ISIS on the offensive in Iraq

**Papewaio** · 06-12-2014, 00:35

How would Option #1 help the ruler? It clearly didn't work out for Saddam.

Where was his WMDs?

Saddam was on the Al Qaeda hit list. The Islamicists hated him including the Saudis.

The bogus torturous reasons to go into Iraq make no sense. AQ 911 operators were majority Saudi and funded as such. But who gets attacked? The enemy of the enemy.

**Seamus Fermanagh** · 06-12-2014, 01:43

Originally Posted by Papewaio

How would Option #1 help the ruler? It clearly didn't work out for Saddam.

Where was his WMDs?

Saddam was on the Al Qaeda hit list. The Islamicists hated him including the Saudis.

The bogus torturous reasons to go into Iraq make no sense. AQ 911 operators were majority Saudi and funded as such. But who gets attacked? The enemy of the enemy.

I wrote it in the spirit of "by loudly and believably proclaiming no islamist/wmd ties or aspirations" that such a strongman would undercut any vestiges of support that might linger to create a Gulf War 3. My purpose was NOT to act as an apologist for Gulf 2. That would be a separate thread.

**Papewaio** · 06-12-2014, 01:48

People learn from experience. And experience teaches us that only WMD stops Western intervention ie North Korea (China), Iran (itself), Syria (Itself/Russia) etc

Supporting hardline Islamic beliefs hasn't hindered Saudi Arabia either.

**Brenus** · 06-12-2014, 07:10

I didn’t follow closely Iraq so I was surprised by the news: fall of Mosul and now Tikrit, and the complete failure of Iraqis’ Army to even stand the ground. If BBC is to be believed, these forces just vanished…
Side remark, it is not good news for Afghanistan Forces and prospect of holding the lines there as they were trained by the same armies on the same frame and methods.
However, the “insurgents” appear to come from Syria (if news is right, they crossed Turkey’s territory where they were training against Assad with the good will of the Turkish Government).
So, they changed their goal and attacked a softer target, but, ignored the Kurdish zone where a sense of belonging (nationality) is stronger than the religious belonging.
It looks to me more like a razzia, as Bedouins used to do, than a real war of conquest. It could be just to spread chaos and disruption operation and wait to see what happened after the dust settles than a power conquest.
They will have to administrate the conquered territory, and if it is a quiet easy to push unwilling to fight armies, it is something else to provide electricity, water, and markets place to population as US and UK learned it few years ago, and that is the key to control and keep population. Failing to do this will create the same reaction experienced by the Coalition of Willing and Islamic Fighters will have to face Tribal Fighters much more motivated than Iraqis Troopers (not really difficult mind you).

**GenosseGeneral** · 06-12-2014, 13:13

Seems to be ineed their plan.
And not only according to the BBC the Iraqi army fails.

I think Option 1 is the most likely, because I can not see a basis upon which a strongman could erect his rule. The tribal militias seem to work however. Note how Al Sadr already demands the creation of sectarian militias in one of the articles. The split would probably be in between Kurdistan (which is already only loosely connected to Baghdad), Shiites and Sunnis. I dont know too much, about the Iraqi population, though. Do the Sunni and Shiite groups live in the same areas or is there a clearly Sunni and a clearly Shia part of Iraq?

**Viking** · 06-12-2014, 14:51

This is supposed to be a CIA map from 2003:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

According to this, there is a clear divide between Sunnis in the west and northwest , Kurds in the north and Shias in the east and northeast. As one would expect, there are also sizeable mixed areas.