Is it my imagination or is the administration’s narrative on DAESH preparing to collapse? Consider:
Iraq’s Sunni blocs halt parliament activities after sheikh’s killing
Tribal leader: Iraqi troops in Anbar could ‘collapse within hours’
Sunnis may exit Iraq parliament after sheik’s slaying
Military and ISIS Clash Over Iraqi Town Near a Base Housing U.S. Troops
Let’s engage in a little thought experiment, purely hypothetical. That the war against DAESH in Syria is a bust is now so obvious it can hardly be denied. What are the implications for U. S. policy if the war against DAESH in Iraq is revealed to be equally ineffective? Do we arm the Kurds in the recognition that whatever arms we give them may well be captured by DAESH? I doubt the Turks will think much of our arming the Kurds since those arms could well end up being turned against them. Does the rhetoric begin the transformation from “degrade and destroy” to “contain” to something else? What happens? That’s a question. I honestly don’t know.
US policy rests on the assumption that Iraq’s disparate groups could be brought together into a functioning, fair democratic system if only there weren’t spoilers like DAESH around. IMO Pat Lang is completely correct about what passes for the Iraqi government – they are not interested in real power-sharing with the Sunnis which is why so many of them made a deal with the devil and joined ISIS.
The Kurds are fairly resilient – arming them will, IMO, keep DAESH from taking over their areas. DAESH actually has a long-term problem – they can get money and recruits, but they’ll slowly be depleted of military equipment. They captured a lot in their initial take-over, but equipment disappears fast in war. This will make offensive operations more difficult for them, particularly as long as US airpower is around to destroy them should they try to mass.
It isn’t just military equipment that they’ve captured. They captured significant amounts of gold as well. With that, money from oil smuggling, drug dealing, human trafficking, ransoms, and contributions from wealthy Gulf sheikhs, they can go for some time without running into shortages. There are links around pointing out that DAESH is the richest terrorist group the world has ever seen.
But in the long term there’s the question of whether DAESH runs out of patience and supplies before we do. I’m guessing that we run out of patience first and Pat has agreed with me.
Andy is correct, though we do risk re-arming them if we keep arming the Iraqis. If we are going to run out of patience it is most likely that will result in our re-invading, not stopping altogether.
Steve
So DAESH has big money. Big deal, they’ll use it up fast enough,
North of DAESH are the Kurds; they aren’t likely to become friends. East are the Iranians, and ditto, South are Iraqi Shi’ites. West is Syria and Assad, who definitely aren’t friendly — and if Bagdad falls, there will be Jordan and Israel, And all the while, the US will be throwing in bombs and missiles to wipe out concentrations of troops.
There’s something here which suggests DAESH/ISIS is going to triumph? I don’t see it. DAESH is as tough as NazI Germany! No friggign way. DAESH is like Soviet Russia! Well, no, not by 70 years. DAESH is as solidly entrenched as North Korea Uhhh, probably not. DAESH is like —
You know what strikes me DAESH is like? The Bloods The Crips. The Maroons, Los Angeles street gangs. Nasty groups of not so bright kids, shooting at each other and the occasional pedestrian for the privilege of selling narcotics, which live on and on as neighborhood kids grow up and enter them and eventually mature and drop out, which owe their existence not to economics but to social flaws which neither liberals or conservatives know how to counter — or especially want to counter.
You want to knock off the Bloods in South LA? Send in the Second Armored Division, tell them to Fire At Will. Kill off half a million people! And two minutes after you tell the Second Armored to return to its base, the Bloods will be back on the South LA streets, In the Obama administration. In George W, Bush’s administration, Or the Bill Clinton administration, if they’d been stupid enough to make this test. Or the forthcoming Jed Bush Administration. Or the Bobby Jindal administration.. Because what it takes to eliminate the Bloods isn’t just armor plate but really extensive social change, affecting millions of people over generations, Occupation. We did that in Germany after WW II. We did that in Japan. To some extent, we did that in South Korea. We did NOT do that in South Viet Nam, let alone North Viet Nam. We haven’t done it in the Middle East — and not one of the 535 US Representatives or Senators has suggested we should. We’re Americans! We work our miracles just by existing, and everybody but criminals just falls in line. Sure.
The US Marine Corps could be doubled or triple in size and given nuclear weapons, and The Bloods would still be alive in Los Angeles. This doesn’t mean the Marines are useless, or that the Bloods ought to be recruited as a military unit. Or that we should sneer at Marines and admire gang bangers
Sometimes the more you ponder the problem, or worse yet trivialize it, allowing it to grow beyond manageable dimensions, the greater the problem becomes. IMO that’s been the policy committed to addressing ISIS aka, ISIL, and now DAESH.
So far the only significant parts of this political strategy has been to tepidly bomb, verbally threaten, deny Islamic religious involvement least we offend others, announce what we’re “not going to do,” while boldly changing the name of who we are supposedly going to destroy.
Good Luck!