It's the Saturday Email Bag -- Iraq

It's Saturday email bag time and everybody's talking about only one topic this week -- Iraq. So let's get at it. ~~~~~ Because of ISIS attacks along the eastern Syrian-Iraq border, the official frontier between Syria and Iraq is being blurred. Yesterday, al-Assad government forces withdrew from the al-Tanf border crossing as ISIS advanced, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). The loss of al-Tanf to ISIS follows their takeover of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra on Thursday. The UN has expressed concern at reports that Syrian forces in Palmyra prevented civilians from leaving, ahead of its fall to ISIS. It said it was "deeply concerned" about those remaining in the area, amid reports of summary executions. ISIS has also overrun the World Heritage site adjacent to the modern city, raising concerns about its safety because ISIS has previously demolished ancient sites that pre-date Islam. Despite ongoing air strikes in both Syria and Iraq, the US has changed its assessment, now saying that fighting ISIS will be a "difficult challenge." ISIS now controls "more than 95,000 sq km (36,679 sq miles)" of Syria, that is 50% of the country's entire territory, the BBC reports the SOHR as saying. ISIS dominates the provinces of Deir al-Zour and Raqqa and has a strong presence in Hasakeh, Aleppo, Homs and Hama, although BBC journalists say there are regions under ISIS control in the east that are not strategically significant. What is significant is that the seizure of al-Tanf, in Syria's Homs province, has enabled ISIS to link its positions in east-central Syria directly with the areas they control in Iraq's western Anbar province, opening up direct supply lines and easing the logistics of moving fighters. ~~~~~ Farther east in Anbar, where ISIS took control of the province's capital Ramadi just days ago, ISIS units have been reported to be pushing eastwards from Ramadi down the Euphrates Valley towards Habbaniya, an Iraqi military base where pro-government forces are massing for a counter-attack on Ramadi. The Iraqi government wants to protect Habbaniya, as well as to take back both Ramadi and Fallujah, a city close to Baghdad which has been held by ISIS for over a year despite repeated attacks by government forces. Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq warned that fighting ISIS was no longer a "local matter" and called on the international community to intervene, saying the world will have to face the dangers of ISIS if no clear strategy is formed soon. ~~~~~ The US has acknowledged that recent ISIS gains are a "setback" for coalition forces, but President Barack Obama insists the US is "not losing" the war : "There's no doubt there was a tactical setback, although Ramadi had been vulnerable for a very long time," he told The Atlantic magazine in an interview published Thursday, adding : "The training of Iraqi security forces, the fortifications, the command-and-control systems are not happening fast enough in Anbar, in the sunni parts of the country." White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the problem of ISIS is "not going to be solved overnight. Until we're able to build up local forces on the ground in Syria who can take the fight to Isil [ISIS] in their own country," he said, "this is going to continue to be a difficult challenge. ~~~~~ However, today Iraq officials report that 3,000 militia members in Iraq have begun pursuing ISIS militants, moving toward Ramadi. The pro-government forces say they have retaken Husayba, east of Ramadi, which is only 110km (70 miles) west of Baghdad. The Iranian-backed shiite Popular Mobilisation forces launched their operation out of the Iraqi air base at Habbaniya. This is good news, except that the operation is being carried out without much involvement by the Iraqi army. It was reported last weekend that 200 ISIS fighters captured Ramadi from 10 times that many Iraqi army soldiers. Military observers say the army simply doesn't have the determination to match ISIS, and that the Iran-backed Popular Mobilisation forces are the only ones with the needed determination. But, the majority of the militia are shiite Moslems, and using them in Anbar province, which is overwhelmingly sunni, may give rise to sectarian violence. Nevertheless, there are some sunnis fighting alongside the Popular Mobilisation forces and so far there have been no incidents. A sunni tribal leader in Anbar, Sheikh Rafia Abdelkarim al-Fahdawi, told AFP news agency that his volunteers had also been deployed, along with police, special forces and army troops. Iraqi police spokesmen told news agencies that ISIS militants had been driven from Husayba and it was now under the control of pro-government forces. ~~~~~ Dear readers, Ramadi's fall has led to much ctiticism of the US regional policy of relying on air strikes to support the official Iraqi armed forces and police, ruling out a role for the militias, but not replacing them with an American ground presence. The Iraqi vice president, Ayad Allawi, has said publicly that the aerial campaign is simply not working : "There are no good news from the international coalition, and there is no strategy, so I asked the Iraqi leaders to put a strategy together and to present it to the coalition," he said. "The international coalition meets but without any results, the air strikes do not solve the problem." And, sunni politicians say they will only help in combatting ISIS if they get a larger say in the running of the country. Sunnis want to take control of and govern their own territories. They want Baghdad, or the US directly, to supply them with the arms and equipment they need in order to be responsible for their own security and to attack ISIS. The shiite Iraqi government in Baghdad hesitates to arm sunnis, fearing that they will turn on shiites, in revenge for the government's neglect and violent shiite attacks on sunnis. As we discussed earlier this week, this Iraqi sectarian split puts the Iran-led militias in the catbird seat because they are all shiite, all loyal to the Ayatollah Khamenei, all controlled by the powerful Qums foreign segment of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. And the same Qums militia are active in Syria. Their presence is in large part the reason that 50% of Syria and 30% of Iraq are controlled by ISIS. Every bomb dropped by the US and its coalition helps secure Iran's control of Iraq and Syria. Until President Obama accepts this reality, nothing anyone does will help Iraq -- there must be some sort of US military presence on the ground in Iraq, whether special operations or ground troops or a combination of them, to lead militarily. America has been training the Iraqi army for 15 years. It is not more training but strategic and field leadership that is lacking. If Mr. Obama wants to give the Middle East to Iran, he has simply to continue doing what he is now doing. The world can only hope that taking and consolidating control in all of Iraq and Syria is a big bite, even for Iran, and that the next US President will still have time to salvage the Middle East. --- Please join our Saturday email bags...just send me an email to casey.popshots@yahoo.com.