2410 replies to this topic

[BLAH]

Yes, Iranian Quds (see: Hezbollah in Iraq) will be coming back from Syria with some more from Iran, but for the most part, they aren't really good at a conventional fight.

 

ISIS areas need to be pacified via a competent heavy ground force (with those fleeing taken out by blocking forces and air), and then held forever as soon as the dust settles by Iraqis (Shiite ones).

Edited by BLAH, 12 June 2014 - 0131 AM.

[alejandro_]

Anybody have any current info on peshmerga fighting capabilities? You hear a lot of talk about them being badass (relatively speaking for the neighborhood) but not a lot of details.

 

A relative of mine lived in Erbil for a few months. He is not in the military or anything, but he thought Peshmerga were well trained and very motivated. They are also very hard to infiltrate (compared to Army/Iraqui units). No heavy equipment though. The region was very quiet during the period he stayed. Locals used to say that in the last 7 years more people had died due to terrorism in the UK than in Kurdistan.

[Simon Tan]

Benghazi, Baghdad.....what does in matter?

[X-Files]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House signaled on Wednesday that it was looking to strengthen Iraqi forces to help them deal with an insurgency rather than to meet what one U.S. official said were past Iraqi requests for U.S. air strikes.

An Obama administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Iraq had previously made clear its interest in drone strikes or bombing by manned U.S. aircraft to help it beat back the militant onslaught.

Sunni rebels from an al Qaeda splinter group overran the Iraqi city of Tikrit on Wednesday and closed in on the biggest oil refinery in the country, making further gains in their rapid military advance against the Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad

http://news.yahoo.co...-034954846.html

Edited by X-Files, 12 June 2014 - 0920 AM.

[WRW]

These bastards cannot have just jumped in from nowhere (watching too much battleship galacteca) surely somebodies intel should have picked them up?

 

 

Am glad am going to Kabul - nice quiet and safe

[JasonJ]

They probably have been laying low until the US has by large exited the country. They may have also waited to see how the new Iraq government would play out its early phase while recruiting, networking and planning, and then took action accordingly.

[Soren Ras]

I wonder how many examples there are of a 30,000 strong military force -- with afvs and all the trappings -- running away from 800 lightly armed insurgents. Kinda historical, right?

At the very least it is another data point to the effect that trying to make certain people grow a spine if they don't already have one is harder than it was thought to be by those who advocated it, like myself at the time.

It does seem that Napoleon's old maxim about the moral being to the physical as three to one may be a severe underestimation in some neighborhoods. In this case it was about thirtyseven to one.

 

 

--

Soren

[Red Ant]

As I was saying
http://www.thetimes....icle4116273.ece
 
Iran has sent special forces and a unit of elite troops to Iraq to bolster floundering efforts by the Iraqi government to halt the advance of militants from an al-Qaeda splinter group.
A 150-man unit of the Quds Force, the elite section of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, has deployed to Iraq, supported by a team of Saberin, Tehran’s equivalent of the SAS. The troops will assist Iraqi forces as they regroup after the catastrophic loss of Mosul

Wow, are the Iranians really that buddy buddy with the Iraqis? There must still be a lot of bad blood ...

[toysoldier]

Wow, are the Iranians really that buddy buddy with the Iraqis? There must still be a lot of bad blood ...

 

 

In the Middle East is not about who you love, its about who you hate more.

[DKTanker]

Does anyone know if these cuts went through?

http://voices.washin...congress_o.html

http://www.worldpoli...en-iraq-mission

I was just idly wondering if this may have been part of the problem.

Don't know, what does it matter?  But as far as it might to you, the first link describes how the president's own party in congress was denying the money.

The second link was during the debt ceiling negotiations and wasn't specific to the State Department.

[DKTanker]

 

Wow, are the Iranians really that buddy buddy with the Iraqis? There must still be a lot of bad blood ...

 

Bad blood between Shia Iranians and Sunni Iraqis (minority population, think Saddam Hussein).  Iran has been friendly toward the new (Shia) Iraqi government.

[FkDahl]

This, in a nutshell sums up the idiocy of US foreign policy:

Can we airdrop Rob Ford into ISIL territory? They seem to be best buddies on the other side of the Iraq-Syria border.

 

Also, another damn good question is: what is the role of Turkey here? Is that the logistics supply base for them? And where they can sell oil they have taken control over? 

[Colin]

If you are going to give arms to anyone there, give them to the Kurds, after the Israelis they are the closest friends we have.

[Yama]

If you are going to give arms to anyone there, give them to the Kurds, after the Israelis they are the closest friends we have.

Can't do that as long as US supports the fiction about Iraq being a single state. Arming the peshmerga when they themselves are in an almost open territorial conflict with the Iraqi government would furtherly undermine the government.

[Brian Kennedy]

I do kinda wonder what would have happened if our policy had been to treat Iraq for what it is -- a Frankenstein country -- and supported some kind of loose federation instead.

[crazyinsane105]

I do kinda wonder what would have happened if our policy had been to treat Iraq for what it is -- a Frankenstein country -- and supported some kind of loose federation instead.

 

Or had we just not invaded at all and support Saddam against both the Iranians and Syrian jihadists...quite sure he'd be more than useful right now.

[Jeff]

I have it on the highest authority that al qaeda is decimated and on the run.

[Nikolas93TS]

Hardly decimated, likely on retreat.

Oh, ISIL or ISIS, whatever you prefer, is not part of Al Quaida.

[ScottBrim]

There are reports of mass murder going on in the areas of Iraq now controlled by the ISIL.

 

It is easy to predict that if these reports are accurate, Iran will step in with considerable military force to protect the Shia of Iraq from a massive slaughter perpetrated by Sunni jihadists. 
 
The next question is, what happens next in Afghanistan?

Do we leave on schedule, or do we stay on well past our current departure date for fear there will be a repetition next year, or the year after that, of what is now happening in Iraq?

[X-Files]

 

ISIS fighters patrol on a vehicle in Tikrit
 

 

One of the biggest headlines in the energy world this year has been the revival of Iraqi oil output. In February, Iraq's production surged to an average of 3.6 million barrels a day – the highest level since 1979, the year Saddam Hussein took power. Since Iraq has the world’s fifth largest proven oil reserves, it has the potential to expand output much further.

But while geology has bestowed gifts on Iraq, political strife has repeatedly taken them away.

The swift collapse of the Iraqi army in Mosul and other northern towns and the advance of extremist militants toward Baghdad has shaken the country’s stability just as Iraq, now the second largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, was starting to bring stability to oil markets.

Oil prices were virtually unchanged on Wednesday, but on Thursday they climbed. The price of Brent crude oil, the international benchmark grade, for delivery in July rose to $112.61 a barrel, up 2.4 percent, on the London-based commodity exchange.

http://www.washingto...-prices-higher/