On Monday, Iraqi President Fouad Massoum named Haider al-Ibadi as the new Iraqi prime minister, thus forcing out Nouri al-Maliki.
President Obama issued a statement during his news conference on Monday, while vacationing at Martha’s Vineyard. “Today, Iraq took a promising step forward in this critical effort. Last month, the Iraqi people named a new President. Today, President Masum named a new Prime Minister designate, Dr. Haider al-Abadi. Under the Iraqi constitution, this is an important step towards forming a new government that can unite Iraq’s different communities.”
The president continued, “Earlier today, Vice President Biden and I called Dr. Abadi to congratulate him and to urge him to form a new cabinet as quickly as possible — one that’s inclusive of all Iraqis, and one that represents all Iraqis. I pledged our support to him, as well as to President Masum and Speaker Jabouri, as they work together to form this government. Meanwhile, I urge all Iraqi political leaders to work peacefully through the political process in the days ahead.”
Right now, Al-Maliki is resisting any call for his ouster and places the U.S. in a precarious situation, as the government in Baghdad has the potential to descend into chaos.
The other challenge facing the U.S. is what to do with the thousands of Yazidis trapped on the Sinjar Mountain? No one knows how many are trapped on the mountain and supplying them indefinitely is logistically impractical; especially in the coming months with the onset of winter.
At some point they will have to be moved but the problem ISIS will have to be convinced to give them safe passage to Kurdish safe zones.
Unfortunately, The Brookings Institute reported, for zealots like ISIS, the Yazidis are heretics who must be slaughtered. That suggests that it may be difficult to convince ISIS to give them safe passage to Kurdish lines. American airstrikes could be used coercively to convince ISIS that they will suffer too much damage if they insist on trying to kill the Yazidis and so should just let them go.
This also has problems as Brookings continued, If ISIS can’t be persuaded to let them go, then someone is going to have to go in and get them. That will require a force on the ground backed by air power. Since Washington and the Europeans are categorically opposed to providing that ground force, it will have to be the Iraqi Army and/or the Pesh merga—or conceivably the Turks—who do so. Any of these forces will require considerable air support, and that can only come from the United States.
The conditions of the Yazidis on the Sinjar Mountain will also be problematic as thousands of these people are in extremely poor health, and would be a logistical nightmare to move in an ongoing conflict.
The other challenge for the U.S. is what to do about the Kurds? Presently, the Kurds are outgunned against the vastly better armed ISIL militants.
Currently, the Washington Post reported on Monday, the U.S. government has begun to funnel weapons directly to Kurdish forces fighting Islamist militants in northern Iraq, U.S. officials said Monday, deepening American involvement in a conflict that the Obama administration had long sought to avoid.
The Post continued to report, the decision to arm the Kurds, via a covert channel established by the CIA, was made even as Pentagon officials acknowledged that recent U.S. airstrikes against the militants were acting only as a temporary deterrent and were unlikely to sap their will to fight.
What we don’t know is what types of weapons are being sent to the Kurds and are they the type of equipment that will roll back ISIL?
Douglas Ollivant, a former U.S. military planner in Baghdad, said the shipment of mostly small arms and ammunition to the Kurds, combined with the cover of U.S. air power, should be enough to halt the advance of Islamic State fighters in the near term.
The group’s artillery cannons and armored vehicles — captured from the Iraqi army — should be especially vulnerable to airstrikes. “My guess is that the
Many analysts doubt the Kurdish security forces better known as the pesh merga, will be able to roll back ISIL militant even with U.S. airpower. We are beginning to find out the pesh merga aren’t as capable as a counteroffensive force as was led to believe.
The U.S. faces daunting challenges in Iraq and what we need is for both Republicans and Democrats to quit reliving the past, and start focusing on the situation at hand.
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