Mosul Dam
The Iraqi government has finally come to the aid of the beleaguered Kurds in their fight against ISIS. Prime Minister Maliki, alarmed by a string of ISIS victories in the north, sent his air force to support the Kurds.
The air force began by bombing targets Sinjar, the most significant town captured by ISIS in the region so far. It then expanded its operations to a broader area, before returning to Baghdad.
Apparently, fear of seeing ISIS gain control of Iraq’s largest dam spurred Maliki into action. The dam remains under the control of the Kurdish fighters for now. But these fighters still lack ammunition, thanks to the unwillingness of Baghdad and Washington to provide them with it [my emphasis].
Hydro-electricity may be one driver of Baghdad’s policy, but oil is the primary one. The Maliki government and the Kurds are embroiled in a legal war over the sale of crude oil from the Kurdish region. Until now, it seems, Maliki has been willing to use the threat of ISIS to coerce the Kurds into turning oil revenue over to Baghdad.
The Obama administration has sided with Maliki. Its position, as stated by Brett McGurk, is that the oil belongs to the entirety of Iraq and that, consistent with the Iraqi constitution, the revenue should be shared.
This position may be reasonable in the abstract. In practice, however, it gives Maliki the whip hand, even though he has shown little regard for the constitution or the rights of minority groups like the Kurds. Ironically, Maliki’s abuses towards Kurds and Sunnis generally were the Obama administration’s excuse for not doing more to help his government fight ISIS.
-Powerline
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Is there an upside to allowing Iraq to to fall to the Sunni?
A big criticism of the Iraq War was that it unbalanced the mutual animosity between Iraq and Iran, throwing majority-Shiite Iraq into the arms of Shiite Iran.
On the other other hand, ISIS-controlled Iraq would make Iran look like Ghandi and perhaps hasten their acquisition of nuclear weapons.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Is there an upside to allowing Iraq to to fall to the Sunni?
A big criticism of the Iraq War was that it unbalanced the mutual animosity between Iraq and Iran, throwing majority-Shiite Iraq into the arms of Shiite Iran.
On the other other hand, ISIS-controlled Iraq would make Iran look like Ghandi and perhaps hasten their acquisition of nuclear weapons.
23 comments:
Is there an upside to allowing Iraq to to fall to the Sunni?
"to the Sunni"? What is that, the new BBC-endorsed way to refer to the ISIS savages?
Anyway, sounds like a plan -- the Taliban back in control of Afghanistan and ISIS in control of Iraq. Oh, and Syria, since its aim is to create an Islamic state across the Levant, which includes Iraq and Syria.
Such geniuses, the Obamans.
The Kurds are the only semi-decent people in the region. Sadaam Hussein tried to eliminate them entirely by starvation, and by mustard gas. He killed hundreds of thousands of Kurds, and drove the survivors into northern Iraq.
The Kurds had no axe to grind with Americans, and the Kurdish-controlled northern was the only part of Iraq where US forces didn't need to wear or carry weapons, nor wear protective equipment.
Baghdad's electricity comes from the dam in Mosul. Having it destroyed by ISIS would plunge Baghdad and much of Iraq into literal darkness for decades. Maliki is smart to engage the Kurds in helping protect the dam.
Sunni and Shia Muslims have been slaughtering each other for centuries, all because of the disagreement about which of Mohammad's relatives should have succeeded him when he died. Idiots.
No upside.
Letting cutthroats win is never good.
Witness Barbarossa and its ultimate aftermath.
The Kurds are not anything like turds.
They are probably the only honorable group in that whole shithole.
Maliki is desperate. Finally.
We should be helping the Kurds.
No whey!
An Putin shooting down commercial aircraft without consequence. Life is good on planet Hillary-Obama-Pelosi-Reid.
Off-topic, in the strict sense, but I was just reading this review of Hillary's book at TNR and thought the background photo accompanying it deserves a wide circulation. The review's worth a read as well.
I worry that this is another one of Deb's posts attempting to make the Kurds and Shias look very noble and as potential allies to America. Very bad. Everyone knows that their interests are not allied with ours. Why does she keep letting that tail wag our dog?
Sunni and Shia Muslims have been slaughtering each other for centuries, all because of the disagreement about which of Mohammad's relatives should have succeeded him when he died. Idiots.
Religions centered around militant conquest are apparently a real bitch.
Reading about reading Hillary's book is entirely boring. The jist so far... Her book is all hype. It's all political maneuvering and ass-kissing.
eee gads- that photo. She is one ugly woman.
The photo on her book cover is obviously air-brushed to the hilt.
Her teeth look crappy, you'd think with her money, she'd spend a little on them.
Amartel:
"Maliki is desperate. Finally"
He must be pretty stupid to not have taken action earlier to protect the dam.
Garth says "Waaay."
He must be pretty stupid to not have taken action earlier to protect the dam.
Not completely stupid -- the Iraqi air force did some air strikes back in June around Mosul. So this latest move looks like an extension of air support more directly to the Kurds.
Thanks, Lydia, that was an interesting read.
Thanks, didn't know that.
Who now plans to "step in" and aid the Lebanese? Better said, who can contain the ISIS mob? ISIS is breaching the Lebanese border as we speak....and there are reports of executions. The majority population of Lebanon is Shiite, and their sponsorship of Hezbollah leads credence to what R&B said above...the neither side, Sunni or Shia', shares our interests.
Frankly, I don't think we can step in anywhere anymore...we simply don't have the leadership, the manpower, the willpower, and we can't seem to deploy anything without Kellogg, Brown, and Root to come dragging their slow butts up behind us.
I don't think that's true what R&B says above about the Kurds, but that this is more the case:
The Kurds are among America’s best friends in the Middle East; they are pro-Western, largely secular, and largely democratic. Since 1991, when Saddam Hussein’s latest attempt to launch a genocidal campaign against them was thwarted by the United States, the Kurds have more or less governed themselves. During the American war, from 2003 to 2011, not a single American soldier was killed in the Kurdish region. The Kurds regard themselves as culturally and linguistically apart from the Arabs—Sunni and Shia—who inhabit the rest of Iraq. These days, fewer and fewer Kurds even know how to speak Arabic.
Difficult, I know, but distinctions really can be made about the Middle East. A little knowledge helps.
Lydia quoted ...
" The Kurds regard themselves as culturally and linguistically apart from the Arabs—Sunni and Shia'— who inhabit the rest of Iraq. "
I hope you noticed I did not mention Kurds in conjunction with Shiite and Sunni. I live among some 40,000 of the later and I am vary aware of the differences.
That said, the Kurds have ancient claims of their own vis a vis Iraq, Turkey, and Iran... and should have been awarded their own state post WWI. This "mix" just cited is volatile and I'm not sure how we could participate, once the original error was made via the British Mandate and breakup of the Ottoman Empire....especially in light of my closing remark yesterday at 9:20 AM.
Lydia said ....
Difficult, I know, but distinctions really can be made about the Middle East. A little knowledge helps.
Absolutely correct. However, as you find yourself identifying those distinctions, many of them tend to devolve in to tribal issues. Where I live, my neighborhood per se is about 90% Arab, but there are vast distinctions among them. Lebanese are cosmopolitan, even the rural emigrant, and relatively soft spoken. They were predominant here until the past 20 years, when as large influx of Iraqi's occurred, most refugees, but some with money. The are the country bumpkins (meant in a nice way) of the local Arabs...noisy, and prone to gregarious behavior. Lately a new wave of immigrants has been arriving, and I am not certain from where all they come...nothing I've read from Washington or elsewhere has identified the program enabling it.
On my street the increase seems to be Yemeni ... some extroverted and others very insular....with widely varying types of Islam under the two main groups of Shia' and Sunni...and both generally more conservative .... more strict observance, more tribal, and more frequent use of full veils on women. A year ago you might see one women a month or so wearing a full veil, this month a dozen plus would be ordinary.
What the above means is that you have Shia's and Sunni living in closer proximity than before here....Yemen is majority Sunni. Time will tell how this works out...sooner than later I think.
You can already sense the changes....almost no girls over the age of 5 or 6 on the street playing this summer...last summer they were the majority, ages 7-12, playing out of doors. Tha t bit of assimilation appears to have stopped.
I think R & B's point was that it would be an illusion to think the various Islamic sects (dozens, with the main ones) and Kurds could have our best interests on their minds, even as co-interests...their own inter-tribal and intra-tribal strife is what motivates them at present. He can correct me where he needs to...:)
The Kurds would be the most likely welcome our re-joining the fight, however, there is no way the Turks would let us operate over their border (they blocked the 4th Infantry Division in opening of the Gulf War), and certainly Iran would not. Lacking a current ordnance, engineering, and logistics base in the region, we have one recourse...once again air drop the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team in from the sky....as we did in the first days of the Invasion of Iraq.
Trouble is this time they'd be surrounded, which the unit creed of bravado asserts is "normal," but we'd not have anyone for them to join upon once there...e.g., what to do next? How to supply and engineer the operation? Don't kid yourself, lacking those two features you soon have a starving army, out of ammo with little to defend from behind in surround conditions.
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