In January of this year, President Barak Obama announced that the war against ISIS/ISIL was on the road to victory. In his words, "ISIS was under control." Everyone in Washington echoed the President's words, everyone from Kerry in the State Department to Carter in Pentagon said that things were under control, as far as ISIS was concerned. Three months later, in March, ISIS instead of being on the run, appeared to gain considerable amount of territory in Iraq. Our government, as part of the "deal" with Iran, allowed Iran's "special ops" general and his troops to enter Iraq to help fight ISIS. Our Joint Chief, General Dempsey stated that anything we can do to defeat ISIS was good, even if it meant allowing Iran into Iraq. Poor Dempsey, caught between a rock and a hard place. What could he say? If he said anything counter to the administration's line, he would have become one of the shortest lived Joint Chiefs in our history.
Iranians were mostly disguised as Shiite Militia, since it would not have been a popular move to show an influx of Iranian Special Operations troops in Iraq. It was not possible to disguise their leader, the Commander of Iranian Special Operations, the "Shadow General" who ironically, was responsible for teaching the insurgents in Iraq and Taliban in Afghanistan how to make and deploy roadside bombs which have killed and maimed so many American soldiers! By mid April Iranians seemed to have propped-up the sagging Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and were regaining some lost territory. Iranian prestige soared in the Arab world while Sunni Arabs like the Saudis became not only very nervous, but angry at our game of playing "footsies" with the Ayatollahs!
Lo and behold, while the controversy over our so-called "nuclear deal" with Iran was still bubbling, the Iranians and the Shiite Militia, had retaken Tikirit, one of the cities occupied by ISIS. Iranians, it seemed, were able to do what the ISF could not. This was a bit puzzling at first, since Iraq had fought Iran to a standstill in their long war. Neither side showed much fighting ability during that war, just a lot of poorly planned operations and needless casualties. But it was obvious that this time, the Iranians are motivated while the ISF is not! Shades of Vietnam! The VC and NVA were motivated while the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) was not, so when we left, the South fell apart and the ARVN ran, abandoning perfectly good equipment and arms. In fact, the communists received such a windfall in arms and equipment abandoned by ARVN, that when they fought PRC in their short war a few years later, they used our old air assault tactics and carried their troops to battle in UH-21s, just like we did! They had the largest helicopter fleet in Southeast Asia at that time!
Now, we are sending a couple of thousand missiles to Iraq so ISF can shoot the tanks and armored personnel carriers that we gave them, which they abandoned when they ran from ISIS! ISIS is no longer the rag-tag lightly armed unconventional force. They have captured (or simply picked up) ISF equipment, so now they are fully motorized and have an armored force! What an incredible fiasco! We are sending missiles to Iraq so that they can be used to destroy equipment that we gave them in the first place!
Now, Ramadi fell, essentially without a fight. The Iraqi troops have an advantage of about 10 to 1 in numbers over ISIS, yet they ran without fighting, abandoning tons of equipment, some of it brand new! President Obama referred to this latest development as a "technical set-back." Technical set-back? I guess the fall of Saigon was a "technical set-back," as was the fall of Baghdad to Saddam Hussein when we occupied that city! Our Secretary of Defense blames the whole thing on ISF..."its their fault," he said, "ISF didn't fight." No kidding Mr. Secretary! Surely you can come up with a better explanation, like our "our strategy (if we have one!) is not working."
As I have repeatedly noted in earlier blogs that, like the Republic of South Vietnam of the past, the current Iraqi government is corrupt and incompetent. The corruption extends all the way down to even lower level bureaucrats and NCOs in the military, just as it did in South Vietnam. The average ISF soldier joins the army because it is the only work he can get and be fed and paid. The officer corps and the NCOs are generally corrupt, take advantage of the troops, misuse and abuse them. Why would anyone in such an army fight? As soon as things get hot in battle, most of the NCOs and officers disappear, leaving the troops to fend for themselves. Under such circumstances, just as in South Vietnam, the troops simply abandon their weapons and equipment and flee the battlefield.
Our strategy of supplying air coverage or bombardment in support is not working. Air power by itself never works, it has to be in conjunction with the ground forces. After all the bombing, someone has to seize the ground and hold it. The same thing applies to artillery, without ground troops, artillery or missiles by themselves cannot hold the ground! It is obvious that the ISF cannot hold the ground because they are unwilling or unable to face the enemy and fight. This means US ground troops are necessary if we want to defeat ISIS. As unpopular as that move can or will be, it is the only recourse we have if we want to destroy ISIS. To simply bomb them and rely on ISF to "degrade" their ability as Obama put it back in January, is not going to work. If we simply "degrade" ISIS's ability, they will in turn regroup and rebuild to give us problems again. The only solution is to destroy them, not "degrade" their ability to fight!
Our policies and strategies seem to be always just stop-gap measures. This whole business with the Iran "nuclear deal" is nothing but a delaying, stop-gap measure. Washington admitted as much by saying that the "nuclear deal" will "delay" Iran's ability to build a bomb, not stop it all together. So I guess we are simply delaying ISIS's ability to do damage in our country.
These stop-gap measure, "Band-Aid" policies and strategies are all based on the fact that they are politically motivated. It is the mentality of "as long as it doesn't happen on my watch." The idea is that the "Band-Aid" will satisfy the constituency and in the meantime, postpone the inevitable and let the next guy worry about it! Sadly, this sort of mentality has always existed in our government, ever since the days of the Korean War. The last war that we fought where everyone was committed 100% to final victory was World War Two. After that each war was fought with political constraints and commitment to the war depended on public opinion more than anything else. With very, very few exceptions, no congressman or senator, or any of the cabinet post officials will ever risk going against public opinion, even if they know in their heart that they are right. The all mighty need for reelection is just too great in our system.
So now we are faced with a situation very similar to what happened in Vietnam. All the "experts," official and those in the media, insist that we can't make comparisons with Vietnam. "This is a different war," they say, "a different situation!" Of course it is a different war and different situation! But it seems it is being handled the same way and the final outcome is beginning to appear much like it did in Vietnam! I am not saying that Iraq will fall to ISIS and that Baghdad will fall just like Saigon. But ISIS does control more than half of the country now, and some of the major cities like Ramadi have fallen to them. We can reverse the situation, but obviously, we can't do it with ISF or even the much vaunted Iranians! As unpalatable as it may be, the only way to do it is to put US ground troops to fight ISIS and not depend on ISF or a proxy force like Iranians. However, the use of US ground troops is unlikely, since President Obama has repeatedly said that he would not commit US troops.
The administration keeps saying that it is not our fight, it is Iraq's job to defend their country. That may be true in theory, but ISIS's goal is not to just take over Iraq, their ultimate goal is to do harm to us, here in America. Do we want a whole nation that is made up of ISIS fanatics, which is what will happen if they gain control of that country. Will fighting ISIS on our shores be easier? I am not too sure why the administration insists that fighting ISIS is not our job, but Iraq's!
No comments:
Post a Comment