The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant Megathread

[Zanza]

If the Revolutionary Guard going is true, maybe these ISIS guys are for Iran what the "russian self defense militas" are for Putin? Forces to support so they destabilise and create pretext for intervention?

It's clear that ISIS are Sunnis, so it is very unlikely that they cooperate with Iran in any way. Iran also supports both Assad's and Maliki's regimes, sworn enemies of ISIS.

[Duque de Bragança]

Iraqi Air Force trying to stop ISIS columns advancing on Samarra, apparently.

If there's one thing the Iraqi military excel at, it's a dramatic collapse.

Tikrit has now fallen and there's actual fighting inside Samarra reported.


You know what this reminds me of Vietnam Spring 1975, I'm not saying the government/regime will completely collapse, but the way the large and diverse security forces are just crumbling/melting away is reminiscent of those days.

I'm thinking of the collapse of the Najibullah regime and the even worse fate of the Afghan strongman but it is too early too tell.

[mongers]

Iraqi Air Force trying to stop ISIS columns advancing on Samarra, apparently.

If there's one thing the Iraqi military excel at, it's a dramatic collapse.

Tikrit has now fallen and there's actual fighting inside Samarra reported.


You know what this reminds me of Vietnam Spring 1975, I'm not saying the government/regime will completely collapse, but the way the large and diverse security forces are just crumbling/melting away is reminiscent of those days.

I'm thinking of the collapse of the Najibullah regime and the even worse fate of the Afghan strongman but it is too early too tell.

I'm not sure that's the best comparison, they held their own well, until the Soviet cut supplies, the aerial bridge and the final nail in the coffin was Dostum cutting the Salang highway.

[Duque de Bragança]

Iraqi Air Force trying to stop ISIS columns advancing on Samarra, apparently.

If there's one thing the Iraqi military excel at, it's a dramatic collapse.

Tikrit has now fallen and there's actual fighting inside Samarra reported.


You know what this reminds me of Vietnam Spring 1975, I'm not saying the government/regime will completely collapse, but the way the large and diverse security forces are just crumbling/melting away is reminiscent of those days.

I'm thinking of the collapse of the Najibullah regime and the even worse fate of the Afghan strongman but it is too early too tell.

I'm not sure that's the best comparison, they held their own well, until the Soviet cut supplies, the aerial bridge and the final nail in the coffin was Dostum cutting the Salang highway.

Well, the South Vietnamese held between 1973 and 1975 but yes the surprise success of ISIS makes it possible for a shortcut to the usual decomposition of such a regime. On the other hand, Al-Maliki's regime is still supported by the US. Of course, Iran can still intervene discreetly and/or decisively as well, something Najibullah and the South Vietnamese junta did not have. Too early too tell, so yes right now it's jumping to conclusions with a not so good comparison.

[mongers]

Yeah, you're right it is too early.

I can't see the US not intervening if ISIS drive on Baghdad, I'd have thought US air power/helicopter gunships could give them a nasty bashing like they did with the 1972 NVA 'invasion'.

[jimmy olsen]

The Iraqis have requested air strikes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/12/world/middleeast/iraq-asked-us-for-airstrikes-on-militants-officials-say.html?_r=0

WASHINGTON — As the threat from Sunni militants in western Iraq escalated last month, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki secretly asked the Obama administration to consider carrying out airstrikes against extremist staging areas, according to Iraqi and American officials.

But Iraq's appeals for military assistance have so far been rebuffed by the White House, which has been reluctant to open a new chapter in a conflict that President Obama has insisted was closed when the United States withdrew the last of its forces from Iraq in 2011.

The swift capture of Mosul by militants aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has underscored how the conflicts in Syria and Iraq have converged into one widening regional insurgency with fighters coursing back and forth through the porous border between the two countries. But it has also cast a spotlight on the limits the White House has imposed on the use of American power in an increasingly violent and volatile region.

A spokeswoman for the National Security Council, Bernadette Meehan, declined to comment on Mr. Maliki's requests and the administration's response, saying in a statement, "We are not going to get into details of our diplomatic discussions, but the government of Iraq has made clear that they welcome our support" in combating the Islamic extremists.

The Obama administration has carried out drone strikes against militants in Yemen and Pakistan, where it fears terrorists have been hatching plans to attack the United States. But despite the fact that Sunni militants have been making steady advances and may be carving out new havens from which they could carry out attacks against the West, administration spokesmen have insisted that the United States is not actively considering using warplanes or armed drones to strike them.

Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq's foreign minister, last year floated the idea that American-operated, armed Predator or Reaper drones might be used to respond to the expanding militant network in Iraq. American officials dismissed that suggestion at the time, saying that the request had not come from Mr. Maliki.

By March, however, American experts who visited Baghdad were being told that Iraq's top leaders were hoping that American air power could be used to strike the militants' staging and training areas inside Iraq, and help Iraq's beleaguered forces stop them from crossing into Iraq from Syria.

"Iraqi officials at the highest level said they had requested manned and unmanned U.S. airstrikes this year against ISIS camps in the Jazira desert," said Kenneth M. Pollack, a former C.I.A. analyst and National Security Council official, who is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and who visited Baghdad in early March. ISIS is the acronym for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, as the militant group is known.

[Viking]

Anybody got a map of what territory ISIS currently controls?

I have some grossly outdated one.  It's from two hours ago.

At some later point in my life I will use that line. It will be epic. 

[Razgovory]

Not a secret anymore.

[Phillip V]

Will the shocking collapse of the Iraqi military cause hesitation on America's plan for rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan the next two years?

[Admiral Yi]

Nope.  That's almost a given.

[Grinning_Colossus]

Looks like the Peshmerga might be about to engage ISIS in Mosul. https://twitter.com/RudawEnglish/status/476775029665841153

[DGuller]

Will the shocking collapse of the Iraqi military cause hesitation on America's plan for rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan the next two years?

If anything, that would encourage us to GTFO faster.  No sense in wasting even more lives delaying the inevitable.  If Iraq can't hold together, then what possible chance does the second-most ungovernable hellhole in the world does?

[jimmy olsen]

What's number one?

Somalia? The Congo?

[DGuller]

What's number one?

Somalia? The Congo?

Somalia.

[jimmy olsen]

They're really close to gaining control the water supply of the whole country by that map. I wonder if they can blow the dams or something to screw everyone over down stream.