reason for military parades was to make sure there were physical soldiers in numbers to match the payroll. Big multiple unit parades assured soldiers were not being shuffled from unit muster to unit muster in different uniforms.

It would seem the Iraqi Army has the traditional weakness of corrupt armies with quite a few phantom soldiers on the payroll. But even worse, the soldiers who actually do show up go months without pay while their officers put the money in their own pockets. All of the best recruits are funneled into the Shiite militias, not the regular Iraqi Army.

If we weren't able to establish an effective Iraqi Army during our occupation, I don't see any way we will be able to do it under current, less favorable, conditions. We should be backing the folks with the best track record on both military effectiveness and religious and ethnic toleration, the Kurds.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420008/we-need-new-strategy-iraq-and-syria-charles-krauthammer

Big Picture on ISIS 1 MAR 15

While I was originally hopeful about the Arab Spring, I was quickly disillusioned when Egypt's election brought the Muslim Brotherhood program of one man, one vote, one time. At this point, I'm not sure any of these places, besides Tunisia and Iraqi Kurdistan. can be governed in a democratic fashion. I know for sure that US voters will not support the time and expense it takes to build a democratic nation out of these places. What we can do is eliminate the really bad actors, like ISIS and Bashar al Assad. We can try to have better governance instead. These countries have borders drawn 100 years ago, without regard to the ethnic, religious and tribal makeup of the people who live there.

Expecting such countries to retain their borders while becoming multi ethnic nonsectarian republics is absurd. We should accept that Sunnis want a Sunni country and help them set one up in the parts of Iraq and Syria where they live. We should do the same for the Kurds. We should give up on trying to build a nonsectarian Iraqi army. It's an impossible task. It didn't work before under American occupation and it's unlikely to succeed now with a few American advisers. We should arm organizations who show they are willing to fight without committing atrocities. This means dealing directly with the Kurds and Sunni tribal groups whether Baghdad likes it or not.

The US doesn't seem to have many friends in the region. Iran owns Baghdad. The Turks have to be seriously pressured to do anything even minimally useful. The Kurds are pro American, pro-Israeli and relatively religiously tolerant. They fight ISIS with whatever they have. The risk that Kurdish equipment will fall into ISIS hands in useable condition is very low. There's no reason not to arm them to the teeth. Giving training and weapons to the Iraqi Army is not just a waste of time, it's a weapons transfer to ISIS.

The way this looks right now, the Shi'ite militias are going to be the only other power in Iraq besides the Kurds. If the Kurds, Yazidis, Christians and other minority groups can't defend themselves independently, stopping ISIS will not stop the genocide. It will just change who is doing the killing from Sunni jihadists to Shi'ite jihadists

Unfortunately, most of the Sons of Iraq, Sunnis who helped us get rid of Al Qaeda in Iraq in 2006 and 2007, are probably dead by now. They were sacrificed so our Dear Leader could please his base by totally withdrawing from Iraq. Once we left, Al Maliki's Shi'ite government cut off their money and equipment. ISIS probably killed most of them. Who would trust us now, given the way we abandoned them last time?  We have to offer a much better deal this time.  We have to offer a Sunni Regional Government similar to the Kurdish Regional Government.  And we also have to guarantee funding for the government, because Baghdad will cut them off again as soon as the US loses interest.  Possibly the funding can come from the Gulf Oil States.  Maybe then we can start to form Sunni Arab units who will be motivated to fight ISIS.

We were not able to train an effective Iraqi Army when we occupied Iraq. Why do we think we can do better now under worse conditions? If we train 5,000 to 10,000 Kurds, Yazidis and Christians we will get an effective fighting force. If we train 20,000 Iraqi Army soldiers, we will get a better armed ISIS, just like last time. However, as far as I can tell, the Kurds and their allies are still short of equipment and ammunition. The Wall Street Journal had a recent story about a Christian militia in Kurdistan training with borrowed guns and almost no ammunition. All of the good stuff is going to Baghdad. It seems that anything given to the Kurds, has to be inspected and approved in Baghdad before it’s shipped to the Kurds. Barry the Brilliant seems to think he can get a great nuclear arms control deal if he appeases the Iranians enough.

As far as I can tell, the best way to take Mosul is from Iraqi Kurdistan. Google Maps only shows one town, Bartella, between Peshmerga held Kalak and Mosul. Bartella used to be the largest Christian town in Iraq, so I’m sure the Kurds are sheltering a lot of people from there who could help take the place.

Mosul is the second biggest city in Iraq.  It is a city divided by the Tigris River. The population was a mixture of Sunni Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Assyrian Christians and a lot of other ethnic and religious groups.  The east side was predominantly Kurdish.  The west side was predominantly Sunni Arab.  The ISIS garrison in Mosul is estimated to be about 6,ooo armed men.

City fighting is very costly in terms of casualties.  While the remaining Kurds will help in the eastern side, the Sunni Arbs in the west side have no motivation to do so.  Without help from inside, any attacking force is going to take a large number of casualties.  Given how unmotivated Iraqi Army troops have proved in the past, I don’t believe they will ever be willing to take massive casualties fighting for Mosul.  They will refuse any order to attack.

My first thought was this.  If the Sunni side of Mosul is going to be destroyed anyway, why not just drop thousands of leaflets warning the civilians it's going to be flattened? Then give the civilians a week to leave. At that point, carpet bomb the place with B-52s and big fuel air explosives. Make sure that nothing much can live through the bombing.

The problem with just bombing the place is that ISIS has prevented the civilian population of Mosul from leaving.  ISIS has a “guarantee” system.  Anyone leaving Mosul has to designate 3 hostages in Mosul who will be punished if the departing person fails to return to Mosul.  So most of the civilian population is still in Mosul and can’t get out.

There may be as many as 100,000 military aged civilian men in Mosul.  The majority of them are Sunni Arabs.  Many of them probably have hidden AK-47 assault rifles.  At the moment, they have no motivation to resist ISIS.  If they expel ISIS, the Shi’ite Baghdad government returns to power or the Kurdistan Regional Government takes over.  Either way, they get nothing.

To me, the solution seems to be guaranteeing a Sunni Regional Government similar to the Kurdistan Regional Government.  The administration’s position is that Iraq is a unitary state.  Our position in the Ukraine is that the Ukraine is not a unitary state. (snarky comment)  As long as we hold the position that the Sunni Arabs have to live with the Iranian backed Shi’ite government in Baghdad without a regional government of their own, I don’t see how we can expel ISIS from Mosul with troops from Iraq. 

Article on the Mosul Offensive Announcement and Feasibility:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/414334/obamas-hasty-mosul-offensive-bing-west

Article on Stopping ISIS

http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2015/02/20/can_we_stop_the_army_of_terror_110986.html

Article on Iraqi Christian Militia (Requires Subscription)

http://www.wsj.com/articles/iraqs-christians-take-up-arms-to-fight-islamic-state-1423017266?KEYWORDS=iraqi+christian+militia

Interview With Kurdistan High Representative to the US

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/26/obama-lacks-islamic-state-plan-should-increase-arm/?page=all

Article on ISIS Occupation of Mosul

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/27/how-to-retake-mosul-from-the-islamic-state/?utm_source=Sailthru

Why Does US Still Favor Baghdad over the Kurds?

The article linked below is an interview with the Kurdistan Regional Government's High Representative to the US. In it she reveals that all military shipments to Iraqi Kurdistan are first landed in Baghdad for inspection and only after inspection are the given to the Kurds. This is ridiculous. The Kurdish Peshmerga in Iraq and the Kurdish YPG in Syria have proven their combat effectiveness in every battle they've fought as long as their ammunition held out. Even in retreat, they never abandon any weapons for ISIS to capture.  The Iraqi Army, on the other hand, was one of the main sources of arms for ISIS. They abandoned all of their US supplied equipment and ran away before ISIS could even get to them. Iran is supplying the Shi'ite militias around Baghdad with all of the weapons they need. Why aren't we doing the same for the Kurds? 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/26/obama-lacks-islamic-state-plan-should-increase-arm/?page=all

The 100% Reliable Syrian Rebels

There is one rebel group in Syria that is 100% reliable, the Kurds! They are fighting ISIS to a standstill with nothing but small arms and guts. With a little help they could really regain some ground. However, right now they are on a US State Department list of terrorist organizations because of their guerrilla war of independence against Turkey. At a minimum we should take all the Kurdish groups off the terrorist lists. While the Turks would be very unhappy with the US if we armed the Syrian Kurds, I don't think we have any reason to care about hurting their feelings. They won't let us use our own airbase at Incerlik to fight ISIS. If we promise the Kurds they can keep what they take, they might be willing to fight further away from their traditional turf. Longer term, I think a lot of people in the ethnic stew of the Middle East might actually like to be under Kurdish administration. They certainly do a better job in their provinces in Iraq than most of the other countries in the area. By Middle Eastern standards, they are religiously tolerant, democratic, pro-American and even pro-Israeli. The only drawback is that arming the Kurds could lead to an independent Kurdistan. The Kurds got screwed when the post World War I borders were drawn. There are 40 million Kurds, but no Kurdistan. Kurdish independence would require redrawing the sacred boundaries. Since we obviously don't care about the territorial integrity of the Ukraine, why should we care about the territorial integrity of Syria and Iraq?

Encouraging Israel to Nuke Iran

The fact is the only way Israel can destroy enough Iranian centrifuges is to nuke their underground facilities.  Please explain to this ignorant red neck why it's wise to encourage the Israelis to nuke the Iranians.  While the unanticipated result of Obama's foreign policy is to reconcile Israel and Saudi Arabia, the improved relationship itself shows just how terrified both countries are of a nuclear Iran.  Add in the Kurds, who are already very friendly with the Israelis and are getting friendlier with Saudi Arabia, and a general war in the Middle East becomes much more likely.  The world in general is very reminiscent of 1914, when a minor league assassination set off World War I and millions died.  In the face of all this, commenters on this site are talking about John Bolton's mustache.  A new level in Liberal/Progressive ignorance. 

http://triblive.com/opinion/featuredcommentary/5373872-74/iran-iraq-obama#axzz2qHvjuswy