I hope we, or the U.N., can organize some kind of airlift to help the Yazidi. Above all, they need water. I hate to get involved in Iraq again in any way, but this is a humanitarian crisis that we bear some responsibility for causing. George Packer is right about one thing, for sure:
According to the Times, Washington has turned down Kurdish requests for American weapons for fear of alienating and undermining Iraq’s central government in Baghdad.
It seems delusional to imagine that there is such a thing as an Iraqi central government that should be given priority over stopping ISIS and preventing a massacre. That dream of the American project in Iraq is gone.
Whether we should intervene or not, and if so how, are separate questions from how we should treat the government in Baghdad. We should not pretend that they will ever unify or exercise effective control over the north and west of Iraq. What we share with them is an abhorrence at the behavior of ISIS, and that should be the only common purpose we care about. Somehow, someway, the Sunni Arab elders must be separated from ISIS, and Baghdad is the biggest obstacle to that happening.
Here is the Wiki entry for the Yazidi.
the U.N. not us. No possible good can come out of any further American involvement in Iraq.
does Packer note how our important ally Turkey might feel about sending American weapons to the Kurds?
The US already intervened by forward positioning four divisions’ worth of materiel in the Mosul area for use by the Iraqi army. Those captured weapons are what allows ISIS to have an advantage over local militias.
The best thing the US can do is stand aside and let Iran support Iraq in dealing with ISIS. There are some reports that Iran’s Quds forces and Iraq’s Shi’ite militias will have as many as 750,000 troops in the field against ISIS by the fall. This coalition of forces has the cultural knowledge and religious sensitivity that bunches of US troops chatting about “sand niggers” and “ragheads” lacked. (Thanks GOP.) They might prevail through smart military action that is tied to political objectives, something our besotted generals have failed at since World War II.
And let the Saudis and Gulf States know that assisting in any way with reinforcements to ISIS is a problem with Uncle Sam. US destabilization of Iraq created the environment for this mess; US assistance in the destabilization of Syria through its Saudi and Gulf State proxies (thanks, John McCain and John Brennan) created ISIS as a military force.
Maybe someone should wonder where Turkey stands relative to ISIS. Securing refuge for Yazidis through Turkey is possible geographically. Is it possible politically?
When the US enters a country and uses minority groups (Degar in Vietnam, Hmong in Laos) as collaborators, failure puts those collaborators at risk and they and their relatives become exiles looking for sanctuary. There seems to be a bit of this in the story of the Yazidis.
you’re recommended policy would result in an even bigger ethno-sectarian blood bath than the one we currently have. Iran should not be encouraged to take over Iraq. We need Sunnis to put down ISIS, not Shiites.
Iran is already involved in Iraq. It’s not up to the United States. Shi’ites are defending Shi’ite cities and shrines against destruction by ISIS. At the same time, they are taking a toll on ISIS fighters and negotiating to separate Sunni tribes from ISIS into alliance with the Iraqi government.
After what the US has done in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s just anti-Iranian propaganda to think that it is in Iran’s interest to have a sectarian civil war on its border.
Iraqi Shi’ites have no intention of Iran “taking over” Iraq. The ethnic differences between Iraqi Arabs and Iranian Persians mean that Iraq will not be administered as a province of Iran. And Iraqi nationalism still is strong enough that significant political support exists outside Kurdistan not to partition Iraq. Within that, there is a battle for control with the Shi’ites wanting majority rule for fear of human rights abuses by Sunnis and Sunnis fearing that their minority population means that they will be subject to retaliatory human rights abuses by the Shi’ite government. And then the Ba’atth activists in ISIS seek a resurgence of the coalition that ruled Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
We don’t need anything but to get out of the way.
The path to stability and restoration of order lies through defeat of ISIS, even if that means Iranian influence in shoring up Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. The path to stability also requires that Saudi Arabia stop exporting Wahabism and Salafism as means to undermine other Muslim countries.
And the path to stability requires Palestinian independence and sovereignty over its 1967 borders with human rights guarantees for the people who wish to stay in the settlements and right of return for Palestinians forcibly expelled from the 1967 borders of Israel.
The US has not sought stability but chaos in the Middle East for the past decade and a half. PNAC was about breaking stability and remaking it to their designs. That was arrogant and it failed. Time to actually listen to the locals. In this context, ISIS is not locals but essentially Saudi imperial shock troops aligned against most of the Saudi royal family.
There are rumors that US CIA is deeply involved with ISIS. If this is true, I hope this truth surfaces quickly so that it can be dealt with by Congress. It seems that there might be some folks in the US clandestine services working their own agendas.
I have to agree at this point. But humanitarian assistance – offered in a productive manner, not with any gotchas – should be offered by us for the next 50 years to anyone out there who needs it. We owe that.
TarHeel, you really don’t understand the dynamics of what is going in Iraq and Syria.
The reason ISIS is taking over the country is because the Sunnis prefer them to Iran. The Sunni sheiks who don’t like religious fanatics already sent Kerry a letter begging for help. They don’t want Iran’s help or Baghdad’s help, unless the government in Baghdad is changed. And they can’t defend their turf with the weapons and intelligence that they have. Even the national army got routed up in Mosul.
Iran is the cause of the success of ISIS in Iraq and cannot be part of the solution except by getting out of the way and letting someone less pro-Iranian take over for Maliki.
Uh, no. US-KSA-Israel obsession with Iran facilitated the creations and rise of ISIS. Iran is not responsible for the Arab Shia Maliki and his government’s decision to repay Iraq Sunnis for their years of getting a smaller slice of the pie during Saddam’s rule. And those that had more privilege under Saddam do what peoples always do when they suddenly lose that privilege.
Iran is not responsible for Maliki? They have no influence over him?
Look, obviously Bush is responsible for this entire mess.
But there are other actors who have made decisions that led us to this specific place. Set Bush aside for a moment. He’s not getting off in posterity.
As to Tarheel, he’s still treating Iraq like a country.
He’s talking about Shi’ite militias being an effective defensive force against ISIS. That is only true in Shi’ite areas of the country. The last thing we want is Shi’ite militias going into Sunni areas and cleaning house. That is the worst imaginable idea.
The only way to clean out ISIS is for Sunnis to do it themselves. Otherwise, you might as well kill all the Sunnis, because that is what it would take.
Iraq still is a functioning country with a functioning parliament. For now.
Yes, the last thing we want is for Shi’ite militias to go into Sunni areas and clean house. There has been enough of that already under the benign gaze of US troops. But is is in defending Shi’ite areas that Shi’ite militias are exactly heavy losses on ISIS fighters. And there already is a small alliance between some Sunni tribes and the efforts by the Shi’ite militias.
It is the Kurds who will decide when Iraq ceases to be a federated state. That decision has not been set in concrete yet. Even the Kurds need the rest of Iraq and Kurds from Turkey as well.
I am still of the opinion that ISIS cannot prevail because it cannot govern people who are fundamentally opposed to its ideology and tactics. And because it is not a local phenomenon but another bunch of foreign troops. The advantage of surprise and the capture of large stores of weapons is now gone.
Even the Sunnis will need the help of the Shi’ites and the Kurds and the Yazidis to clean out ISIS. Just because the UK imposed an identity and borders on Iraq does not mean that over 90 years there has not been the growth of a trans-ethnic Iraqi nationalism. The struggle has always been for the folks out of power to have equal justice under the law.
It is the removal of foreign fighters–all of them–that will finally allow the political system to define its future, whether as a unified state, a federated state, or two or more new states. Iran’s presence for now is a fact on the ground and a counterbalancing force to ISIS’s foreign incursion. It is probably at this point (aside from Turkish advance against ISIS, which has ethnic issues both with Kurds and Arabs) the least culturally insensitive force that could intervene. And that is stating a relatively thin hope based on what appears to be more political sophistication on Iran’s part that any other party can muster.
As I see it, ISIS will be crushed between the Shia-Quds alliance on one side, the Iraqi-Turkish Kurd forces on the other and the shifting of Sunni alliances to one or both of those sides, leaving ISIS in isolation. As the mystique and capabilities of ISIS weaken, those within ISIS-held territory will exact their revenge on ISIS.
What is required for that scenario to unfold is for the momentum of the ISIS advance to be halted before there is destruction of a major Shi’ite holy place. if the Sunnis are going to do it themselves, they better get cracking and start acting with some reference to supporting on the ground what the Shi’ite militias and Kurds are doing. Otherwise, they will have branded themselves as ISIS and face revenge.
US policy should treat Iran as a silent ally and try to negotiate a deal between the Turkish government and the Kurds, No. Scratch that. This State department is too imcompetent to be trusted negotiating anything that sensitive diplomatically. Or does Erdogan want Assad gone to much for that to be possible? Maybe the best policy if for the US to watch what’s going on for now, silence its pontificating about who’s legitimate or not, ignore John McCain and the other pearl clutchers, and let the regional powers get a grip on the situation; it is their neighborhood after all.
Even as we speak, Iran is trying to find someone who can hold the country together, and has decided that Maliki has to go. If they are sophisticated enough to realize that a strong ally has no hope of holding the country together, then they may be able to fix this problem, but that’s asking a lot. They have to have the discipline to back someone who isn’t in their hip pocket.
Still, the very fact that Iran gets to make the call tells you why there is such support in Sunni areas for ISIS. If they’re fighting the Shiites and Iran, then they can’t be that bad.
This is why the only way to stop ISIS is to get the Sunnis to turn on them. If they can get some cooperation out of Baghdad, that’ll be great, but Baghdad is an obstacle at the moment, because of Iran.
Also, your definition of “functioning” is completely different from mine.
From the Daily Star article:
There is political movement going on; that is functioning, It is happening within the context of a still-operating parliament. And Iran is weighing in against sectarian approaches.
The key figure in Iraq is not Maliki, but al-Sistani. It is al-Sistani who guided Iraq through the American occupation and ensured that the government held out for the departure of American troops. It is al-Sistani (and to a degree, Sadr) who have tried to moderate sectarian excesses and have a broad and functioning government that reflects the best of Shia ethical doctrine. Both al-Sistani and Sadr can work with the other ethnic factions politically. Neither seems to have let power go to their heads, unlike Maliki.
Now that Iran has expressed a hint, Maliki either goes voluntarily or his security services and military tell him his time is over. His presence no longer enhances their power and authority.
But the key event now is to see whether the ISIS advance on Shi’a areas is stopped. Sunnis can play at siding with the winners; in this sort of sectarianism, Shi’as and other sects know their fate at the hands of ISIS. That will make them all the more resistant if there is sufficient unity.
The reason that ISIS has Sunni Iraqi allies is that Maliki overplayed his hand just like Morsi did. The government in Baghdad is a problem at the moment but Shi’ite militias are not waiting for the government to get its act together. So the only folks in the field who are opposing the ISIS fighters effectively are Shi-ite militias allied with Quds advisors.
At this point there are a couple of Sunni tribes aligned with ISIS, the tribes who sent Kerry a letter who are scrambling to figure out what to do, and a couple of Sunni tribes aligned with the Shi’ite militias and Quds officers. The only ones effectively stopping ISIS on a local basis are the Shi’ite militias who have the incentives to do so; they are protecting their own homes and holy places from devastation.
George W. Bush and the persistence of his advisers in the national security state is the cause of the success of ISIS. They set up the Iraqi state as a proxy and arms customer of the United States. That arrangement will not last because the force that Maliki controls is abandoning him. The national army in Mosul was not defending their own homes; they are in the same position as the Afghan army that continues to frag US officers. The folks organized to defend their homes will prevail because ISIS is not an army but several thousand shock troops (unless the Saudis or some other Sunni state are more deeply involved than has been reported).
Thirty-five years of Iranophobia has distorted US abilities to sort out this situation.
“Someone less pro-Iranian than Maliki”…I can hear the Ahmed Chalabi lobby in DC behind those words.
If the US truly seeks stability, it needs the help of Iran in the Iraq-through-Lebanon zone. Turkey and Israel seem to be incapable of helping. In fact, Israel has worked to make things worse.
As far as me understanding the dynamics of what is going on in Iraq and Syria, I doubt that even the folks on the ground are clear what’s going on. But the western analysts are spinning the same old stories about the “intentions” of other countries. At a minimum, the intentions of other countries are not to have chaos close to their borders. And then the intentions are to ensure their own self-determination and internal political stability.
Maliki is pro-Maliki, not pro-Iranian. The alignment of Iran more with Shi’ite militias seems to show that. Not sure when it happens but the Maliki rule will end soon either through parlimentary action or some sort of coup d’etat.
Those Sunni sheiks writing Kerry are going to need outside help to contain the foreign ISIS fighters. A non-sectarian alliance is to their advantage in setting up negotiations to re-establish normal political processes. Too close an alignment with the United States is not. Nor is it really in US interests in the long term.
June 6, 2010, Heavy-duty weapons to Iraq: Iraq’s ambassador to Washington attended a ceremony in Fort Worth, Texas, on Thursday, marking the delivery of Iraq’s first F-16 fighter jet by defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp.
July 30, 2014 U.S. agrees to send 5,000 more Hellfire missiles to Iraq.
Sending food and water humanitarian aid somewhat more difficult.
Wonder how long it takes ISIS to figure out how to fly an F-16 with hellfire missiles? All it takes is one trained Saudi air force pilot.
Might do better with a pilot recruit from Israel. Not sure the KSA pilots are fully skilled as there could be some nepotism involved in getting those jobs.
Since he was so right about there never being a chance of sectarian violence in Iraq, I wonder why Bill Kristol isn’t on TV all of the time, reminding people of his skills at analysis and prognostication?
But, you know, it was us DFH liberals who were wrong about invading Iraq – and also treasonous traitors while being wrong.
When we warned them that it wasn’t just a rake they were about to step on, but a poisonous snake, our conservative said, “F-U! That’s a garden hose, and we’ll grab it to start watering the Middle East with democracy, liberty, and freedom!”
Rattle-rattle-rattle – STRIKE!
Shitheads.
The whole neo-CLOWN crew, and every person responsible for foreign affairs in W’s mis-adminstration should be spending the rest of their lives doing penance at The Hague.
For inquiring minds.
That is, for those those still possessing…or perhaps better, in the posseession of… a certain loose wire or two that continues to cast about looking for real information:
Look familiar?
More:
Know thine enemy.
And even more importantly, know thine enemy’s enemies.
They might turn out to be your friends.
If, of course, they survive.
AG
Once again I will quote Maud dib, ‘the person who controls something is the one who can destroy it’.
I would guess it’s about 80% they will blow that dam. That number goes to 100% if they start to lose.
Now we are supposed to arm the Kurds? Ya, that will end well.
.
There’re so many weapons in that part of the world right now that if the Kurds can’t arm themselves through capturing arms and ordnance they probably won’t prevail anyway.
Apparently they could not even be bothered to buy ammo.
Chest-thumpers.
.
August 6, 2014 – SRNNews: Death toll from Baghdad car bombs rises to 47.
Goddam Cheney, Rummy, Dan Senor, and fuckstick Chalabi need to carry leather bags full of sweet, sweet spring water on their backs up those fucking mountains and personally pour the life saving elixer down the throats of those poor souls.