They're not interested in changing the government.
ISIS in Iraq and Syria
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Secretary of Defense Ash Carter's ISIS gaffe is even worse than you think
Most people take Memorial Day weekend as a time for beaches and family barbecues. US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter spent it being publicly, frighteningly wrong about a key front in America's war against ISIS.
Carter went on CNN's State of the Union Sunday morning to talk about the state of the war in Iraq. In the interview, Carter said Iraqi soldiers had suffered a major defeat recently because they weren't willing "to fight [ISIS] and defend themselves."
Carter is wrong: that's just not what happened in Ramadi. But worse, his statement is also counterproductive: for the US-led campaign against ISIS to work, the United States needs to bolster the Iraqi military — not tear it down publicly.
What Carter got wrong
Carter's comments were specifically about Ramadi, the provincial capital of Iraq's western Anbar, which ISIS conquered in mid-May. This was ISIS's biggest victory in almost a year, and Carter blamed it on something that sounds a lot like Iraqi cowardice.
"What apparently happened [in Ramadi] is that the Iraqi forces showed no will to fight," the secretary said. "They were not outnumbered: in fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force. And yet they failed to fight."
The problem with this narrative is that it is totally wrong. Iraqi forces didn't turn tail in the face of a weaker ISIS force: they retreated after an 18-month siege by ISIS and virtually no reinforcements from Baghdad. They had a hell of a lot of "will to fight," but couldn't hold out long enough.
Anbar province is an ISIS stronghold: the mostly Sunni province had never been a priority for Iraq's Shia-dominated government, and ISIS took full advantage of Baghdad's neglect in its decision to target Ramadi. ISIS's siege of the city began around December 2013, well before ISIS came to international attention by sweeping northern Iraq in June 2014.
For the past 16 months "the city's overstretched collection of Iraqi army, police, and Sunni tribal militia forces have fought a brutal, nonstop battle with little reinforcement," Michael Knights, the Lafer fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, writes. And yet, according to Knights, "the Iraqi security forces (ISF) maintained the upper hand in Ramadi until recently."
How ISIS really took Ramadi
So what changed?
ISIS devoted massive resources to the siege, while most of the Iraqi army's resources were directed elsewhere in the country. While Carter is right that the ISIS forces in the mid-May attack were probably outnumbered, that's really misleading. If you tally up all of the ISIS forces devoted to Ramadi in the past nine months, the Iraqis had faced numbers about "six or seven times bigger than they were," Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, estimated in a phone conversation. "They actually last longer than one might expect given the forces they were up against."
ISIS only took the city after what Gartenstein-Ross describes as a "brilliant series of maneuvers": a complicated offensive involving a massive number of vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices that blew up "entire city blocks," according to a US official quoted by the Wall Street Journal. Some of this happened under the cover of a sandstorm, making US air support for the beleaguered Iraqis difficult.
Facing a sophisticated ISIS assault, with no prospect of relief, Iraqi commanders ordered a retreat. "They did not simply drop their guns and run pell-mell," Ken Pollack, a senior fellow at Brookings, writes. While some of the other, less-disciplined fighters may have retreated more hastily, Carter's depiction of a general Iraqi collapse is just wrong.
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http://www.vox.com/2015/5/26/8659859/ramadi-ash-carter
Most people take Memorial Day weekend as a time for beaches and family barbecues. US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter spent it being publicly, frighteningly wrong about a key front in America's war against ISIS.
Carter went on CNN's State of the Union Sunday morning to talk about the state of the war in Iraq. In the interview, Carter said Iraqi soldiers had suffered a major defeat recently because they weren't willing "to fight [ISIS] and defend themselves."
Carter is wrong: that's just not what happened in Ramadi. But worse, his statement is also counterproductive: for the US-led campaign against ISIS to work, the United States needs to bolster the Iraqi military — not tear it down publicly.
What Carter got wrong
Carter's comments were specifically about Ramadi, the provincial capital of Iraq's western Anbar, which ISIS conquered in mid-May. This was ISIS's biggest victory in almost a year, and Carter blamed it on something that sounds a lot like Iraqi cowardice.
"What apparently happened [in Ramadi] is that the Iraqi forces showed no will to fight," the secretary said. "They were not outnumbered: in fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force. And yet they failed to fight."
The problem with this narrative is that it is totally wrong. Iraqi forces didn't turn tail in the face of a weaker ISIS force: they retreated after an 18-month siege by ISIS and virtually no reinforcements from Baghdad. They had a hell of a lot of "will to fight," but couldn't hold out long enough.
Anbar province is an ISIS stronghold: the mostly Sunni province had never been a priority for Iraq's Shia-dominated government, and ISIS took full advantage of Baghdad's neglect in its decision to target Ramadi. ISIS's siege of the city began around December 2013, well before ISIS came to international attention by sweeping northern Iraq in June 2014.
For the past 16 months "the city's overstretched collection of Iraqi army, police, and Sunni tribal militia forces have fought a brutal, nonstop battle with little reinforcement," Michael Knights, the Lafer fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, writes. And yet, according to Knights, "the Iraqi security forces (ISF) maintained the upper hand in Ramadi until recently."
How ISIS really took Ramadi
So what changed?
ISIS devoted massive resources to the siege, while most of the Iraqi army's resources were directed elsewhere in the country. While Carter is right that the ISIS forces in the mid-May attack were probably outnumbered, that's really misleading. If you tally up all of the ISIS forces devoted to Ramadi in the past nine months, the Iraqis had faced numbers about "six or seven times bigger than they were," Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, estimated in a phone conversation. "They actually last longer than one might expect given the forces they were up against."
ISIS only took the city after what Gartenstein-Ross describes as a "brilliant series of maneuvers": a complicated offensive involving a massive number of vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices that blew up "entire city blocks," according to a US official quoted by the Wall Street Journal. Some of this happened under the cover of a sandstorm, making US air support for the beleaguered Iraqis difficult.
Facing a sophisticated ISIS assault, with no prospect of relief, Iraqi commanders ordered a retreat. "They did not simply drop their guns and run pell-mell," Ken Pollack, a senior fellow at Brookings, writes. While some of the other, less-disciplined fighters may have retreated more hastily, Carter's depiction of a general Iraqi collapse is just wrong.
...
http://www.vox.com/2015/5/26/8659859/ramadi-ash-carter
Now the truth emerges: how the US fuelled the rise of Isis in Syria and Iraq
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/03/us-isis-syria-iraq
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/03/us-isis-syria-iraq
I've been saying that for years, and agree with it.
'Terrorism is in the eye of the beholder'
Great line.
'Terrorism is in the eye of the beholder'
Great line.
Was just about to to post this.
Excellent article that rubishes the ridiculous notions put forward by apologists of intervention.
The last sentence in particular was spot on:
That quote says little since not intervening this last time would've allowed ISIS to take Irbil and probably eventually Baghdad. Just another vacuous, half thoughtout rant that complains without offering any solutions to the current situation.
Pretty much sums the every article in the comments is free section in the Guardian.
Actually the article does hint at what the solution is:
For starters, there's the pre-emptive solution of averting another interventional disaster. And secondly, the more direct approach in targeting the lifelines of ISIS based in Turkey and The Gulf Arab states.
Pointing out "hypocrisy" isn't a solution. The reason he didn't offer a viable solution is because he doesn't have one. The truth is this is going to take a sustained military campaign to squeeze ISIS out of both Iraq and Syria, followed by a UN resolution that creates a new Syrian government. We're talking about a 10-15 year project here.
I did a presentation on it in school. That was the centerpiece. Something along the lines of "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter"
He talked about the Arab and Turkish lifeline ISIS have, the clue is there.
Yeah it's hardly detrimental to US interests in the region to have Sunni jihadists and Iranian proxies battling it out. All the US has to do is ensure the security of the Israelis, Saudis, and Iraqi Kurds (priority in that order), make sure no serious WMD's land in the wrong hands, and make sure to continually balance the conflict so that one side never gets strong enough to achieve victory.
Its actually not in anyone's interest to see dueling religious nutters duking it out, because it destabilizes everyone's economic interests in the region.
Would it be a shorter project if NATO members stopped arming ISIS?
No one is offering solutions, because there are no good ones. Any achievable plan has significant drawbacks. Accepting that would be a first step to a better understanding of the region.
Your suggestion is completely unrealistic. Any government in Syria would either be a western backed military dictatorship or collapse within month.
The problem in a nutshell: You have various arbitrarily created countries, that are no nations. This creates massive friction within and between these countries. If western countries intervene they can create short-term stability without solving the underlying problem. In fact it makes things a lot worse in the long run, because suppression and violence creates more hate and resentment. The West doesnt have the ability to create national solidarity and any military western presence (directly or indirectly) just creates more extremism.
There is no quick-fix or solution to that problem. If countries can´t come to an internal understanding of how to live peacefully with each other, we can´t force them to do so.
So what should we do? We should interact peacefully and stabilize regions/countries that have this kind of understanding (e.g. Lebanon, Kurdish areas, Iran, Tunesia), because we have capabilities to improve the situation in these areas/countries and we should be very very careful to do anything in other parts of the region. I understand the danger of ISIS, but there are various ways to deal with them that dont include ground-troops.
I agree, although the current national boundaries are likely to stay in place indefinitely. The most feasible solution is a UN resolution authorizing a coalition of countries to evict ISIS from both Iraq and Syria, followed by a 5-10 year peacekeeping force that allows an organic political process to organize elections (in Syria, Yemen, and Libya) and allow for national armies to be reestablished to keep the peace once foreign troops leave. Anything short of that will just result in more cyclical sectarian violence.
They said earlier, in a message to the citizens of saudi Arabia, that shias are top of the list. After that its police officers, then top government officials.
The UN doesnt need to authorizing anyone to fight ISIS. Factions who have a vital interest in it are already doing it and there is no reason to persuade other countries to join this "coalition". I am fairly neutral on the question whether the USA should help them with their air-force or not. There are arguments for and against it. I am inclined to think that limited air-support is reasonable.
There is also absolutely nothing "feasible" about a peacekeeping mission. Nobody (except some US-hawks) would be insane enough to send ground-troops to occupy the sunni-tribal areas in Iraq and Syria. At least no one who wouldn't start a massacre. Furthermore there is no productive non-violent organic political process in both countries and elections won´t solve anything. So your idea boils down to a extremely violent ground war led by the USA, that will defeat ISIS without any plan what is coming next. The best case scenario would be another military dictatorship and the worst case scenario would be another failed state, where institutions only hold power in few core-areas. Thats sound bloody brilliant. Jon Stewart would say: "Learning Curves Are for Pussies".
How about a different approach? The USA backs the Kurds and the Iraq with their airforce, so they can hold on to their territory. So there is little risk that things get completely out of control. No more weapons for institutions, that are not responsible. No more arming of the "moderate opposition"; no more arms for the Iraqi government and generally speaking: No more guns for the whole region (with few exceptions). Also: no more money for corrupt and violent governments. Furthermore the Nato needs to talk with Turkey and tell them to close their boarder and stop their support for ISIS or they can feck off. They have to suffer severe consequences if they dont change their policy. How about put them on this brilliant "states sponsors of terrorism" list. Last but not least try to minimize the influence of the gulf-nations and their material support.
Take away the fuel and sooner or later the conflict will run out of steam. Let them "duke it out", until they find some-kind of understanding, that a state of permanent violence isn´t anything desirable. Don´t empower their leaders to continue to conflict.
This is the right idea. Forget ground troops, focus on what keeps ISIS afloat - supply lines and funding. By putting pressure on the Turks and their Islamist Ottoman dictator to actually close their border, they'd be dealing a severe blow to ISIS who rely on it to bring in their swarms of recruits and supplies everyday. Likewise for the Gulf Arabs who turn a blind eye to the influential Wahabist donors within their own borders.
The US, NATO and the EU collectively can deal a severe blow to ISIS if if it applies the relevant pressure on the nations which enable it - indirectly or otherwise.
It would definitely take a UN resolution as the coalition that goes in would need international backing, similar to George Bush's effort in 1990. This would require the US/Nato to take care of Iraq and the Russians to deal with ISIS in Syria. Anything short of that will result in continued cyclical and endless violence as we're seeing today. There is no other tangible option than qualified ground troops at this stage, and hopefully politicians will catch on to this sooner rather than later, instead of continuing with the delusion that air strikes alone and an Iraqi army that doesn't have the will is going to rout ISIS out of Iraq.
The Kurds are capable of holding on to their own territory, but that's about it. To put it bluntly, the absence of overwhelming intervention very soon will result in the current status quo and will allow ISIS to consolidate their gains and retain their fake state.
ISIL wins support from Iraq's Sunni tribes
Influential sheikhs and tribal heads in Anbar province pledge allegiance to group and condemn Iraqi government.
A number of Sunni tribal sheikhs and tribes in Iraq's Anbar province have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.
The sheikhs and tribal leaders made the pledge on Wednesday in Fallujah in a statement read out by Ahmed Dara al-Jumaili, an influential sheikh, after a meeting.
Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, reporting from Baghdad, said it was not yet clear if the tribes had been forced to pledge allegiance by ISIL fighters, who control Fallujah and most of Anbar.
"If this is a willing move, then that is very worrying for the Iraqi government," he said.
"The statement they issued was very strong - it condemned the government.
"It said the only way that peace would come to Anbar province is if the tribes joined ISIL."
Our correspondent said the inclusion of the al-Jumaili tribe in the pledge was of particular concern for Iraqi authorities, given its influence in Anbar.
"The al-Jumailis command a number of fighters and they have a large amount of influence over other tribes [in Anbar]," he said.
Matthew Henman, an expert on terrorism and insurgencies, told Al Jazeera that ISIL may have threatened the Sunni tribes into backing the group.
"But it could also be symptomatic of a wider break in trust of the Iraqi government and a feeling of a lack of confidence in Baghdad's ability to recapture territory from ISIL, leaving them to the mercy of ISIL and little option but to side with them," he said.
The Anbar sheikhs' pledge comes after a number of Sunni leaders in the province publicly criticised the involvement of Shia units in the fight to retake areas from ISIL, including the provincial capital Ramadi, which fell last month.
Government's support
While a number of Sunni tribes have joined with government forces and Shia units, Al Jazeera's Khan said a number of tribal leaders had asked for government support to fight ISIL.
"They said 'If you arm us, if you allow us to fight as Sunnis, we will be able to get rid of ISIL quite quickly'," he said.
"The fact that a number of these tribes have come together ... and pledged allegiance to ISIL shows the level of anger the Sunni tribes feel towards the government in Baghdad."
In another Anbar development, ISIL attacked a base north of Fallujah with two explosives-rigged vehicles driven by suicide bombers, and another south of the city with four more, including a bulldozer, an army colonel said on Thursday.
The attacks were foiled using Russian Kornet anti-tank missiles, the officer said.
Against this backdrop, Iraqi officials have also accused ISIL of cutting off water supplies to government-held areas in Anbar.
On Wednesday, fighters closed the locks on a dam on the Euphrates River near Ramadi, reducing the flow downstream and threatening irrigation systems and water treatment plants in nearby areas controlled by troops and tribes opposed to ISIL.
Taha Abdul-Ghani, an Anbar councilman, said the move will not only make the lives of people living in the affected areas more difficult but it could also pose a threat to the security forces fighting to recapture Ramadi. If water levels drop significantly, he said, the fighters could cross the Euphrates River on foot.
Thousands of people in government-held towns of Khalidiya and Habaniya are already suffering from shortages of drinking water because purification plants along the Euphrates have all but shut down because of already low water levels on account of the summer weather.
Also on Thursday, an army officer said security forces used anti-tank missiles to repel suicide bombers driving explosives-rigged vehicles who attacked two military bases west of Baghdad.
Influential sheikhs and tribal heads in Anbar province pledge allegiance to group and condemn Iraqi government.
A number of Sunni tribal sheikhs and tribes in Iraq's Anbar province have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.
The sheikhs and tribal leaders made the pledge on Wednesday in Fallujah in a statement read out by Ahmed Dara al-Jumaili, an influential sheikh, after a meeting.
Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, reporting from Baghdad, said it was not yet clear if the tribes had been forced to pledge allegiance by ISIL fighters, who control Fallujah and most of Anbar.
"If this is a willing move, then that is very worrying for the Iraqi government," he said.
"The statement they issued was very strong - it condemned the government.
"It said the only way that peace would come to Anbar province is if the tribes joined ISIL."
Our correspondent said the inclusion of the al-Jumaili tribe in the pledge was of particular concern for Iraqi authorities, given its influence in Anbar.
"The al-Jumailis command a number of fighters and they have a large amount of influence over other tribes [in Anbar]," he said.
Matthew Henman, an expert on terrorism and insurgencies, told Al Jazeera that ISIL may have threatened the Sunni tribes into backing the group.
"But it could also be symptomatic of a wider break in trust of the Iraqi government and a feeling of a lack of confidence in Baghdad's ability to recapture territory from ISIL, leaving them to the mercy of ISIL and little option but to side with them," he said.
The Anbar sheikhs' pledge comes after a number of Sunni leaders in the province publicly criticised the involvement of Shia units in the fight to retake areas from ISIL, including the provincial capital Ramadi, which fell last month.
Government's support
While a number of Sunni tribes have joined with government forces and Shia units, Al Jazeera's Khan said a number of tribal leaders had asked for government support to fight ISIL.
"They said 'If you arm us, if you allow us to fight as Sunnis, we will be able to get rid of ISIL quite quickly'," he said.
"The fact that a number of these tribes have come together ... and pledged allegiance to ISIL shows the level of anger the Sunni tribes feel towards the government in Baghdad."
In another Anbar development, ISIL attacked a base north of Fallujah with two explosives-rigged vehicles driven by suicide bombers, and another south of the city with four more, including a bulldozer, an army colonel said on Thursday.
The attacks were foiled using Russian Kornet anti-tank missiles, the officer said.
Against this backdrop, Iraqi officials have also accused ISIL of cutting off water supplies to government-held areas in Anbar.
On Wednesday, fighters closed the locks on a dam on the Euphrates River near Ramadi, reducing the flow downstream and threatening irrigation systems and water treatment plants in nearby areas controlled by troops and tribes opposed to ISIL.
Taha Abdul-Ghani, an Anbar councilman, said the move will not only make the lives of people living in the affected areas more difficult but it could also pose a threat to the security forces fighting to recapture Ramadi. If water levels drop significantly, he said, the fighters could cross the Euphrates River on foot.
Thousands of people in government-held towns of Khalidiya and Habaniya are already suffering from shortages of drinking water because purification plants along the Euphrates have all but shut down because of already low water levels on account of the summer weather.
Also on Thursday, an army officer said security forces used anti-tank missiles to repel suicide bombers driving explosives-rigged vehicles who attacked two military bases west of Baghdad.
another large scale military intervention to end the cycle of violence. What could possibly go wrong. Maybe its time to learn from past mistakes. I agree, that ISIS wont go away any time soon. Violent extremism will continue to exists as long as structural violence continues to be omnipresent in the region. Its time to focus on the root causes and not on the symptoms.
The invasion worked as of 2011 when Maliki, at the behest of Iran, opted to not invite the US to extend its stay with a smaller force in case anything went wrong. And of course, it did go very wrong, thanks in part to Maliki's sectarian ways.
So after your 5-10 year peacekeeping force and elections, what's to stop this exact same thing happening again?
The invasion didn't work considering it cultivated a violent insurgency both in the North with the Sunni tribes and in the south with the Sadr militia. Remember Fallujah?
It didn't work initially because of Bremer's incompetence, but certainly did work later after AQI was routed. Violent attacks were down significantly in the final years the US was there, in fact more attacks were likely coming from Iranian backed groups than Sunni ones.
Credible, inclusive, and transparent elections where all ethnic groups feel like they have a stake in the national interest and an Army that has the will to defend that interest. Iraq lacks both at the moment, and Syria obviously has neither.
Regardless of where the attacks came from it proved one important factor - foreign troop presence in the country was inflammatory.
One might also argue quite effectively that a quarter century of totalitarian ba'athist rule was also inflammatory.
Brutal, totalitarian and perhaps even evil, you can call the Ba'athist regime all those things. But prior to the US deciding it was a good idea to decimate the country and open a huge vacuum, there wasn't a single presence of AQ or another radical Islamist faction. Furthermore, you can hardly play the moral card when the sanctions that preceded the war had starved half a million Iraqi children.
The last couple of decades have shown us that military intervention or forced nation building simply doesn't work. Sending in troops to tackle ISIS will only invigorate their cause. Go after their Arab/Turkish lifeline and you'll starve them.
All true, although your last bit isn't true. It can and does work as long as its done properly, and not as the bumbling Bush administration attempted it. The two seminal events - Bremer's dismembering of Saddam's MoD, and the 2011 removal of all US troops - changed what could've been a very effective campaign to one that languished and regressed into what we have today.
So how do you create this climate of peace and inclusion? The West completely failed to achieve anything like this in the Middle East. Nobody sets the bar that high anymore, because it doesn’t work. You are talking about a fairytale that has nothing to do with reality. Even hawks in washington realized that.
Look at Afghanistan: nation building => state building => building military and policy and some institutions => building military => building military, that can hold the country together with massive foreign support (financially and militarily) => building military that can hold parts of the country, with massive and permanent foreign support.
And now you start to talk about nation building again. That’s borderline wumming.
Look at Afghanistan: nation building => state building => building military and policy and some institutions => building military => building military, that can hold the country together with massive foreign support (financially and militarily) => building military that can hold parts of the country, with massive and permanent foreign support.
And now you start to talk about nation building again. That’s borderline wumming.
The invasion was a catastrophic idea, period. Though preserving the MoD might have gone some way to mitigating this disaster.
In other news, Tariq Aziz has died in hospital.
So why couldn't these be achieved between 2003 and 2011, and why would it be any different this time round?
For the reasons I discussed before. Bremer's decision to undo the Saddam era Army and other de-baathification policies helped fuel the insurgency and Maliki's decision to disinvite a small group of US troops to help stabilize the Iraqi military post 2011, were massive. The situation the US left in 2011 was quite good (in relative terms) in terms of security and reconstruction. Unfortunately, Maliki became increasingly sectarian over time and managed to disenfranchise much of the Sunni population, which allowed ISIS to grow.
Empires, monarchies and military dictatorships kept Iraq together until 2003 but it seems unfeasible for it be viable as a democratic state in its current form. Ultimately the country is fundamentally divided on ethnic and religious lines, largely because its yet another country where the borders are composed of arbitrary lines drawn up by withdrawing western powers with no consideration to the demographic make-up of its population.
On that particular topic, you should find this article especially interesting -'Lines Drawn on an Empty Map': Iraq's Borders and and the Legend of the Artificial State
Part 1 - http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/21759/lines-drawn-on-an-empty-map_iraq’s-borders-and-the
Part 2 - http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/21780/lines-drawn-on-an-empty-map_iraq’s-borders-and-the
The problem with re-drawing the maps is that much of the oil reserves and industry are in located in the Shia-dominated south and Baghdad. A fledging Sunni state would be on the very short end of the stick, not to mention vulnerable to extremist assimilation.
Minus the Kurds who will inevitably get a state and rightly so, its in the best interest of all other Iraqis to remain under one state.
Minus the Kurds who will inevitably get a state and rightly so, its in the best interest of all other Iraqis to remain under one state.
Yes because thousands of ISIS fighters are joining the fight from Europe because of Maliki's sectarian ways in Europe.
You and I and everybody knows what the root of the problem is. Stop kidding yourself.
Also, if the "invasion was working as long as the invasion continues", then the invasion is not working (for the Iraqis).
Al-Qaeda wasn't routed in Iraq, and it isn't routed in Afghanistan either. It's an ideology and you know where the root of that ideology lies. They were just waiting for the US to withdraw so they can have an easier (and more winnable) battle. In fact, if Al-Maliki was as sectarian as the Saudi king or the Bahraini king then may be Al-Qaeda would have faced a tougher battle.
Saudi Arabia are sending the men and the arms, Turkey are doing all the logistic work the terrorists need, and then it's suddenly Maliki's fault (who is by far the least sectarian president in the region)...
If you can't solve the problem then at least admit it. Pinning it all on Maliki (coming from somebody who I assume worked for the US military) just shows how far the US really is from understanding the middle East, let alone solving its problems, unless you do understand how things work but just want to go for an easy excuse instead.
Yes because thousands of ISIS fighters are joining the fight from Europe because of Maliki's sectarian ways in Europe.
You and I and everybody knows what the root of the problem is. Stop kidding yourself.
Also, if the "invasion was working as long as the invasion continues", then the invasion is not working (for the Iraqis).
Al-Qaeda wasn't routed in Iraq, and it isn't routed in Afghanistan either. It's an ideology and you know where the root of that ideology lies. They were just waiting for the US to withdraw so they can have an easier (and more winnable) battle. In fact, if Al-Maliki was as sectarian as the Saudi king or the Bahraini king then may be Al-Qaeda would have faced a tougher battle.
Saudi Arabia are sending the men and the arms, Turkey are doing all the logistic work the terrorists need, and then it's suddenly Maliki's fault (who is by far the least sectarian president in the region)...
If you can't solve the problem then at least admit it. Pinning it all on Maliki (coming from somebody who I assume worked for the US military) just shows how far the US really is from understanding the middle East, let alone solving its problems, unless you do understand how things work but just want to go for an easy excuse instead.
Wrong. I did work closely with senior members of the Iraqi gov and members of Maliki's inner circle, so I don't need any revisionism on what the Maliki/Da'wa position was on how to deal with Sunni Iraq. There may be some truth to the idea that AQI/ISIS were waiting for the US to leave, just as there is plenty of truth in the fact hat AQI's networks had been severely degraded in most of Iraq. They were beaten into submission and didn't have the ability to get up to what they were doing in 2006-09. There is a good reason why Maliki was chased out of Baghdad last year. He was both incompetent and sectarian, and even members of the Da'wa hierarchy wanted him gone.