Phuoc Long Redux

[Woodsman]

This morning I woke to the fall of Mosul and I retire to the fall of Tikrit. What do the iTulip Field Marshals think about the rhyme of history with Phuoc Long and the start of the 75 spring offensive?

Is this the beginning of the end in Iraq? Are Frequent Wind style helicopters evacuations from the green zone in the near term future? Do we see a Linebacker II style response? Or is my geezer perspective so hopelessly out of date as to be irrelevant?
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Islamist Insurgents Advance Toward Baghdad
Islamist Militants Overrun Tikrit, Birthplace of Former Dictator Saddam Hussein
Updated June 11, 2014 7:59 p.m. ET

Islamist militants overran the Iraqi city of Tikrit, just one day after fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, took control of Mosul. ISIS's grip is expanding in the region. Via The Foreign Bureau, WSJ's global news update.

Islamist militants swept out of northern Iraq Wednesday to seize their second city in two days, threatening Baghdad and pushing the country's besieged government to signal it would allow U.S. airstrikes to beat back the advance.
An alarmed Iraqi government also asked the U.S. to accelerate delivery of pledged military support, particularly Apache helicopters, F-16 fighters and surveillance equipment, to help push back fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, an al Qaeda offshoot known as ISIS. The U.S. said it has been expediting shipments of military hardware to the Iraqis all year.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/iraqi...507905194.html

[jk]

Re: Phuoc Long Redux

i wouldn't be surprised if the maliki gov't, turned down by the u.s in its request for air strikes/support, requested and received [various kinds of] aid from iran. this would then be a reprise of the iraq-iran war which spanned the 1980's, except more overtly sectarian, i.e. shiite-sunni, in nature. note that the assad gov't is already receiving iranian aid in its fight against [among others] this same sunni group. this would also raise the interesting question of whether the iranian shiites would be conveying indirect aid from china to the iraqi shia as well as to the syrian alawites. whatever the chinese involvement, this is turning into a region-wide religious war. the catholic-protestant 30 years' war was in the early 1600's, about 500 years ago, fitting with my thesis that the social evolution of the islamic world is running roughly 600 years behind the christian one, starting with mohammed having lived around 600a.d.

i would think a direct threat to baghdad would trigger iranian intervention. kind of newton's first law of politics.

so i hear an historical echo, woodsman, but not from the vietnam war. iraqi shia won't be looking to board helicopters to tehran. the echoes for me go to the 1980's in iraq-iran and the 1610's and '20's in europe.

meanwhile, the saudis must be increasingly terrified of their large shiite population. it's amusing to think that the chinese will be running a protection racket on the saudis - aiding the shia to their north, stirring up fears of the shia within saudi, and simultaneously offering military and intelligence aid to the saudi gov't as the u.s. gradually retreats from the region. this will of course accompany increasing imports by the chinese of saudi oil.

[don]

Re: Phuoc Long Redux

The crisis in Iraq escalated rapidly on Thursday as Iraqi Kurdish forces took control of key military installations in the major oil city of Kirkuk and the Sunni jihadi group Isis revealed its intention to move on Baghdad and cities in the southern Shia heartland.

Kurdish peshmerga fighters entered Kirkuk after the central government's army abandoned its posts in a rapid collapse during which it lost control of much of the country's north.

Iraq has been fragile since the 2003 US-led invasion and the latest developments have raised fears that it is in danger of splintering along ethnic and sectarian lines.



Iraq has a Shia majority, with a substantial Sunni minority concentrated in Baghdad and the provinces north and west, who have long complained of being disenfranchised. Iraqi Kurds enjoy a large degree of autonomy and self-government in the north-east but have long coveted Kirkuk, a city with huge oil reserves which they regard as their historical capital.


In Kirkuk, truckloads of peshmerga fighters patrolled the streets, but sporadic clashes continued between Kurdish forces and Isis gunmen on the outskirts of the city. A Kurdish minister responsible for regional security forces survived a bomb blast as he drove to the city after visiting peshmerga units in the surrounding region, AFP reported. Since Tuesday, black-clad Isis fighters have seized Iraq's second biggest city, Mosul, and Tikrit, hometown of the former dictator Saddam Hussein, as well as other towns and cities north of Baghdad. They continued their lightning advance on Thursday, moving into towns just an hour's drive from the capital.

About 500,000 people have fled Mosul, home to 2 million, and the surrounding province, many seeking safety in autonomous Kurdistan.


Iraqi armed forces

After Iraq's armed forces were disbanded following the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the United States and its allies committed more than $25bn to training and building a new military. With more than 250,000 frontline troops (not counting paramilitary police units), on paper at least the Iraqi military should be effective. It is equipped with almost 400 tanks including US M1A1s and Russian T- series tanks including the T-72. It also has more than 2,500 armoured fighting vehicles and 278 aircraft, including drones, transport aircraft, amphibious aircraft and 129 helicopters.

But despite its manpower and equipment – and the huge sums invested in it – the Iraqi military has suffered constant problems with combat readiness at battalion level while struggling to attract sufficient recruits to maintain effectiveness, particularly in key areas such as training. As the security environment in Iraq has steadily worsened, the government under the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has tended to concentrate elite units in the capital, while recent operations in the west on the Syrian border and around Falluja and Ramadi have suggested both serious political and operational shortcomings. The collapse of an estimated 30,000 forces in and around Mosul underlined a lack of morale and an apparently chaotic chain of command.

Isis

Estimates put the fighting strength of Isis in Syria and Iraq at around 7,000 but its numbers in Iraq appear to have been bolstered by other groups, including local Sunni militants and Ba'ath nationalists particularly in Tikrit. Despite claims that they have captured helicopters in Mosul, it seems unlikely they would be able to deploy them. Lightly armed with Toyota pickup technicals, RPGs and small arms, Isis has captured some armoured Humvees, although there are suggestions that some equipment has been sent back to Syria. While they have been able to operate easily in largely Sunni areas where they have some support from a population angry and alienated from the Shia-led government in Baghdad, the capital is a different proposition. One district alone, Sadr City, has a Shia population of some 1 million and since the sectarian war that ended in 2008, the sprawling suburbs have been divided along sectarian lines with checkpoints and barriers.

Peshmerga


Although some 35,000 Kurdish peshmerga are incorporated into the Iraqi security forces, other peshmerga remain outside with published estimates varying from 80,000 to three times that number. Two years ago a Kurdish official suggested the peshmerga numbered 190,000. Increasingly well equipped – including with 2,000 armoured vehicles and rocket artillery systems – they are regarded as motivated, well trained and experienced.

[don]

Re: Phuoc Long Redux

and in related news . . .

Pakistani intelligence officials say a suspected US missile strike has killed at least 10 people in a north-western tribal district near the Afghan border.

Two officials say a pair of American drones dropped three missiles on a militant compound and a vehicle early on Thursday in the town of Ghulam Khan in North Waziristan. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.

There was no immediate information on the identities of those killed.

The strike came hours after a strike, also in North Waziristan, killed three militants on Wednesday night, marking the resumption of the CIA-led programme in Pakistan after a hiatus of nearly six months.

North Waziristan is home to a mix of local and al-Qaida-linked foreign militant groups.

not to be confused with another front . . .

An air strike has killed five US troops and one Afghan soldier in southern Afghanistan, the deadliest friendly fire incident of the war for Nato forces.

[don]

Re: Phuoc Long Redux

"They will shower us with flowers."

Anyone recall that idiotic line from disgraced Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld?

Remember any of these lies...

• [*=left]"Oil will flow freely."
  [*=left]"The war will pay for itself."
  [*=left]"We know where they [WOMDs] are."

And with blatant lies and complete ineptitude, the US set about 'nation building' in Iraq. It was the neocons number one wet dream at the time.

Today the results are in.

Mish

[don]

Re: Phuoc Long Redux

As of Thursday morning, Obama had not responded to the beleaguered president’s request. 

 
The United States has not experienced such a spectacular foreign policy debacle since the Saigon withdrawal in April 1975. The fall of Mosul is not a minor setback that can be corrected by deploying special ops and lobbing a few bombs on targets in Mosul. It is a complete policy collapse that illustrates the shortcomings of the abysmal War on Terror. The American invasion and occupation of Iraq is entirely responsible for the problems that plague Iraq today. There were no bands of armed terrorists roaming the countryside and wreaking havoc before the US invasion. All of Iraq’s troubles can be traced back to that bloody intervention that has left the country in chaos.

The chickens have merely come home to roost as the opponents of the war had predicted. Obama and Bush have achieved what bin Laden only could have dreamt of, a city of two million people falling into the hands of his extremist spawn while Washington gazes helplessly from the sidelines. That’s what you call failure with a capital “F”. Here’s a clip from Bloomberg:


”Fighters from a breakaway al-Qaeda group are in position to seize Iraqi energy infrastructure after taking control of Mosul in a strike that highlights Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s weakening grip on the country. …A day after guerrillas drove police and soldiers from the nation’s second-biggest city, there were conflicting reports on the situation in Baiji, north of Baghdad and home to Iraq’s biggest refinery.”

Let’s face it: If the ISIS starts taking out pipelines and oil installations around Mosul, it’s Game-Over USA. Oil futures will spike, markets will crash, and the global economy will slump back into a severe recession. Obama has a very small window to reverse the current dynamic or there’s going to be hell to pay.

the Obama administration may choose to stay out of the conflagration altogether, because the goals of the ISIS coincide with a similar US plan to create a “soft partition” that dates back to 2006.

The plan was first proposed by Leslie Gelb, the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, and then-senator Joe Biden. According to the New York Times the “so-called soft-partition plan ….calls for dividing Iraq into three semi-autonomous regions…There would be a loose Kurdistan, a loose Shiastan and a loose Sunnistan, all under a big, if weak, Iraq umbrella.”

And this is why the US will probably not deploy combat troops to engage the Sunni fighters in Mosul. It’s because the Obama administration’s strategic goals and those of the terrorists are nearly identical. Which should surprise no one.

Mike Whitney

[vt]

Re: Phuoc Long Redux

This region has experienced religious wars for a thousand years. Iran is sending troops, the Kurds are protecting their region, and Turkey will act if it's citizens are harmed.

I don't see the need for us to get involved in a civil war that is not critical to our national security.

[LazyBoy]

Re: Phuoc Long Redux

Are Frequent Wind style helicopters evacuations from the green zone in the near term future? Do we see a Linebacker II style response?

Updated 11:49 a.m.: Americans being evacuated from Iraqi air base Officials say three planeloads of Americans are being evacuated from a major Iraqi air base in Sunni territory north of Baghdad to escape potential threats from a fast-moving insurgency.
A current U.S. official and a former senior Obama administration official say that means the American training mission at the air field in Balad has been grounded indefinitely.
Twelve U.S. personnel who were stationed at Balad were the first to be evacuated. Several hundred American contractors are still waiting to leave.
They have been training Iraqi forces to use fighter jets and surveillance drones.
Other U.S. contractors at a tank training ground in the city of Taji (TAH'-jee) is still ongoing for now.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they refused to be named in discussing the sensitive situation.
— Lara Jakes and Julie Pace, AP

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Phuoc Long Redux

The Iraqi Army is largely Shia.

The Iraqi government is largely Shia and under significant influence by Iran.

Iran was the big winner in the 11 years since the US invasion in 2003.

ISIS is Sunni.

The GCC centres of gravity are Sunni.

I see this as a battle between Sunni and Shia(with the Kurds in an increasingly likely position to more aggressively push for international recognition as an independent state carved off of the modern artificial construct of Iraq).

The Kurds and the Turks, long at odds over Kurdish efforts at self-determination in Turkey, may find themselves allies in an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" scenario…especially with a reported 48 Turkish diplomats/dependants/children pinched by insurgents in the Turkish consulate in Mosul.

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Reading previous posts from the likes of GRG55 on possible unstated US policy of promoting regional instability, I can see how this series of events could play into that.

Not an act of commission, but an act of omission.

Choosing not to engage in direct kinetic operations in support of Iraq's government against ISIS and choosing to ignore Sunni GCC funding and support of ISIS and other militant islamic insurgent groups against Shia(Iran) or Shia backed proxies(Syria) could be an indirect means of attacking Iran.

In 2003, Iran was conducting Unconventional Warfare against the US led invasion in Iraq. For a fairly small investment in trained men, equipment, and national treasure, Iran was able to achieve a quite high return on investment that ultimately led to Iran having considerable influence and control over Iraq.

In 2003, the US was conducting the opposite side of the Unconventional Warfare(guerrilla warfare/insurgency against current government) coin called Foreign Internal Defense(support for current government).

Fast forward to 2014 and from a very rough and very high level perspective, Iran and the US have effectively changed roles.

Now it's Shia Iran bogged down in extremely expensive efforts to prop up Syria and now Iraq.

The US can hide behind an act of omission by simply allowing the Sunni GCC to continue funding and supporting radical Sunni insurgent groups in their efforts to topple Shia run Iraq and Shia proxy Syria.

To me it looks like the tables have at least temporarily turned in a very clinical and machiavellian game of middle eastern chess on Iran.

Iran was in the position of cheaply undermining the US in Iraq, now it's in the position of very expensively having to prop up Syria and Iraq.

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I see an insane amount of collateral damage in the form of:

*more horrific loss of life(going on 35 years for Iraq since it invaded Iran)
*further destruction of infrastructure
*further destruction of economic base
*even possible "strategic collateral damage" in the form of Jordan(close long-term ally to the US)
*the creation of more "Dr. Frankenstein's monsters"(much like in Pakistan now being consumed by it's creation) when the likes of ISIS and other GCC supported insurgent groups turn inwards to bite the hand that feeds it someday.

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My personal experience is in Afghanistan, but I have many friends who have done tours in Iraq, including tours training Iraqi forces.

Based on their opinions(and my own experience training host nationals in Afghanistan), it's easy to train and equip folks to serve in a job for a wage. It's a completely different thing to instill a sense of national identity and passion of mission in individuals/teams willing to work harder/faster/smarter that the opposition/competition.

I'm thinking the Kurds will be looking to take advantage strategically in their stated goal of sovereignty and will act cautiously but decisively.

I doubt ISIS et al will be interested in tangling too much with the Kurds as they will have enough on their plate trying to consolidate their Iraqi gains.

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I spent 3 short tours in Afghanistan and feel comfortable talking about it with some authority, but fully realising that the more I learn, the less I seem to know.

That applies doubly so for Iraq…so please take it all with a grain of salt.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Phuoc Long Redux

This region has experienced religious wars for a thousand years. Iran is sending troops, the Kurds are protecting their region, and Turkey will act if it's citizens are harmed.

I don't see the need for us to get involved in a civil war that is not critical to our national security.

Iran is sending it's Qods Force(rough analog to US Army Special Forces) as well as a subgroup of Qods Force called Saberin(rough analog to Delta/SAS). So Iran is sending their best/most experienced personnel in Unconventional Warfare/Foreign Internal Defense.

If Iranian headcount in Iraq explodes as it has in Syria, so will the drain it has on Iranian government finances.

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It will be interesting to see if/how Turkey responds to it's 48 personnel in the Turkish Consulate in Mosul having been detained.

Turkey had a number of it's specialist personnel operating in Northern Iraq in 2003 that were detained and led to some political embarrassment and blowback.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Phuoc Long Redux

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mosul-seize...-force-1452190

This a real win for ISIS.

It provides independent financial funding and reduces influence/control of GCC state and non-state sponsors allowing freedom of maneuver for ISIS to implement it's own doctrine with less interference from sponsors.

It will be interesting to see if the operating independence offered by this capital seizure results in a change in doctrine by ISIS.

[GRG55]

Re: Phuoc Long Redux

...Based on their opinions(and my own experience training host nationals in Afghanistan), it's easy to train and equip folks to serve in a job for a wage. It's a completely different thing to instill a sense of national identity and passion of mission in individuals/teams willing to work harder/faster/smarter that the opposition/competition.

...

Iraq is a completely artificial construct, just one artifact of the post-Ottoman era under the European powers of the day. Its borders are all but meaningless in the context of what is happening in the Middle East now (as, increasingly, are some of the other "national" borders created in that region in the early part of the last century).

The final, pure monotheism revealed to Prophet Muhamed (PBUH), represented in part by the shahada, is an exhortation to aspire to a unified nation of Islam, not a Sunni Iraq or a Shia Iraq or any other sort of Iraq.

The Sunnis, of course, consider the Shia apostates. Which makes for an interesting dynamic to say the least...and one likely to persist, unresolved, for a very, very long time.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Phuoc Long Redux

Iraq is a completely artificial construct, just one artifact of the post-Ottoman era under the European powers of the day. Its borders are all but meaningless in the context of what is happening in the Middle East now (as, increasingly, are some of the other "national" borders created in that region in the early part of the last century).

The final, pure monotheism revealed to Prophet Muhamed (PBUH), represented in part by the shahada, is an exhortation to aspire to a unified nation of Islam, not a Sunni Iraq or a Shia Iraq or any other sort of Iraq.

The Sunnis, of course, consider the Shia apostates. Which makes for an interesting dynamic to say the least...and one likely to persist, unresolved, for a very, very long time.

For that one at least the UK/French can still be blamed instead of the US.

I know that the quasi state of Kurdistan in Northern Iraq has been a buglight to commercial and energy development in recent years.

In fact two years ago on my first or second trip thru Kabul the talk on the Thursday evening cocktail circuit was the expectation of a "giant sucking sound" of people shifting from Afghanistan to Northern Iraq/Kurdistan.

It will be very interesting to see how official Kurdish self-determination is handled by the likes of Turkey and the US...but I suspect the time table MAY speed up.

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In some ways the current situation between Shia and Sunni Muslims and the fear of it in the west seems to mimic(very, very roughly) the past situation between Stalinist/Marxist-Leninist and Maoist Communists and the fear of it in the west.

The Soviets and the Chinese quietly battled along their borders, the Chinese/Vietnamese openly battled along their border, and the Vietnamese/Khmer Rouge openly battled resulting in Vietnamese invasion.

The various flavours of Communists hated each other then often more than they hated the heathen capitalists.........much like the various flavours of Muslims today hate each other often more than they hate the infidel capitalists.

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Intentional omission might be a way of describing US policy of concurrently disengaging from the region and putting the heat on Iran.

What do you reckon?

[don]

Re: Phuoc Long Redux


MAP OF THE NEW MIDDLE EAST



Note: The following map was prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters. It was published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006, Peters is a retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy. (Map Copyright Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters 2006).Although the map does not officially reflect Pentagon doctrine, it has been used in a training program at NATO’s Defense College for senior military officers.

historical note: those Greek City-States didn't get along for centuries . . . what was it with those guys

[Woodsman]

Re: Phuoc Long Redux

i would think a direct threat to baghdad would trigger iranian intervention. kind of newton's first law of politics.

The events of the past several hours makes you look pretty smart, JK.

Two Guards' units, dispatched from Iran's western border provinces on Wednesday, were tasked with protecting Baghdad and the holy Shiite cities of Karbala and Najaf, these security sources said.

The involvement of Iran would pose yet another security challenge for the White House, and raises the prospect of the U.S. and Iran fighting on the same side.

Iran Deploys Forces to Fight al Qaeda-Inspired Militants in Iraq