Middle East 14 - You know nothing ...

[Derfel Cadarn]

Iraq seems to be pushing back. And retaking some towns

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27856223

[WinterKing]

Well, the mass murders began sooner than I expected:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27858692

[Schlimazl]

ISIS tweeters report that assault on Baghdad has begun at airport area and Ameria district in in a characteristic over the top fashion (massacre of the century etc.).

[Horza]

Josh Landis predicting renewed sectarian cleansing and the Assadification of Maliki and the Iraqi Armed Forces. Depressing and I hope he's wrong.

[Ramsay Gimp]

Josh Landis predicting renewed sectarian cleansing and the Assadification of Maliki and the Iraqi Armed Forces. Depressing and I hope he's wrong.

That was a very interesting read. ISIS no doubt welcomes the highly sectarian response from the Iraqi gov't (the clerical "call to arms", Iran's intervention, etc)

[Shryke]

US and Iran gonna start talks on a joint response to this issue:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/16/us-talks-iran-stop-iraq-militants

The United States is preparing to open a direct dialogue with Iran about how to deal with the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, a senior official said on Sunday.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the US was considering engaging with its longtime adversary about Iraq, where the government of prime minister Nuri al-Maliki is struggling to repel a militants who have seized several cities.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that Washington was preparing to open talks with Iran on ways to push back the militants.

[arya_underfoot]

The way I see it, the West has good reason to sit back and watch this one out. It's time for Iran, KSA and Turkey to sort out this mess. As the three big powers in the Middle East, it's their responsibility and in their best interests. The West should limit itself to keeping the Peshmerga well supplied to ensure that Kurdistan stands strong and independent.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

KSA?

[Arkhangel]

The way I see it, the West has good reason to sit back and watch this one out. It's time for Iran, KSA and Turkey to sort out this mess. As the three big powers in the Middle East, it's their responsibility and in their best interests. The West should limit itself to keeping the Peshmerga well supplied to ensure that Kurdistan stands strong and independent.

Providing covert support to a separatist movement in at least three countries, including two of the countries you want to take the lead in Iraq, is an interesting interpretation of 'keeping out of it'.

[Horza]

where the government of prime minister Nuri al-Maliki is struggling to repel a militants who have seized several cities

good one, Grauniad

Cards on the table here: this situation reminds me a shit of a lot of 1963, only Vietnam wasn't a sectarian civil war fought for control of a major regional power. It seems to me that the US in providing air power would be taking a step into propping up a government that is woefully short on legitimacy and a 'strongman' leader who has brought most of this on himself. Those sorts of decisions rarely end with just one step.

This could be a civil war that really does break Iraq apart, one that finishes the sectarian cleansing that began in 2004, that turns Baghdad into a Shia city. People who talk about Iraqi partition as some kind of solution have no idea how horrible such a thing would be. These processes aren't neat little demarcations. From my perspective the only US-Iranian collaboration that would be worthwhile would be bringing down Maliki and working with Sunni leaders to wrest control back from ISIS.

Sadly, I don't think that's what going to be discussed.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

KSA?

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Aoife,

That's the first time I've seen Saudi Arabia TLA'd. Thanks.

[Horza]

A prolonged war with ISIS has risks for Iran as well.

[jarl the climber]

A prolonged war with ISIS has risks for Iran as well.

Yeah, on the one hand Syria and Iran are paying or might be starting to pay a very high price for playing their own game with Iraq instead of working with the US. At the same time the American intervention should never have happened without the full cooperation of Iraqs neighbors. Having said that, I think people overestimate Iran, if the US had a hard time dealing with these same guys just a few years ago the Iranians are going to struggle even more. I'm not sure they can count on the Iraqi Shiites backing them wholeheartedly if they intervene more decisively, that could tricky and I could see a lot of things going wrong with that..

[Horza]

As well, the realists would rather avoid further sectarian polarisation, which plays into Saudi's hands abroad and the ultrareactionaries at home.

[Horza]

Great reporting from the Guardian:

Iran, weighed down in Syria and also disenchanted with Maliki, would not have cherished the prospect of its regional interests being threatened further by more political drift in Baghdad.

Maliki seems to have next to no chance of forming a government. Diplomatic sources have confirmed to the Guardian in recent days that Washington has also lost faith in its former ally. Iran is yet to declare its hand, but has told Iraqi politicians that it has a list of four acceptable candidates to form a government: Maliki; the former prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari; Adel Abdul Mahdi, a senior political figure; or the former US ally and deputy prime minister Ahmed Chalabi.

Of the four, Chalabi has the support of many Kurdish leaders and has strong links to Iran. His links to Washington were severed more than a decade ago, after he helped persuade the Pentagon to invade Iraq. His return to political centre stage would be a remarkable twist in the contentious history of the former favourite of George W Bush.

[Ramsay Gimp]

A fascinating look at General Qassem Suleimani, head of Iran's Qods Force

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/09/30/130930fa_fact_filkins?currentPage=all

Several Middle Eastern officials, some of whom I have known for a decade, stopped talking the moment I brought up Suleimani. “We don’t want to have any part of this,” a Kurdish official in Iraq said. Among spies in the West, he appears to exist in a special category, an enemy both hated and admired: a Middle Eastern equivalent of Karla, the elusive Soviet master spy in John le Carré’s novels. When I called Dagan, the former Mossad chief, and mentioned Suleimani’s name, there was a long pause on the line. “Ah,” he said, in a tone of weary irony, “a very good friend.”

[Horza]

A fascinating look at General Qassem Suleimani, head of Iran's Qods Force

ahem

turns out US intelligence agencies are still not very good at anticipating major events:

The spy agencies appear to have been surprised by the sudden move by the ISIL to seize Mosul and other cities. The Senate Intelligence Committee is reviewing data from the past six months to determine what various agencies knew and said about the possibility of a major offensive, according to a committee staffer who was not authorized to be quoted.

But despite not having a great intelligence handle on the ISIL insurgency the guy who thinks the whole civilian casualties-support for insurgencies connection is overblown reckon bombing would've worked:

"It would be challenging but certainly doable," said David Deptula, who retired in 2010 as the top Air Force general for intelligence and who planned the bombing campaign in the first Gulf War.

[Arkhangel]

I was talking to one of my professors (who shall remain nameless but who is a prominent expert on Afghanistan and has spent a lot of time in some very remote and very dangerous parts of that country) and in his opinion American intelligence in the Middle East is an utter joke. They do things like sidle up in cafes and bars to whichever PhD students happen to have been into Taliban-controlled areas recently and pump them for information, and never mind that it's totally unverified hearsay from an outsider to the country because it's the best they can get. Much if not most of the so-called 'intelligence' is based on street gossip.

[Shryke]

ahem

turns out US intelligence agencies are still not very good at anticipating major events:

But despite not having a great intelligence handle on the ISIL insurgency the guy who thinks the whole civilian casualties-support for insurgencies connection is overblown reckon bombing would've worked:

Sure it would work. The short term outcome of that sort of thing is not the reason you don't do it. And that's all, according to the article, the guy was commenting on.