The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant Megathread

[derspiess]

We need to let that catastrophe happen tho. 10-15 years max and then we can partition it between the Kurds, Iran & Kuwait.

There may be some wisdom to that, if we can wall it off somehow. 

No it is perfectly good and reasonable they would be so.  I am just thinking how we soon might be hearing something like 'the Iranian Revolutionary Guards called in US Air support'

Anyone* thinking the Iranians will be our best buds if we help them out is naive.  They will stab us in the back the first chance they get. 


*not saying you're one of them, but I am picking up that vibe from other places

[Valmy]

Anyone* thinking the Iranians will be our best buds if we help them out is naive.  They will stab us in the back the first chance they get. 


*not saying you're one of them, but I am picking up that vibe from other places

Of course they will.  Our interests just happen to go together for a few seconds.

[derspiess]

Of course they will.  Our interests just happen to go together for a few seconds.

We need to think long-term, though.  Maybe Iran can commit enough numbers to win without our help, and the calculus is such that all our air strikes would do is save IRG lives.  That wouldn't be in our interests.

All that said, I do favor some limited air strikes at this point.  ISIS's momentum needs to be slowed.

[derspiess]

Also, I guess it would be funny to hear an IRG officer call in for US air support:

"Damned pilots of the Great Satan, we request that you rain fire down upon these lesser satans."

[KRonn]

Also, I guess it would be funny to hear an IRG officer call in for US air support:

"Damned pilots of the Great Satan, we request that you rain fire down upon these lesser satans."

[CountDeMoney]

"Damned pilots of the Great Satan, we request that you rain fire down upon these lesser satans."

JDAM : Jewish Direct Attack Munition

[CountDeMoney]

Not exactly a high bar.  These last 14 years have been disastrous.  Oh for the days of Clinton and Bush I.

Interesting to see all the blame for the SOFA with Bush's signature on it getting shifted to Obama;  although, if it meant the Iraqis could prosecute Siegy and Hansy, maybe opting out of it would've been worth it after all.

[derspiess]

Glad the Iranians haven't lost their sense of humor in these uncertain times.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/iran-deploys-forces-to-fight-al-qaeda-inspired-militants-in-iraq-iranian-security-sources-1402592470

Iranian President Hasan Rouhani cut short a religious celebration on Thursday and said he had to attend an emergency meeting of the country's National Security Council about events in Iraq.

"We, as the Islamic Republic of Iran, won't tolerate this violence and terrorism.... We will fight and battle violence and extremism and terrorism in the region and the world," he said in a speech.

[Viking]

Glad the Iranians haven't lost their sense of humor in these uncertain times.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/iran-deploys-forces-to-fight-al-qaeda-inspired-militants-in-iraq-iranian-security-sources-1402592470

Iranian President Hasan Rouhani cut short a religious celebration on Thursday and said he had to attend an emergency meeting of the country's National Security Council about events in Iraq.

"We, as the Islamic Republic of Iran, won't tolerate this violence and terrorism.... We will fight and battle violence and extremism and terrorism in the region and the world," he said in a speech.

It's one of those conjugated noun things

I am a freedom fighter
You are struggling to make the ends justify the means
He is a terrorist

[Siege]

The Commonwealth can provide Air Supply.

[Siege]

We should negotiate the surrender of Iraq to the Taliban or the Haqqani.
Only they can realize the full potential of Iraq, in piece and prosperity.

[Valmy]

We should negotiate the surrender of Iraq to the Taliban or the Haqqani.
Only they can realize the full potential of Iraq, in piece and prosperity.

How many pieces are we talking about here?

[Siege]

Article: 

June 13, 2014

A 'Last Helicopter' moment coming?

By Rick Moran

If you didn't live through it, you've probably seen it anyway - the defining picture of the Vietnam War of the last helicopter leaving our embassy in Saigon as the North Vietnamese overran the city.

Vietnamese who worked with Americans were absolutely desperate to get out of the country and this picture show that desperation in the most horrific way:



Is such a scenario possible in Baghdad?

The Iraqi army appears to have collapsed and it is unclear whether the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki can stop the ISIS terrorists from overrunning the capitol. If that were to occur, the US embassy in Baghdad - the biggest in the world - would be a prime target of the terrorists.

Richard Fernandez:


If the embassy is evacuated as al-Qaeda reaches Baghdad the optics will be atrocious. The very magnificence of the buildings will underscore the magnitude of the defeat. The sheer size of the palaces will make destruction no easy task. For these grand edifices, constructed at so much taxpayer cost must be reduced to total ash by America's own hand.  The taxpayer pays for the matches.

As the US embassy in Saigon prepared to be overrun the incinerators were filled to overflowing with US dollars and classified documents. Liquor stores were smashed. In the event there was not even enough time to destroy everything. Yet by comparison the US Embassy in Saigon is hovel compared to the facility in Baghdad.

North Vietnamese troops as well as intelligence and army officials scoured the abandoned Embassy shortly after taking Saigon on the afternoon of April 30. Over the next several days, they apparently were able to piece together classified documents that had been shredded but not burnt and used these to track down South Vietnamese employees of the Central Intelligence Agency.

In the event Baghdad is overrun, one can only hope the rear guard uses enough C4 to leave not a stone upon a stone.  And thermite where appropriate.   Until it's gone. All gone.

But great though the loss of the buildings will be, the blow in terms of intelligence gathering capabilities, networks, facilities and dislocation will be monumental. No one knows how many translators, sub-agents and locals who have risked their lives for the US will be left twisting in the wind. It will be no easy task to thoroughly efface the work of years. Yet it will have to be done if al-Qaeda is not obtain the greatest intelligence windfall of its career. President Obama may find a way to screw that up too, for even to be properly defeated requires a competence he may lack.

Baghdad has not yet fallen. It may never fall. But prospect should make people sit up and wonder whether they understand the meaning of the word "defeat". It's not just a word or military phrase, but a condition of unutterable loss and subjection. It is humiliation distilled. It is total abjection.

President Obama grew up in a generation which cheered "defeats" as comically grainy events on black and white film which took place in far away places.  Perhaps it had for them a quality of unreality. Some prank on The Man, a something happening to someone else. Let's see how they like it in HD.

Some on the left may have wanted this image all along - coveted it, longed for it:The utter, total humiliation of the US would make them 2 for 2 in wars they opposed. And knocking American down a peg or two (or more) so that we're just like any other obedient servant to the international community would be gravy.




President Obama has rebuffed requests for assistance from the Iraqi government for months. No doubt he doesn't want to be dragged in to what amounts to a sectarian civil war. But sitting in the big chair sometimes means taking big risks. When you're a risk-averse president, however, no commitment of US forces will ever be justified. So you end up sitting in the White House bemoaning the state of the world without doing anything about it.

I don't want to see a last helicopter leaving from our Baghdad embassy. Whatever we can do to avoid that scenario, we should do it and do it quickly.

[mongers]

Seigy, other people in the thread have already alluded to that.

It would look bad, so maybe the US should do something to avoid it?

[mongers]

I would have no problem with the US providing air support, simply under the idea that the current government or Iraq is our ally, and we should support them.

No real faith that it will matter in the long run though.

That and these are people belong to a suicide death cult allied to, or a successor to the people who carried out 9/11. The US  should be bombing groups like ISIS as a matter of principle wherever they find them.