Dheyaa Alwakeel
Since the fall of Mosul on the 10th of June 2014, the USA has been hesitant in making a firm and decisive decision for facing the ISIS threats and aggressions on Iraq. Washington has settled for observing the situation, and declaring that all options are on the table, and that they are considering the next step that hasn’t come even after a year had passed since the forming of that aggression. And anyone who studies the US performance during this period should conclude that the US administration is not serious about defeating ISIS and kicking it out of Iraq.
And the US president’s talk with the journalist Thomas Friedman in last January confirms the reality of the American approach and their role in the escalating crisis in the region as he sees (Obama: what’d happened from ISIS’s control over massive areas of Syrian and Iraqi lands, reveals a new alternative regional regime for Sykes- Picot). And for that he assures Mister Al-Abadi that the war against ISIS will be longer, and that situation raises many questions, the most important of which being the following:
- Is the US is incapable of facing armed men with no aircrafts or heavy weaponry that cannot cope with the modern technology of US forces?
- Or does the fabricated American incapability hide an intention to elongate the struggle to achieve other goals?
This theory requires from American aspect to keep the Iraqi military weak and lacking ability and initiative to gain a stronger upper hand in the war against ISIS so that the solution keys and conditions would remain in the American pocket. And from here rises the understanding of President Obama’s evasion from providing support to the Iraqi army during Mr. Al-Abadi’s last visit, as he is was politically maneuvering and swaying from the subject, dividing the picture with researching the PMF, the Iraqi army’s ideology and national identity, and what he calls “the sectarian structure”, and before that he brought up the topic of reformations in the Iraqi government’s policy, which was later mentioned in congressman Mac Thornberry’s project in light of these problems seeking solutions.
The Iraqi army
(No Unmanned aerial vehicles, or Apache planes even if they were rented with their pilots, or tanks or heavy weapons unless they were under the accords of Washington’s political will) and the Air and Intelligence support are tied by political projects and many conditions… Even the F16 aircrafts that were contracted on and were supposed to be delivered last year are still under processing and what the Pentagon describes as securing the country’s air base, and we don’t know when that will be done.
The armament
The United States doesn’t provide a solution to the existing crisis in Iraq, instead it runs the crisis and manages it well, as the former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger sees. As they create political projects that pressurizes and weakens the central government and the Iraqi unity along with the army, and the armed forces, instead of arming and reinforcing the military in their fight.
The situation is now as the following:
- No armament for the army.
- The Air and Intelligence support is conditional.
- Reservations on the PMF participation in the missions.
- Suggested and relatively long-term projects for arming the clans.
- The establishing of alternative military institutions (National Guard).
- Provoke new crises via controversial projects.
And the result is the army facing off with ISIS alone on the battle ground while facing difficult combat conditions that lack the means of strength and the modern technology necessary to confront the guerilla warfare waged by ISIS. And maybe this situation explains the phenomenon of the martyrdom of military leaders and the continued state of hit and run without end on the field, and we will discuss that topic more later.
President Obama, who sees that ISIS’s control over the Iraqi and Syrian land is a new Sykes-Picot, is without a doubt convinced that ISIS forms a core variable in the equation of dividing Iraq, and that the field situation must remain as it is right now, which means the continuation of the draining of blood and resources, violence, war, and existing threats. And more dangerously so the fact that ISIS’s thinkers and tacticians fully realize the new American game rules and respect it to the fullest.
