The American body politic is deeply concerned about re-involving our American ground combat forces in the Middle East. Having been lied to by their President, Vice President and top cabinet officers well over a decade ago – swallowing claims of non-existent weapons of mass destruction with a pledge that a regime change with an “American style democracy” would stabilize the region and eliminate the threat, exacerbated by a challenged Congress passing the much-reversed “Patriot Act” without reading it – voters were stuck with America’s longest war, trillions in deficits that are unlikely ever to be repaid and an ultimate failure of every political goal embraced by the leaders who started the mess.
Every American scholar of Middle Eastern geopolitics could have told you back in 2003 that usurping the Sunni-led government in Baghdad with a “democracy” led by a 60%-majority Shiite government would disenfranchise Sunnis, draw Iraq 100% into Shiite Iran’s sphere of influence and completely destabilize the region. I knew it, having lived in the region, and since I come from a U.S. Foreign Service family, I can tell you that the Department of State and our intelligence agencies were saying precisely the same thing to the President and his cronies. The administration issued some rather direct orders to these professionals to stop sending information that contradicted the immutable plans to which they were irretrievably committed.
We’re being lied to again – misled as a political “necessity.” We are being told not to worry about “mission creep,” that U.S. boots on the ground are not needed to subdue ISIL, and that the three most likely opponents to Islamic State militarism – the Peshmerga (Kurdish), the Iraqi Army and the moderate Syrian rebels – are more than adequate. With initial reports stating that IS had only around 12,000 active fighters, we watched the numbers estimates slowly swelled… to 30,000, then 40,000… And as recruiting efforts reached into volunteers not just from local or regional countries, but from deep within Western nations as well, we have to wonder where the numbers will wind up.
With the Islamic State dreaming of face-to-face confrontation with U.S. forces on the ground, they feel it is inevitable that we join the battle on the ground. And if for some reason we manage to avoid that choice, ISIL believes that as its conquests expand, they will have to power to launch large-scale terrorist attacks, first on American targets of convenience outside the U.S. and later on 9/11 scale terrorist attacks inside the U.S. They are gaining in confidence as their territorial conquests now reflect productive oil fields and land mass that is about the size of our state of Indiana. Fighting ISIL, the shock troops in a battle between civilizations, is clearly a fight for our own survival.
ISIL wanabees have taken to beheading in Algeria, and Taliban have adopted the technique in Afghanistan (with a few Taliban being hanged by locals in retaliation). For the most part conquered people are cowering in fear, despising the Islamic State warriors but terrified to raise a finger in opposition knowing an ugly death would be their reward. These are farmers and shopkeepers who just want to be left alone.
Air strikes can pummel potential targets, take out larger, obvious strategic targets, but someone better explain why, after all of this air power, ISIL is still advancing. The lack of boots on the ground is our tragic flaw and why the Islamic State is laughing at our efforts. There is absolutely zero possibility of crushing the Islamic State without effective boots on the ground, and the troika of likely ground fighting forces noted above has virtually no chance of implementing goal of annihilation without direct participation of Western and additional regional regular military intervention. Zero.
How are we likely to get sucked into ground combat? Special Forces will probably be used early to eliminate vital targets in occasional forays deep behind enemy lines. Somewhere along the line, there will atrocities against captured American troops or civilians that will spark outrage that will send a larger contingent of U.S. ground troops into the region. We can accept the atrocities and let it lie, but that’s not our style. So let’s look briefly at those three ground components and see if ISIL has much to worry about.
The Iraqi Army. The fall of Mosul in June of this year left massive caches of weapons, armored vehicles and both ordinary as well as sophisticated munitions in the hands of the attacking Islamic State forces. Oil fields fell, and Iraqi troops abandoned their positions in droves at the sight of hordes of ISIL fighters. Subsequent reports suggest that senior officers actually ordered that massive retreat and removed themselves quickly to safer ground. Was it cowardice or complete failure of command that led to this debacle? Does it matter if nothing has changed in the Iraqi military?
The Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad had gone out of its way to remove Sunni officers from serious command positions, which has driven more than a few such Sunnis to the other side. But the Iraqi military – even as trained by the United States – is and is likely to remain a model of dispirited incompetency. Practically, its command and control systems, even some of the most basic communications capacities, are essentially non-functional. Their inability to support troops in the field would send shudders down the spines of effective armies. It is the rule, not the exception.
For example, notes the New York Times (September 26th): “[In late September], Islamic State fighters stormed an [Iraqi] army base in Saqlawiya, also in Anbar Province, capturing more than 100 soldiers. The province, which is majority Sunni, is a major transit corridor between the Syrian border and Baghdad, and it has long been a source of resistance to the Shiite-led central government.
“But soldiers who were in [that] battle… maintained that this latest setback was due not to a failure of mettle — an accusation leveled at some units that have evaporated in the face of the militants — but rather to chronic shortcomings in the Iraqi military’s logistics and communications capabilities… ‘We wouldn’t have left the battlefield if we had been provided with ammunition,’ said one of the soldiers, Cpl. Ali Ghazi Hilal, 32, an eight-year veteran of the Iraqi Army. ‘I have not seen such a betrayal ever.’”
“[Communications with headquarters were unanswered] “As the bullets flew, the soldiers reached for their cellphones… In well-organized militaries, explicit protocols and a rigid chain of command govern communications on the battlefield. Most American units, for instance, will not allow soldiers to bring unauthorized telephones, radios or cameras on missions. But for the soldiers in Albu Etha [Anbar], their personal phones became possible lifelines.
“Throughout the morning, they called anyone who might have some influence over their situation: operations commanders, air force officers, parliamentarians, leaders of their tribes… Another soldier, Cpl. Hussein Ali, 33, said he had been put in touch with two generals. ‘They said, ‘We will provide you with what you need, and we will send you the air support,’ but they did not,’ he said.
“When no relief came, the soldiers decided to abandon their positions. The fighting had left 15 dead and 40 wounded, they said… They retreated on foot by an off-road route to avoid the bombs planted along the only available roadway, they said. They eventually reached a defensive position where army and police reinforcements were mustering.” Multiply this story by a hundred or a thousand, and understand that this Army is not prepared to fight the zealots, many combat-hardened veterans, that oppose them.
Want to understand the level of competence of some of the most necessary fighting forces. This this report from NBC.com (September 30th): “Iraqi military pilots mistakenly gave food, water and ammunition to enemy ISIS militants instead of their own soldiers, a senior security official and a brigadier-general told NBC News. The supplies were supposed to help besieged Iraqi army officers and soldiers who had been fighting Islamist extremists for a week in Saglawyah and the village of Al-Sijar in the country’s western province of Anbar.
“‘Some pilots, instead of dropping these supplies over the area of the Iraqi army, threw it over the area that is controlled by ISIS fighters,’ said Hakim Al-Zamili, a lawmaker in the Iraqi parliament who is a member of the security and defense committee and acts as a security liaison for service members and commanders formed by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. ‘Those soldiers were in deadly need of these supplies, but because of the wrong plans of the commanders in the Iraqi army and lack of experience of the pilots, we in a way or another helped ISIS fighters to kill our soldiers.’
“A brigadier-general in Iraq’s Defense Ministry, who declined to be named, confirmed the incident, which occurred on Sept. 19. ‘Yes, that's what had happened,’ the officer said, adding that some air force pilots ‘do not have enough experience … they are all young and new.’ Both Al-Zamili and the brigadier-general said there would be an investigation to determine the cause of the blunder.” Young and new flying multi-million-dollar aircraft and aiding the enemy. Yup!
Want to understand the level of desperation in Iraq? “The Iraqi military command has begun a campaign to re-enlist soldiers and officers who abandoned their units, a crucial step in its effort to rebuild an army that has been routed in battle after battle by Islamic State jihadists.
“Even as the government has continued to equip volunteers, the de facto amnesty for deserters is an acknowledgment that the army desperately needs experienced soldiers — even ones who ran — for a force that is sustaining heavy losses despite the American-led airstrike campaign against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.” New York Times, September 28th. Need I say more?
Syrian Rebel Moderates. Congress has approved funds to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels in their fight against the Islamic State. Aside from the rather obvious reality that eliminating ISIL deeply benefits the horrific Syrian Assad regime, a tiny Shiite power in a massively Sunni state, the rebels in Syria don’t exactly have clear labels for Americans to separate the moderates from the extremists. So we are training and arming… er… whomever…
But putting even moderate volunteer forces in the field, assuming you can identify them (which is anything but clear), against a brutal and well-trained opponent takes time: “The Pentagon has deployed military assessment teams to Saudi Arabia in advance of its training of moderate Syrian rebels to fight the Islamic State group terrorizing Syria and Iraq, but the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff cautioned Friday that it will take time for the effort to gel.
“‘We have to do it right, not fast,’ said the chairman, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey. ‘They have to have military leaders that bind them together. They have to … have a political structure into which they can hook, and therefore be responsive to. And that’s gonna take some time.’
“The training is expected to be a centerpiece of the expanded U.S.-led effort to fight the Islamic State in Syria. U.S. officials plan to initially train 5,000 rebels in Syria, providing a ground force that can be paired with the airstrike campaign that the United States and partner nations launched there this week. But the effort could eventually expand beyond that, Dempsey said.
“‘Five thousand’s never been the end state,’ the general said of the number of trained rebels he believes are needed in Syria. An estimated 12,000 to 15,000 would be needed ‘to recapture lost territory in eastern Syria.’” Washington Post, September 26th. And even assuming we can find that preliminary force of 5,000, from the time we start training (how long will it even take to assemble them?), we are conservatively looking at a year to get them ready. How far will have forces from the Islamic State have advanced in that time? How many new recruits will be added to ISIL in the meantime?
Kurdish Peshmerga. (Pictured above) These are the best-trained, most effective fighters in the mix. They are passionate, intelligent, experienced and well-led. They are dedicated to saving their Kurdish region in Iraq from ISIL attacks, and their troops have been reasonably effective in their efforts. But here’s the catch: While this is a significant force, it is woefully lacking in heavy weapons, from artillery to sophisticated armored vehicles (especially tanks), combat helicopters, targeting missiles and comparable modern tactical weapons. They are stretched thin, using their limited small arms capacities against a vastly-better-armed ISIL military. U.S. airstrikes help, but even this effective ground force is hardly a match for the Islamic State fighters who are advancing.
So those are the ground forces – the boots on the ground – that must decapitate (sorry) this ugly Islamist monster that is inspiring extremists all over the earth to increasing levels of unbridled brutality. With so many of these extremists drawing bead on anything American, can we really leave crushing this malevolent force to these limited combat forces, most of which are ill-prepared to defeat their well-equipped and trained opponents?
I hate that our forces may have to fight this battle, sooner rather than later. I hate that vile political forces of earlier years wasted trillions of dollars and fomented massive death and carnage in a failed military expedition to a land they did not understand for a cause that was based on lies. The boy cried “wolf,” and we are now wary. This is the battle that needs to be fought… sooner before it expands to a vastly bigger problem.
I’m Peter Dekom, and that we can lay this debacle on our own American leaders is hardly a reason to avoid a confrontation now that will only grow bigger if we delay the obvious reality of American boots on the ground… now.
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