via The Daily Beast.
I was wrong.
We're talking about Balad.
Freaking Balad!
The President and US State Dept has not been telling the truth about this situation. The Iraqi Armed Forces have for all intents and purposes been defeated on the battlefield.
An already unstable Middle East is now going to spiral hopelessly out of control.
Oil prices are going to zoom once the idiots in the stock market put two and two together. Six dollar a gallon gas will soon seem like a bargain.
Worse?
Jordan, Lebanon are definitely in trouble. Saudi Arabia is probably in a hurt locker too. I don't see how a regional war can now be avoided. The ISIS savages will not stop. Fanatics don't have off switches. The only question is whether or not it turns into a world war.
In its march to Baghdad, ISIS seized the heavy weapons of a modern army. Now, the jihadists are attacking Iraq’s biggest air base – and could soon be able to attack from the sky.I thought I had been keeping up with events in Iraq.
The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham is threatening to take control of Balad Airbase, Iraq’s largest airfield and one of America’s most important military outposts during its occupation of the country.
Today, Balad still has plenty of vehicles and aircraft on the base that any terrorist group would covet, including Russian-made transport helicopters, surveillance planes, and a fleet of pickup trucks fitted with heavy machine guns.
Now, that airbase is coming under fire—and is in danger of falling into the hands of ISIS, according to U.S. intelligence officers, internal reports from Balad, and outside analysts. Reuters reported Wednesday that the base was now surroundedon three sides by insurgents and taking heavy mortar fire.
“We assess the group continues to threaten the air base and Iraqi Security Force control of the air base as it moves south towards Baghdad,” a senior U.S. intelligence official told reporters Tuesday.
Of course, even if ISIS were to gain control of Balad, there is no guarantee its fighters would know how to operate or maintain the aircraft that are stored there. But an ISIS takeover of Balad would be significant nonetheless. As NBC News reported Tuesday, Iraqi officers say without air support they are on an equal footing with ISIS fighters.
Jessica Lewis—the research director for the Institute for the Study of War and a former U.S. Army intelligence officer who served in Iraq—told The Daily Beast, “It would mean that ISIS can beat the best that the Iraqi Army can muster, not just the northern units that have been ignored. It would mean strategic defeat for the Iraqi Army.”
I was wrong.
We're talking about Balad.
Freaking Balad!
The President and US State Dept has not been telling the truth about this situation. The Iraqi Armed Forces have for all intents and purposes been defeated on the battlefield.
An already unstable Middle East is now going to spiral hopelessly out of control.
Oil prices are going to zoom once the idiots in the stock market put two and two together. Six dollar a gallon gas will soon seem like a bargain.
Worse?
Jordan, Lebanon are definitely in trouble. Saudi Arabia is probably in a hurt locker too. I don't see how a regional war can now be avoided. The ISIS savages will not stop. Fanatics don't have off switches. The only question is whether or not it turns into a world war.
Back in the day, it was reported that Balad had more air traffic than any other airfield in the world except Heathrow, and that they had to keep planes in the air because they didn't have space to park them. etc.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just ISIS it's also some remnants of the old regime who have been dismissed from the military and the government. The expectation is that they will use ISIS to help them make gains and regain power, but we'll see who gets used. Of course there is more to victory then wining battles, as the US found out. The victor must govern somehow.
The US is no help in the present situation since new Iraq is an Iran ally, so who cares. SecState Kerry is over there giving orders that nobody follows, it's simply a political performance for the home folks.
When Iraq was de-Bath'd, a lot of army officers belonged to the party and were dismissed. I don't doubt that the competent ones are now helping ISIS against the politically appointed idiots that replaced them.
DeleteThis is fallout from the stupidity of those who ran the occupation. We learned nothing from the mistakes made in the over-eager de-NAZIfication of Germany. Where the leaders most competent to rebuild the country were marginalized. Until responsibility for it was handed back to the Germans themselves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification
Balad today, Bagram tomorrow ?
ReplyDeleteSaudi Arabia is not in a hurt locker, IT IS THE HURT LOCKER.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSo, let's get the facts straight
ReplyDelete1 - They put hands on a massive amount of money ( 400 millions)
2 - They pretty much took an entire country ( and in the process got some equipments )
3 - Now They will conquest an airbase with russian helicopters and other stuff
Yeah... Pretty soon im gonna grab my popcorn, and watch the middle east burn.
This actually is very ver serious. I hope USA and Iran get some common ground to throw ISIS out. Not for the people of Iraq but for the Oil.
ReplyDeleteI would like nothing better than for the US and Iranians to bury the hatchet and unite to sieze this wonderfull oportunity as I see it. Nowadays, with UN and all, there arent many countries up fo the taking. No new areas to expand. Iraq is that opportunity and has oil. Make a nice alliance with the Kurds, a la Turkey. Make the Shia Iraq and Iran join an alliance. An alliance brokered by the USA. You'll want to be the middleman in this alliance for obvious reasons.
Then form a for profit joint venture called IIUK or the UKII which stands for Iran, Iraq, USA, Kurd Oil and Natural Gas Company. 25% stake to each party and equal initial starting capital. Give it exclusive rights to drill, pump, explore and develop oilfields and also exclusive marketing rights. Kind of like an arab Rosoboronexport for oil.
And let the ISIS siezed areas of Iraq burn for now. Recapturing lost terrotory isnt a priority now. Stability is. A year or two down the line.....that is when Joint Iranian-Iraqi expeditionary forces supported by the US can start making Inroads into lost territory. Capturing only what can be defended. Stabilizing it, and then moving on. Not a blitz that will capture all in a 2 weeks, but a prolonged multi year strategy like Sri-Lanka and LTTE.
USA might have lost the choking sand of western Iraq but.........this is a golden opportunity for the US to finnaly and completly Iron Fist Secure the Persian Gulf and all the shipping and pipelines transecting through it.
If these Iraqi officials were serious about iraq surviving as a shiite country, they would have hired professional western mercenaries with a decade of military experience, they would have started instilling some discipline in their officer core, shooting deserters, cowards, and anyone who doesn't follow orders. They would use these mercenaries to lead the offensive.
DeleteThey would encircle these cities one by one, bypassing them, cutting of their supplies of water and food. They would force them to surrender, and use their best soldiers to attack the ones that don't, one by one. They would do whatever it takes, (not saying it is right) whatever it takes to hold their country together!
Hell they would get some iranian mechanized regiments to come and help them, they would surround these cities with tanks, and armoured vehicles and artillery, with night vision gear, they would set-up fire bases and trench lines. Then they would round up their leaders, anyone who supported their opposition and they would shoot them, they would get the mission done!
Im not saying it is right, I am not saying they should do it, I am saying that it is how it is done in histroy and ruthlessness is often a pre-requisite to victory. Would Russia have done so well against napoleon, if the kaiser didn't order every grain depot between napoleon and moscow burnt to the ground, and all the produce destroyed? Would cities have waited it out, seen what happened against alexander, if he didn't slaughter all those who didn't surrender? What about serbia, if nato didn't say they would level the capital with hundreds of B52s, would serbia have capitulated? Or japan surrendered? What iraq needs is real leadership, and they are not going to get that from maliki. Hell do you think Tito, Mao, Ghadaffi, sadam came to power by being really nice people? By playing 100% by all these modern conventions? Ofcourse they didn't, and isis doesn't do it either!
The US is very unlikely to get involved with helping the Maliki Government unless there are major concessions when it comes to their alliance with Iran. Furthermore it is unlikely that they (the US) would destroy ISIS in Iraq because it has been their (proxy) tool against the Assad regime. The worst the Obama admin might do is to engage in limited strikes that will either stabalise the territorial situation, perhaps causing an ISIS withdrawal from around Baghdad, and/or encourage ISIS back into Syria.
DeleteThe success of ISIS in Iraq has presented an 'important opportunity' in undermining both the Iran friendly Maliki Government and the Assad regime. Earlier this year (and last year) the Iraqi Government was hindering cross border jihadist operations into Syria.
Please note, this foreign policy strategy does not benefit the vast majority of the US population. It's not intended to.
Anyway, upon hearing about the recent ISIS victories north of the capital (on June 13th) I expected the US to do pretty much nothing in terms of air support for Iraqi ground operations. A lot of the reluctance to act has been attributed to caution and weakness by Obama, who, on the otherhand, continues to wage drone war operations in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan without much conscience.
I'm sure evryone here would agree that hitting convoys of ISIS jihadi trucks in the Iraqi desert is not technically a big deal, except if you want to go along with the pantomime theatre excuses we find floating around the mainstream media.
The overall strategy being followed here, is the destruction of the (Shia) Hezbollah-Syria-Iraq-Iran nexus. The foreign policy goal and the subsequent chaos is arguably not in the best interests of the US but it does hugely benefit their Middle Eastern allies (the ones with defence pacts that will draw in US ground troops to defend territory if borders are seriously threatened).
The resulting instability, caused by extremist takeovers of part, or all, of the previously listed countries, can be used as an opportunity to either carve out new territory or keep oil prices very high. Smaller nations like Jordan and Lebanon will likely suffer, and already have suffered -they should have acted to oppose the extremist fighting rather than remaining neutral or acting as small time players.
None of what's happening here is a surprise. Consider the geopolitics. The type of people making the big decisions about what to do next do not have the 'little' guy's best interests at heart.
Somewhere in this is a wealthy hand, or three, that are funding these barbarians for their own ends. Step back, look at who's benefitting, and then step back again. They don't want you to see the big picture, only the distracting details.
DeleteAnyway, Iran will be better able to help stabalize Iraq it Iran itself wasnt suffering from hyper inflation and a lack of indistrial/agricultural and servise sector investment. Stuff that has direct relation to all those economic sanctions due to the Nuclear Program. Now that will be a sore topic to discuss in any dialog with Iran.
ReplyDeleteBut the US has a long history of putting under the carpet or bypassing sore issues in pursuit of core goals. Saudi Arabian treatment of women is conveniently brushed under the carpet for the core interest of Oil. If the US can remain true to its core interest of Oil, Iran can be managed. India was also in the same boat as the Iranians with a non-US/EU/UN approved nuclear program. Core interest of gaining access to Indian economy and countering China led to both India and USA by-pass this.
US understanding on Israeli Nukes...............Nuff Said.
I would favor a U.S airstrike on Ballad should it fall - if only to prevent sensitive U.S produced systems from falling into enemy hands.
ReplyDeleteJust hit every piece of gear out their with lgbs and tomhawks
Deletehttp://warontherocks.com/2014/06/iraq-and-the-city-of-man/
ReplyDeleteThis is the best explanation that I have read on the collapse of Iraq. The Iraqi army will not fight because it does not believe in the state that it fights for.
Yep.
DeleteThere is no Iraq, just a Shia cabal running the place. Why would a bunch of Shia recruits fight in the Sunni triangle, 'led' by a bunch of incompetent cronies who are selected based on patronage, not talent.
Then there is the Iraqi Army and the way it was trained and organized. It was trained by the US military which is fixated on placing firepower on the enemy to attrite them to the point of defeat. Except the weakness of that is these non-state terrorists organization always have plenty of dedicated followers willing to step into the shoes of their former leaders after they've been vaporized by Hellfires. There is no shortage of successors among bands of fanatics.
the Iraqi Army is centralized, command-push, that requires permission and rewards obediance rather than initiative.
ISIS is recon-pull, decentralized and rewards initiative and success rather than loyalty since it is composed of die-hard fanatics whose loyalty is to the cause, not some leader or payroll master.
ISIS opportunistically allies itself with disaffected Sunni tribes, ex-Army, ex-Baathists in the Sunni triangle and turns them loose upon a deliberate, ponderous, poorly-led Iraqi Army. They move like water around strong points and find the weak points to attack.
Call in all the air-strikes you want, the most that will do is take out some technicals and blow up a few of the less diligent, but it won't stem the tide until they start to reach Shia towns
What they capture they cannot maintain.
ReplyDeleteUse it or lose it, they use it up and then it's back to the old RPG and AK.
A regional war could be good, it could kill all the ones who want to die or kill.
The Saudi's? >giggle< fuck them.
This could be the best thing to happen to the world since the gates of Vienna.
let them kill each other, deal with the winners, if they wish peace, accept them as peaceful, if they wish more blood, nuke them till they glow and shoot them in the dark.
My give a damn is busted.
According to German "DER SPIEGEL" Iraq received five Russian jets: Su-25 or Su-30 for about €365.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/kampf-gegen-isis-regierung-des-irak-kauft-russische-kampfjets-a-978137.html