Why the Iraq offensive will fail
American officials said this week they plan to train up to 25,000 Iraqi troops in a major mission to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, from Islamic State militants sometime this spring. The mission is welcome, but frankly it is unlikely to succeed unless there is, at the same time, a deeper understanding on the part […]Michael T. Flynn writes for Politico:
American officials said this week they plan to train up to 25,000 Iraqi troops in a major mission to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, from Islamic State militants sometime this spring.
The mission is welcome, but frankly it is unlikely to succeed unless there is, at the same time, a deeper understanding on the part of our government of the real threat that the Islamic State and its adherents pose to us as a nation—and what our role in this broader fight must be. Unless the United States takes dramatically more action than we have done so far in Iraq, the fractious, largely Shiite-composed units that make up the Iraqi army are not likely to be able, by themselves, to overwhelm a Sunni stronghold like Mosul, even though they outnumber the enemy by ten to one. The United States must be prepared to provide far more combat capabilities and enablers such as command and control, intelligence, logistics, and fire support, to name just a few things.
