Is the US doing enough in Iraq?
June 19, 2015, 4:41 am

Al-Abadi has had to rely on pro-Iranian militia to do most of the fighting against ISIL forces as US plans to train Iraqi forces appear to fall short [Xinhua]

The air raids – six in Syria and 16 in Iraq – are part of the US-led coalition’s Operation Inherent Resolve to degrade and destroy ISIL.

They come amid growing skepticism that not enough is being done to defeat the terrorist group.

Since the White House last week greenlit the deployment of an additional 450 military advisors and experts to Iraq, US media pundits have debated whether that is enough to turn the tide against ISIL.

Some have wondered whether the deployment is mission crawl – eventually leading to a US re-engagement in Iraq.

Others have said that a re-invasion of sorts is what would be required to decimate ISIL once and for all.

“Put simply, if the president wants to destroy the Islamic State, he will eventually renege on his ephemeral pledge not to engage in ground combat,” a June 18 New York Times editorial said.

Most military experts interviewed on US media say that arming, training and deploying thousands of Sunni tribal fighters is key to defeating a group that is better-trained, better-equipped and more adept than Al-Qaeda.

These experts allude to the so-called “surge” used by the Bush administration in 2007 to both increase the numbers of US troops and have them work closely with sahwa (Awakening) Sunni brigades; the latter proved instrumental in dislodging Al-Qaeda in Anbar province.

It is Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, which four weeks ago fell to ISIL forces.

Newsweek warns that the Obama administration’s “excessive caution and incrementalism in Iraq” is dangerous.

“We need to do more than the minimal incrementalism, and step up our game in Iraq twofold or threefold in the coming months,” Newsweek said.

On Wednesday, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said that the US approach should be to pressure the Baghdad government to “reinforce inclusivity and multi-sectarianism,” – referring to arming the Sunnis.

He also said that a multi-billion dollar program to recruit and train up to 24,000 Iraqi soldiers has fallen far short of its target.

Carter said: “We must see a greater commitment from all parts of the Iraqi government”.

His statements are unlikely to be warmly greeted in Baghdad following his controversial statements critical of the government there.

“What apparently happened was that the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight,” Carter told CNN on May 24 after Ramadi and the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria fell.

“They [Iraqi army] were not outnumbered. In fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force, and yet they failed to fight, they withdrew from the site, and that says to me, and I think to most of us, that we have an issue with the will of the Iraqis to fight ISIL and defend themselves,” he went on to say.

It’s not a rosy picture.

A June 2 meeting of 20 coalition members convened to plan joint strategies and help Iraq fight ISIL appears to have fired blanks.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said that the coalition needs to do more – provide military hardware and intelligence – to empower Baghdad to defeat ISIL.

So far, al-Abadi has had to rely on pro-Iranian Shia militia to carry out the bulk of anti-ISIL operations – a strategy that Washington says will only increase distrust and sectarianism.

But Washington’s policy of arming Sunnis and creating a Sunni national guard is almost impossible to envisage with the current Baghdad government, which is heavily lobbied and influenced by Iran.

The current impasse has only served to push back plans to liberate Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city; Baghdad had hoped to capitalize on the momentum after it freed Tikrit from ISIL.

But the fall of Ramadi and the inability of the Iraqi military to halt ISIL’s territorial crawl have convinced US military experts that it could take three years – or more – to remove ISIL from Iraq.

The battle for Mosul, in the north, will have to wait until then.

That may frustrate Iraq’s Kurdish Peshmerga irregular forces which have been locked in fierce battle against ISIL forces in both northern Iraq and Syria.

Since ISIL seized a third of Iraq last summer, Peshmerga forces have been successful in liberating dozens of towns and villages from ISIL clutches in the north.

The Kurdish Regional Government’s capital Erbil is also considered the safest city in Iraq, secured by local Kurdish Peshmerga forces.

In April, al-Abadi and Iraqi Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani agreed to establish a joint military operations “war room” to facilitate the campaign to retake Mosul.

But even that may be in jeopardy now as Baghdad and Erbil appear at loggerheads over oil rights, revenues and overall budget commitments.

Following years of disputes about the Kurds’ right to sell oil in the north to whom they please, the two sides signed an agreement last December outlining that Erbil would export oil through Baghdad’s energy contracts in exchange for a cut of the federal budget.

But the Kurds say that Baghdad is not living up to the deal and Erbil has threatened to seek “legal measures” against the Iraqi government.

The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies