Will Iraq Survive?

One hundred Marines and Army troops were deployed to the US Embassy in Baghdad today, and three US warships, the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush and two missile ships from the northern Arabian Sea, arrived in the Persian Gulf, as tensions continue to rise in the face of the radical jihadist Islamic State in Syria and the Levant (ISIL) sweep across northern Iraq. US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered a fourth ship, the amphibious ship USS Mesa Verde, into the Persian Gulf today. The Mesa Verde carries 550 Marines and Osprey planes. The US took the additional precautions as ISIL expanded its territorial gains in Iraq by capturing the city of Tal Afar, west of Mosul. Tal Afar has 200,000 inhabitants, most of them Iraqi Turkmen, an ethnic minority group. The embattled city in northwest Iraq fell to millitants Sunday, according to Iraqi General Mohammed al-Quraishi, CNN and other media reported. The Iraqi military earlier had claimed that Tal Afar was still in government control. In addition, fresh details emerged of a massacre carried out by ISIL, including top Moslem clerics who refused to pledge loyalty to the fanatic Islamic group. ISIL militants had released graphic videos appearing to show its fighters forcing both Iraqi soldiers and local shiite civilians into shallow graves and then spraying them with machine gun fire. The massacred men were soaked with blood. AP and the Iraqi military have vetted the videos and AP says they agree with reports of AP journalists on the ground. ~~~~~ Meanwhile, the evacuation of some personnel from the US embassy in Baghdad and the reinforcement of security forces was carried out as explosions rocked the Iraqi capital. The US State Department said in a statement that an undisclosed number of staffers will be moved to Amman, Jordan, and to other installations in Iraq not immediately threatened by ISIL. The State Department also issued a travel warning for Iraq Sunday night that cautioned US citizens to avoid all travel to Iraq except for the most urgent reasons and warned that travel inside Iraq is dangerous. In Baghdad, a car bomb early Sunday killed 10 and wounded 21 in the city center. After nightfall, another explosion went off in the area, killing two and wounding five. A third blast hit near a falafe shop in the Sadr City district, killing three and wounding seven. ~~~~~ During the weekend, President Obama, in the desert resort area of Palm Springs, California, was briefed on the Iraq situation by National Security Adviser Susan Rice, the White House said, as Obama considers possible military options for Iraq. And US Secretary of State John Kerry said there is no question ISIL militants have targeted not just Iraq and Syria, but also in the United States and Europe. In an interview with Yahoo, Kerry raised the sensitive issue of US cooperation with Iran in Iraq, confirming that the US is open to discussions with Iran : "I wouldn't rule out anything that would be constructive," Kerry said, indicating that the United States could consider cooperating militarily with Iran, one of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's key allies. US State Department spokesperson Jan Psaki later said that no discussions are ongoing between America and Iran. Kerry also said that US President Barack Obama was carrying out "a very thorough vetting of every option that is available," including drone strikes. He added that the US is "deeply committed" to the integrity of Iraq as a country. The US wants to include the Iran question in its discussions with all of Iraq's neighboring states, "to encourage Iran to play a role in encouraging Iraqis to act in a responsible non-sectarian way," she said. "We're asking Iraqi leaders to do that as well." ~~~~~ Dear readers, analysts agree that addressing the ISIL insurgency without addressing the underlying shiite-sunni sectarian causes for ISIL's success would be ineffective. A US coalition with the shiite Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki and the shiite leader, Iran, would certainly also raise issues with sunni leader, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, who would be opposed to a direct shiite-led military intervention that doesn't at least secure the interests of Iraq's sunni majority. But, the Wall Street Journal reported today that the Obama administration is already preparing to open direct talks with Iran on the situation in Iraq and ways to counter the radical sunni militia. According to the WSJ, the discussions are set to start in a week though no format has been set. Al-Maliki’s marginalisation of sunnis, aided by the Syria civil war that accelerated ISIL’s rise, has led to their control in Iraq of Fallujah in January and now Mosul and other towns on the road to Baghdad. ISIL is now threatening some of Iraq’s energy infrastructure. ISIL’s insurgence can be blamed on many, but first in line must be al-Maliki’s failed policies. He chose to either ignore or violently crush those - especially sunnis - who opposed to him. He engaged in power plays to take advantage of shifting regional alliances and the survival of fragments from the Saddam era. Similar tactics were used in Syria by Bashar al-Assad. But as in Syria, al-Maliki's tactics served to feed revolt and empower extremists such as ISIL and the anti-Maliki groups aligned with them. The future of Iraq is now an open question. Will Iraq descend again into an all-out sunni-shiite civil war? Will al-Maliki be able to forge a coalition with Iraq’s Kurds - the only viable non-sectarian player - to oppose ISIL? Kurdish territory borders Nineveh province where ISIL is headquartered and the Kurds are strong fighters. Will the US again be forced by circumstances send troops to Iraq? Would armed drones - Obama’s favorite counter-insurgency weapon – stop the uprising? There are lots of questions and no answers today. But the answers will be swift in coming because absent US/Middle East intervention, Baghdad will fall to ISIL and al-Maliki and his shiite government will cease to matter. And if the sunni tribes think they will be able to simply thank ISIL and take over Iraq, they are wrong. The likelihood is that Iraq will become "Syria II" - an ever more vicious civil war that nobody can win. Once more, President Obama must decide. His propensity is to let things play out until even his drones become irrelevant. The decision in Iraq is not about whether to do something. The decision is about what to do. Because the shiite monolith led by Iran and defended by ISIL will be sitting on Saudi Arabia's border if Iraq falls. That will be the ancient shiite-sunni hatred face-to-face with 21st century technology. Not a comforting thought.