How Obama let ISIS take over Iraq
How did the Obama administration lose Iraq? The same way it lost every other country in the Middle East - inflexibility followed by indecisiveness. Eli Lake
explains:
On November 1, 2013, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited the
White House, and made a rather stunning request. Maliki, who celebrated
when the last U.S. troops left his country in 2011, asked Obama to
quietly send the military back into Iraq and help his beleagured Air
Force develop targets for air strikes; that’s how serious the threat
from Sunni insurgents led by the extremist group ISIS had become.
Twelve days later, Brett McGurk, a deputy assistant secretary of
state and the Obama administration’s senior U.S. official in Baghdad
since the crisis began last month, presented to Congress a similarly dark warning.
ISIS was launching upwards of 40 suicide bombers a month, he said,
encouraged in part by the weakness of Maliki’s military and the
aggressively anti-Sunni policies of the Shi’ite prime minister. It was
the kind of ominous report that American intelligence agencies had been
delivering privately for months. McGurk added that ISIS had “benefited
from a permissive operating environment due to inherent weaknesses of
Iraqi security forces, poor operational tactics, and popular grievances,
which remain unaddressed, among the population in Anbar and Nineweh
provinces.”
Maliki's requests were rebuffed; McGurk’s warnings
went largely unheeded. The problem for Obama was that he had no good
policy option in Iraq. On the one hand, if Obama had authorized the air
strikes Maliki began requesting in January, he would strengthen the hand
of an Iraqi prime minister who increasingly resembled the brutal
autocrat U.S. troops helped unseat in 2003. Maliki’s heavy handed policies—such
as authorizing counter-terrorism raids against Sunni political leaders
with no real links to terrorism—sowed the seeds of the current
insurrection in Iraq.
But while Obama committed to sell Maliki’s military nearly $11
billion worth of advanced U.S. weaponry, he was unwilling to use that
leverage in a meaningful way to get him to reverse his earlier reforms
where he purged some of his military’s most capable leaders and replaced
them with yes men. As a result of this paradox, the Iraq policy process
ground to a halt at the very moment that ISIS was on the rise.
Two months later, ISIS captured the strategically important city of
Fallujah in Anbar province.
Five month after that, Iraq’s second-largest
city—Mosul, in Nineweh province—fell to ISIS and an army of Sunni
insurgents. At the time, senior Obama administration officials went out
of their way to proclaim just how impossible-to-predict the collapse of
Mosul was. But interviews with a dozen U.S. and Iraqi intelligence
officials, diplomats, and policy makers reveal a very different story. A
catastrophe like the fall of Mosul wasn’t just predictable, these
officials say. They repeatedly warned the Obama administration that
something like this was going to happen. With seemingly no good choices
to make in Iraq, the White House wasn’t able to listen.
“It’s simply not true that nobody saw a disaster like the fall of
Mosul coming,” Ali Khedery, who served as a senior adviser at the U.S.
embassy in Baghdad, told The Daily Beast. “I can’t speak for anyone
else, but I literally predicted this in verbal warnings and in writing
in 2010 that Iraq would fall apart.”
“I and a zillion other people said in 2014 that we needed to do more
than the very slow and inadequate reaction,” added James Jeffrey, a
former U.S. ambassador to Iraq. “If [ISIS] could move in and seize
Fallujah and they were on the offensive, and they were active in Mosul
and Nineweh [province] too, the army was lethargic and not doing very
well, at that point there was a possibility for us to provide air
strikes and advisers.”
Instead, the Obama policy meandered through a series of half-measures. As the Wall Street Journal reported last month, unmanned surveillance flights over Iraq that would provide crucial overhead intelligence on areas where ISIS operated were limited to about one mission per month until about mid-June.
He's Carter reincarnate. He doesn't get that sometimes when you're a superpower, you have and must pursue shared interests with dictators. Oh wait.... Obama has fixed it so the US isn't a superpower anymore.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, degrading US military capabilities, Iraq, Jimmy Carter, Nouri al-Maliki
Iran steps into Obama's Iraq vacuum
I woke up this morning with the outline of a keyboard on my forehead :-)
In an earlier post, I reported that Iran is
shipping weapons to Hezbullah (Lebanon - in response to the person who asked in the comments) via Iraq, in order to avoid the alleged Israeli air strikes that have plagued those shipments in Syria.
The use of Iraq as a transit point is just one symptom of a wider and deeply troubling phenomenon: Iran has stepped into the vacuum created when President Obama ordered US troops to flee Iraq, and Iran now controls Iraq. Here's another example: A September kidnapping and execution of seven MEK (Iranian opposition - banned by the Ayatollahs) members from Iraq is now being
blamed on Iran.
The
Sept. 1 attack on a base called Camp Ashraf killed at least 50 members of
the Mujahedeen-e Khalq, or MEK, which had disarmed at the request of the U.S.
military after the American invasion of Iraq and received explicit promises of protection
from senior commanders. Instead, gory videos released by the group showed that
many of its members had been shot with their hands tied behind their backs or
in one of the camp's makeshift hospitals. MEK leaders, backed by an array of
U.S. lawmakers, said Iraqi security forces carried out the attack.
Baghdad
has long denied the charge, and U.S. officials have now concluded that a small
number of Iranian paramilitaries from its feared Islamic Revolution Guards
Corps helped plan and direct the assault on the camp. Three officials, speaking
to Foreign Policy for the first time,
said gunmen from two of Tehran's Iraqi-based proxies, Kitab Hezbollah and Asaib
Ahl al-Haq, then carried out the actual attack. The Iranian involvement in the
Ashraf massacre hasn't been reported before.
"Iraqi
soldiers didn't get in the way of what was happening at Ashraf, but they didn't
do the shooting," a U.S. official briefed on the intelligence community's assessment
of the attack said in an interview. The official spoke on the condition of
anonymity to discuss classified information.
U.S. officials say that Iran's role in the attack didn't end with the killings
of the MEK members at Ashraf. Instead, officials believe that Iranian commandos
and fighters from the country's Iraqi proxies also abducted seven MEK members
and smuggled them back to Iran. The missing MEK supporters haven't been seen or
heard from since the attack.
Direct
Iranian involvement in the Ashraf assault is one of the clearest signs yet of
Tehran's growing power within Iraq, a dynamic of deep concern to American
policymakers. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite government has long
maintained close ties with top Iranian leaders, and U.S. officials believe that
Tehran prodded Maliki to refuse to sign a bilateral security pact in the fall
of 2010 that would have kept some U.S. troops in the country. Perhaps under
Iran's influence, Maliki has alienated Iraq's sizable Sunni and Kurdish
minorities by centralizing power in Baghdad and refusing to share power or
fairly divvy up the country's oil revenues.
The
timing of the attack also raises questions about whether Iran's security
services are as committed to finding a rapprochement with Washington as its
civilian government appears to be. The assault took place in September, several
months after negotiators from the two governments had begun
secret nuclear talks in Oman that ultimately led to last month's landmark
nuclear pact between the Obama administration and the government of Iranian
President Hasan Rouhani. The deadly attack on a U.S.-allied group inside Iraq
suggests that at least some elements within Tehran are willing to take steps
that risk upsetting that fragile equilibrium.
But the MEK is insistent that Iraqi troops also had a part in the attack.
MEK
leaders in
Washington strongly disagree with the U.S. conclusions about the Ashraf
attack.
They point out that the facility is guarded by fences, checkpoints and
more
than 1,200 Iraqi troops, making it extremely difficult for gunmen to
reach the
camp without, at a minimum, the active cooperation of Iraqi forces. They
also
note that survivors said the masked gunmen spoke Arabic and argue that
the
group's own operatives within Iran would know if the seven missing
members had
been brought into the country. They believe that Tehran ordered the
attack, but
say that it was carried out by Iraqi soldiers loyal to Maliki.
It was inevitable that once US troops withdrew from Iraq, someone else would step into the vacuum. The hasty manner in which the troops were withdrawn made sure it was the bad guys - and not the good guys - who would step into the vacuum. Maliki is rolling with the punches and facing the reality that he has been left totally exposed. He isn't strong enough to fight Iran by himself.
Iraq is a case where President Obama snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, and he did so without paying a personal price. Thank you to the mainstream media for not pointing out the truth.
Labels: 1930's, Hezbullah, Iran, Iraq, MEK, Nouri al-Maliki
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Wednesday, July 18.
1) Coalition ends
Given the disbanding of the Plesner Committee, tasked with coming up with a plan for drafting Chareidi men two weeks ago, the dissolution of Israel's unity government is less of a surprise than its formation. Whatever else is true about Israeli politics, Binyamin Netanyahu and Likud do not appear to have been hurt much by the failure to arrives at workable solution.
In Unity Government in Israel Disbanding Over Dispute on Draft the New York Times reports:
With the economy strong and domestic terrorism all but disappeared, few doubt Mr. Netanyahu’s re-election, even if the draft failure has hurt him; now, it seems clear he will run from the right, and less likely that he would take steps on settlements or the broader Palestinian conflict that might alienate conservative and religious voters.
Far less clear is what will become of Kadima, a center-left party that broke away from the Likud in 2005 and has lost traction in recent months.
Similarly in Israeli coalition unravels as centrist Kadima party quits over draft dispute the Washington Post reports:
Kadima now returns to being the largest opposition party, one that had plummeting popularity before it joined the alliance.
Netanyahu, on the other hand, enjoys strong approval ratings, and his Likud party is expected to easily win the next elections, scheduled for late 2013. Avraham Diskin, a political scientist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said the coalition’s fate until then is likely to depend on the ultra-nationalist party of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who backs an aggressive conscription law that would also draft Israeli Arabs.
Neither article was terrible, but both suffered from one of the shortcomings Barry Rubin identified in the mainstream media's coverage of the Middle East. Both mentioned what Israel could do or attempt to do to help the peace process along. A week after President Abbas refused to negotiate because Netanyahu wouldn't release a sufficient number of terrorists, it's odd that anyone would still be suggesting that it is solely or mostly up to Israel to make peace.
2) Syria links
Barry Rubin notes some factors suggesting that Assad is running out of time:
There are three main factors that are making a rebel victory seem more likely.
First, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with Turkey’s facilitation and U.S. coordination, are sending arms to the opposition.
Second, the regime has been rushing the same trusted units around the country to put down upsurges. After many months of battle, these forces are getting tired and stretched thin.
Third, President Bashar al-Assad really has nothing to offer the opposition. He won’t leave and he can’t share power. His strategy of brutal suppression and large-scale killing can neither make the opposition surrender nor wipe it out. Even if he kills civilians and demonstrators, the rebel military forces can pull back to attack another day.
Jonathan D. Halevi writes in Moment of Truth approaching in Damascus (via Daily Alert):
In a video uploaded to YouTube on Monday, Free Syrian Army commander Riad al-Asaad ordered rebel forces in southern Syria and the rural part of Damascus to wage the final battle against Assad’s forces in the capital. Rebel forces in the northern and eastern parts of the country were told to go to Aleppo, the economic capital of Syria.
Asaad’s statements reflect growing confidence among the rebels, who have destroyed a large number of armored vehicles and helicopters, killed thousands of soldiers while taking many others prisoner, striking a lethal blow to the Syrian army’s morale. Many Syrian army troops now appear to be exhausted, lacking resolve or belief in the justice of their cause. Desertions keep mounting and now include senior officers and circles close to the regime.
Khaled Abu Toameh reports Now the are slaughtering Palestinians:
According to Palestinian sources, unidentified militiamen stopped the bus, kidnapped the Palestinian men and took them to an unknown destination. A few days later the Syrian authorities announced that they had discovered the bodies of the victims in a field.
The men had been shot in the legs and chest before they were slaughtered like cattle, the Palestinian sources said.
...
Some Palestinians blamed radical Islamic gangs operating in Syria, while others did not rule out the possibility that the murderers belonged to President Bashar Assad's security establishment.
Benny Avni wonders if Assad or someone else will use his chemical weapons:
Whether or not Assad survives the deadly 16-month rebellion against him, his long-ignored weapons of mass destruction may soon be in play.
Whoever gets these terror weapons, and what they do with them, is a question to be handled by real world powers. It’s far beyond the capacity of the United Nations and Kofi Annan, to which America has so far subcontracted our Syria policy.
Washington has reportedly detected trucks moving chemical munitions out of storage facilities in the area of Homs — a hotspot of the rebellion against Assad’s rule.
Jonathan Spyer writes about a report showing the cynicism of the Assad regime:
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Nawaf Fares, a senior Syrian diplomat who defected to the rebel side asserted that the Assad regime was responsible for a major act of terror in Damascus, which was blamed at the time on al-Qaida.
The former Syrian ambassador to Iraq left Syria last week.
In the interview with Telegraph correspondent Ruth Sherlock, Fares claimed that the regime set up the bombing of a military intelligence headquarters in al-Qazzaz, ensuring that personnel at the base absented themselves minutes before the explosion, and that the only casualties were civilians.
There more from Fares at MEMRI.
"I would like to remind Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki: You know full well what Bashar Al-Assad did to Iraq and to the Iraqi people. Your security agencies know full well the extent of the damage and the killings – thousands of Iraqis were killed – at the hand of Bashar Al-Assad.
"The Iraqi PM, the security agencies, and most of the Iraqi politicians are fully aware of this and have documentation of it. Personally, I have a lot of criticism toward the [Iraqi] prime minister for taking a stand that runs counter to the way things really are.
[...]
"He knows full well what Bashar Al-Assad did against him personally, against the Iraqi people in its entirety, and against the Shi'ites in particular."
While Ambassador Fares's charge in the Telegraph seems consistent with other actions taken by the regime, the interview transcribed by MEMRI he seems to be trying to distance himself from the regime.
The latest news from Syria seems to be a significant blow to Assad.
The bomber, said by a security source to be a bodyguard assigned to Assad's inner circle, struck a meeting attended by ministers and senior security officials in the Syrian capital as battles raged within sight of the presidential palace.
State television said Defence Minister Daoud Rajha and Assad's brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, the deputy defence minister, had been killed in a "terrorist bombing" and pledged to wipe out "criminal gangs".
A Syrian security source confirmed Shawkat, 62, was killed and said intelligence chief Hisham Bekhtyar was wounded. State television said Interior Minister Mohammad Ibrahim al-Shaar had also been wounded in the blast.
Labels: Bashar al-Assad, Haredim, IDF, Iraq, Kadima, Middle East Media Sampler, Nouri al-Maliki, Plesner Committee, Soccer Dad, Syrian uprising
Turkey worried that Iraqi Kurdistan could become a state
Turkey is urging the United States to ensure that Iraq does not break up into ethnic enclaves,
one of which would be Kurdish.
In the face of escalating sectarian tension inside Iraq, Ankara has recently issued multiple messages to Baghdad and Washington, sounding the alarm about what might occur in Iraq in the post-US period, the Turkish daily Sabah reported. The daily claimed that Ankara got in touch with US officials, warning them against “spoiling” Maliki, who took charge of the Iraqi government after years of trying to reconcile the Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish blocs in the country.
Turkey also warned the US of “the increasing possibility of Iraq being partitioned,” which would seriously jeopardize security in the region, Sabah noted.
In the wake of a Shiite bloc move against senior Sunni officials in what appears to be an attempt to strip them of their power to increase Shiite dominance in the coalition government, Ankara reportedly contacted Maliki to urge him to keep the promises he made when he rose to power and protect the multicultural structure of Iraq. Turkish officials further called on Maliki “not to meddle in Syrian politics,” on the grounds that the sectarian situation in Iraq is not connected to the situation in Syria, which is experiencing a bloody uprising to force a change of power in that country.
...
Warning that Turkey’s door in the south might close if Iraq -- already a dangerous area -- becomes more hazardous after a possible partition, expert and academic Mensur Akgün voiced concern that Turkey’s ties with the semiautonomous Kurdish administration in the north will need fine tuning, the daily Taraf reported in an interview on Monday.
“If Iraq falls apart for a reason that lies outside the Kurdish bloc, Turkey will have to recognize a Kurdish state in Iraq’s north,” Akgün was quoted by Taraf as saying, as he justified the logic of such a move on Turkey’s increased need for stronger connections with the Kurdish administration when Sunnis and Shiites wage a sectarian war in the rest of the country. Predicting that the Kurdish administration would stay out of the sectarian strife to maintain stability, Akgün suggested that an unlikely alliance has arisen between the Kurdish administration and Turkey, “sides the West did not believe would concur.”
Hmmm.
Labels: Iraqi Kurds, Kurdistan, Nouri al-Maliki
US selling $11 billion in advanced weapons to Iraq
The United States plans to sell $11 billion worth of advanced weaponry to Iraq,
despite the risk that Iraq's army will become a Shiite militia that is loyal to Iran.
In 2010, the U.S. and Iraq signed an agreement that required the Sunni bloc in parliament to have a say in who runs the defense and interior ministries. But despite Maliki’s pledge, the ministries remain under his control.
“It is very risky to arm a sectarian army,” Rafe al-Essawi, the country’s finance minister and a leading Sunni politician, told the newspaper. “It is very risky with all the sacrifices we’ve made, with all the budget to be spent, with all the support of America — at the end of the day, the result will be a formal militia army,” al-Essawi added.
Like any other U.S. arms deals in the Middle East, the Iraqi-U.S. deal is to counter the Iranian threat, but according to the newspaper, “there are also fears that the move could backfire if the Baghdad government ultimately aligns more closely with the Shiite theocracy in Tehran than with Washington.”
Joost Hiltermann, the International Crisis Group’s deputy program director for the Middle East, told the newspaper that “Washington took the decision to build up Iraq as a counterweight to Iran through close military cooperation and the sale of major weapon systems.”
But Hiltermann added that “Maliki has shown a troubling inclination toward enhancing his control over the country’s institutions without accepting any significant checks and balances.”
The weapons being sold to Iraq include F-16 fighter jets, M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks, cannons and armored personnel carriers, and body armor, helmets, ammunition trailers and sport utility vehicles, which critics say can be used by domestic security services to help Maliki consolidate power.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Iran, Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki
