The Shia militias backing off doesn’t mean Iran backing off - they have influence over the Iraqi government, too.
The Shia militias backing off also doesn’t mean that no atrocities will happen - the regular Iraqi army is heavily Shia, is quite undisciplined, consists of angry young men, etc.
What’s more, there is zero reason to believe that the Iranians were planning atrocities in the first place. Certain Shia militias, yes; their Iranian backers, not so much. Quite the opposite:
As an additional twist, who knows if the Shia militias are even backing off in the first place. So far, I’ve seen nothing but talk. As I wrote over in that other thread:
This Time article makes clear that the largest Shia militia - the Badr organisation - has not withdrawn, but is only “considering pulling out.” So really it seems far too early to say what is really going on. My guess? The Americans and the militias just don’t want to be seen supporting each other, and so they’ll play this little kabuki number where while the Americans bomb, the militias will feign shock and pretend to walk away, and while the militias advance, the Americans will feign shock and pretend to walk away.
Here’s the point to remember, though: The Iranians are there. The Shias are there. The militias are there. When they step back, re-group, “boycott” or walk away, do they disappear? No, of course not. They’re still there, or in any case close enough. So when and if the Americans get ISIS all weak and bloodied and stumbling, who do you think will step up to deliver the knockdown? The Iranians, the Shias, and the militias.
But hey lookit - here’s a (potential) silver lining after all. It appears that the Shia politicians in Baghdad might have learned a thing or two from the Maliki-pissing-off-the-Sunnis debacle, and are now trying to find common ground with the Sunni minority parties. The Sadrists, for example, are talking to the (mostly Sunni) Iraqiya coalition, in the hopes of putting together “a cross-sectarian and multi-ethnic bloc.” So that’s always something, eh?
Silver lining. The article isn’t about ISIS: it’s about Saudi Arabia launching air attacks on Iranian proxies in Yemen. Traditionally, the Saudis would privately call the US up and arrange for us to do it, then complain about it at home. That’s not healthy. I think that development has parallels to our ISIS policy: we are encouraging the local players eat their own dog food.
Iranian influence in Iraq is inevitable and quite frankly legitimate. ISIS is much more their problem than ours. Hyperpowers like the US should really be in the nudge business rather than trying to play supercop. I perceive Iraqi kabuki as vastly superior to hamfisted invasion.
The Iraqi forces have retaken Tikrit. However, there might still be some ISIS fighters holding out in some neighborhoods, and they have a lot of bombs and booby-traps to disarm.
I’s be rather cautious about that characterization. Iranian-backed is a safer phrase. Traditionally the Zaydi north Yemen tribes don’t do proxy. They have their own reasons for being in a fight and I’m pretty certain it has absolutely zero to do with the relative standing of SA and Iran. The Saudis and Iranianis may be jumping into the conflict and betting on different horses to maintain or expand their influences, respectively. But at least with the Houthis, I wouldn’t assume any string-pulling.
SA has been on the opposite side of the fence back in the 1960’s when it was Saudi-backed Zaydi royalists against Egyptians and Egyptian-backed Yemeni pan-Arabists. There ain’t nothing new under the sun, really. Yemen has always been a very dangerous and rather unstable place.
A cache of documents were found in a ISIS Syrian safe house, whose resident was killed in a firefight. They discuss the coalition between Islamicists and Iraqi military men that makes up ISIS.
The new reveal is that ISIS was created by Saddam’s former men. They provided military strategy. They chose the guy who would be the self-proclaimed caliph. They had deep ties to Syrian intelligence, which allowed them to form an uneasy partnership with Assad’s regime, where they would focus their efforts on common enemies.
They had knowledge of running a totalitarian state: that’s no small thing. The generals’ goal was to use ISIS as a method of taking over Iraq and re-establishing the old regime.
The US was persuaded to invade Iraq on the basis of alleged ties between Saddam and Islamicists: those allegations were lies.
[INDENT]"But the invasion made this falsehood true… One of America’s first decisions on taking Iraq-- a terrible mistake that has halted the region ever sense-- was to disband Iraq’s enormous army, leaving its officers and soldiers with no income… “bitter and unemployed”. [/INDENT]
They would later form the nucleus of ISIS. The secret plot behind the creation of ISIS - Vox
I say elections matter. Incompetence matters. Active decisions to pass over expert opinion in favor of fantasies of glory matter. There are negotiators, there are hawks, there are chicken hawks and there are those who never encounter a potential war they don’t like. The latter are a disgrace. Seriously – that characterization is appropriate if the claims are true, right?
