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:
Article
on Stopping ISIS
Article
on Iraqi Christian Militia (Requires Subscription)
Interview
With Kurdistan High Representative to the US
Article
on ISIS Occupation of Mosul
