The following is meant to provide an overview of the military situation in Iraq for non-experts.
Caveat. It is exceptionally difficult
to understand the dynamics of ongoing military operations. Oftentimes,
the participants themselves do not know why they are winning or losing,
or even where they are in control or where their troops are. For
non-participants, it is often equally difficult to gain more than a
rudimentary sense of the combat without access to the sophisticated
intelligence gathering capabilities—overhead imagery, signals
intercepts, human reporting, etc.—available to the United States and
some other governments. As one of the CIA’s Persian Gulf military
analysts during the 1990-91 Gulf War, I noted the difficulty that many
outside analysts had in gauging the capabilities of the two sides and
following the course of operations because they did not have access to
the information available to us from U.S. government assets.
Consequently, readers should bring a healthy dose of skepticism to all
such analyses of the current fighting in Iraq, including this one.
Likely Next Steps in the Fighting
What appears to be the most likely scenario at this point is that the
rapid Sunni militant advance is likely to be stalemated at or north of
Baghdad. They will probably continue to make some advances, but it seems
unlikely that they will be able to overrun Baghdad and may not even
make it to the capital. This scenario appears considerably more likely
than the two next most likely alternative scenarios: that the Sunni
militants overrun Baghdad and continue their advance south into the Shia
heartland of Iraq; or that the Shia coalition is able to counterattack
and drive the Sunnis out of most of their recent conquests.
It is not a coincidence that the Sunni militants made rapid advances
across primarily Sunni lands. That’s because it is not surprising that
the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) would crumble in those areas. As Baghdad
has (rightly) observed, several of the divisions in the north were
disproportionately composed of Kurds and Sunni Arabs, many of them
frustrated and alienated by Prime Minister Maliki’s harsh consolidation
of power and marginalization of their communities. They were never going
to fight to the death for Maliki and against Sunni
militants looking to stop him. Similarly, the considerable number of
Shia troops in the north understandably saw little point to fighting and
dying for principally Sunni cities like Mosul, Tikrit, Bayji, etc.
Baghdad could be another matter entirely. First, it is a vast city of
almost 9 million people compared to Mosul with less than 2 million.
Moreover, the Sunni militants only secured the western (Sunni Arab) half
of Mosul, leaving the eastern (Kurdish-dominated) half alone.
Conquering a city the size of Baghdad is always a formidable undertaking
when it is defended by determined troops.
After the battles of the 2006-2008 civil war, Baghdad is also now a
more heavily Shia city—probably 75-80 percent of its population,
although it is very difficult to know for certain. While it is
understandable, even predictable, that Shia troops would not fight and
die for Sunni cities, many are likely to find their courage when they
are defending their homes and families in Baghdad and the other
Shia-dominated cities of the south.
In addition, as has been well-reported, the (largely-Shia) remnants
of the ISF are being reinforced by Shia militiamen and bolstered by
contingents of Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Although many of the Shia
militiamen will be new recruits answering Ayatollah Sistani’s call to
defend their community, others are hardened veterans of the fighting in
Iraq in 2006-2008 and Syria since 2011.
Thus, the Sunni militants are likely to come up against a far more
determined and numerous foe than they have confronted so far. The most
likely outcome of that fighting will be a vicious stalemate at or north
of Baghdad, basically along Iraq’s ethno-sectarian divide. That is also
not surprising because it conforms to the pattern of many similar
intercommunal civil wars. In Syria today, in Lebanon in the 1980s,
Afghanistan in the 1990s, and elsewhere, that is where the frontlines
tend to stalemate. They can shift here and there in small ways, but
generally remain unchanged for years. That’s because militias in civil
wars find it far easier to hold territory inhabited by the members of
their identity group than to conquer (and hold) territory inhabited by
members of a rival identity group. It’s one reason they typically try to
“cleanse” any territory they have conquered of members of the rival
identity group.
If military developments in Iraq conform to this most likely
scenario, they could lead to a protracted, bloody stalemate along those
lines. In that case, one side or the other would have to receive
disproportionately greater military assistance from an outside backer
than its adversary to make meaningful territorial gains. Absent that,
the fighting will probably continue for years and hundreds of thousands
will die.
Watch Anbar. So far, the Sunni militants in
Anbar are the dog that hasn’t barked, at least not yet. Obviously, the
Sunni militants have significant strength in Anbar, including
considerable numbers of ISIS fighters. It is militarily obvious that
they should seek to develop a complimentary offensive out of Anbar.
Doing so would allow them to (1) open another axis of advance against
Baghdad and catch it in a classic pincer movement, or (2) develop a
direct advance against the great Shia religious cities of Karbala and
Najaf (the most sacred sites in Shia Islam), and/or (3) force the Shia
to divert military assets away from the north-south Sunni advance and
potentially overstretch their manpower and command and control.
Consequently, the fact that no such offensive has yet materialized is
noteworthy. It may be that Sunni militant forces in Anbar were so badly
beaten up in the fighting with the ISF around Fallujah and Ramadi that
they are not capable of mounting such an attack. Alternatively, they may
be preparing to do precisely that.
In short, Anbar bears watching because a Sunni offensive there will
further stress the Shia defenses. It is a key variable that could
undermine the Shia defense of Baghdad. So if you are looking for
something that would push Iraq from the most likely scenario (a bloody
stalemate in or north of Baghdad) to the second most likely scenario (a
continued Sunni advance through and beyond Baghdad) a successful Sunni
offensive from Anbar would be one such variable.
Watch Iran. Given the various problems on
the Shia side (demoralization, fragmentation, politicization of the
ISF), the variable that would be most likely to advantage the Shia and
push Iraq from the most likely scenario (a bloody stalemate in or north
of Baghdad) to the third most likely scenario (a Shia counteroffensive
that eliminates most of the Sunni gains) is Iranian participation. On
their own, it is unlikely that even the larger and more motivated Iraqi
Shia forces now assembling to defend Baghdad would be able to retake the
Sunni-dominated north. What would make that far more possible would be
much greater Iranian involvement, particularly much larger commitments
of Iranian ground combat formations.
So far, Iran appears only to have committed three battalion-sized
groups of Quds force personnel. Quds force personnel are typically
trainers and advisers, not line infantrymen. They are the “Green Berets”
of Iran, who help make indigenous forces better rather than fighting
the fight themselves. That would make sense for the current situation in
Iraq, and those personnel will help stiffen the Shia defense of
Baghdad. However, they are unlikely to improve Shia capabilities to the
point where they can develop a major offensive to take back the North.
Only the commitment of large numbers of Iranian line
formations—infantry, armor and artillery—could do that. Consequently,
were we to see a large Iranian commitment of such ground combat units,
it would signal that the third-most likely scenario was becoming far
more likely.
The Combatants, Part I: The Sunni Militants
It is important to understand a few key points about the Sunni militant side of the new Iraqi civil war.
It’s a Coalition, not a Single Group.
First, ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) is essentially the
“lead dog” of a larger Sunni militant coalition—hence my preference for
the latter, more accurate description. ISIS has been fighting in
conjunction with a number of other Iraqi Sunni militant groups.
Effectively the entire rogue’s gallery of Sunni militias from the
2006-2008 civil war have been revived by Prime Minister Maliki’s
alienation of the Sunni Arab community since 2011. AQI, the Naqshbandis,
the Ba’th, Jaysh al-Muhammad, Ansar al-Sunnah, and all of the rest are
back in operation in Iraq, in at least tacit cooperation with a number
of Sunni tribes.
These groups are key members of the Sunni militant coalition. They
have done a great deal of the fighting, dying and occupying. Often they
are indistinguishable from one another to outsiders or even Iraqis who
are not themselves Sunni militants.
It’s an Iraqi Entity, not a Foreign Invasion.
While the Iraqi government has emphasized the foreign elements in ISIS,
their indigenous, Iraqi component is of far greater importance. ISIS
has been part of the violence in Iraq for over a year. Many of its
personnel are Iraqis. Even before last week's operations, it had an
extensive network in Iraq which both conducted terrorist attacks across
the length and breadth of the country, and has been engaged in a
conventional battle for Ramadi and Fallujah with the ISF for over six
months. Moreover, it is busily engaged in recruiting and training
additional Sunni Iraqis which is simply reinforcing the Iraqi nature of
the group. Finally, as noted above, ISIS is only one piece (albeit, the
central piece) in a larger array of Sunni groups that are overwhelmingly
Iraqi.
This is important because Prime Minister Maliki and his apologists
have tried to paint ISIS as a group of foreigners who were waging the
Syrian civil war and suddenly decided to launch an invasion of
neighboring Iraq. If that narrative were true, it would suggest that a
pure (and immediate) military response were warranted since such a group
would have a great deal of difficulty holding territory conquered in
Iraq. It would obviate the need for far-reaching political changes,
which Maliki seeks to avoid.
Consequently, it is critical to understand that ISIS is as much an
Iraqi group as it is Syrian or anything else, and its success is largely
a product of its ability to capitalize on Iraq’s political problems and
to be accepted (if only grudgingly) by many Iraqi Sunnis as a champion
in the fight against what they see as an oppressive, partisan Shia
regime.
These are Militias First and Foremost, Terrorists only a Distant Second.
Here as well, Prime Minister Maliki and his apologists like to refer to
the Sunni militants as terrorists. Too often, so too do American
officials. Without getting into arcane and useless debates about what
constitutes a “terrorist,” as a practical matter it is a mistake to
think of these groups as being principally a bunch of terrorists.
The problem there is that that implies that what these guys mostly
want to do is to blow up buildings or planes elsewhere around the world,
and particularly American buildings and planes. While I have no doubt
that there are some among the Sunni militants who want to blow up
American buildings and planes right now, and many others who would like
to do so later, that is not their principal motivation.
Instead, this is a traditional ethno-sectarian militia waging an
intercommunal civil war. (They are also not an insurgency.) They are
looking to conquer territory. They will do so using guerrilla tactics or
conventional tactics—and they have been principally using conventional
tactics since the seizure of Fallujah over six months ago. Their entire
advance south over the past week has been a conventional, motorized
light-infantry offensive; not a terrorist campaign, not a guerrilla
warfare campaign.
And right now, they are completely consumed with continuing to wage
this conventional offensive against the Shia forces arrayed against
them. That is likely to remain their pre-occupation for some time to
come. Somewhere down the road, they probably will begin to mount
terrorist attacks against other countries from their secure areas in
Iraq and Syria, precisely as the intelligence community warned. But that
will be an adjunct to their waging of the new Iraqi civil war.
That is important because defining the Sunni militants as terrorists
implies that they need to be attacked immediately and directly by the
United States. Seeing them for what they are, first and foremost a
sectarian militia waging a civil war, puts the emphasis on where it
needs to be: finding an integrated political-military solution to the
internal Iraqi problems that sparked the civil war. And that is a set of
problems that is unlikely to be solved by immediate, direct American
attacks on the Sunni militants. Indeed, such attacks could easily make
the situation worse.
The Combatants, Part II: The Shia Coalition
A few points are also in order regarding the other side of the fight, the Shia.
Of greatest importance, we need to recognize that the Iraqi Security
Forces are fast becoming little more than a Shia militia. This trend
began 3-4 years ago when Prime Minister Maliki began to push Sunni and
Kurdish officers out of the armed forces, to replace them with loyal
Shia officers. As a result, even before the current debacle, the ISF had
become far more Shia than it had been, with fewer and fewer Sunnis and
Kurds. Even before the dramatic events of last week, most Sunnis and
Kurds referred to the ISF as “Maliki’s militia.” Since last Tuesday, we
have seen large numbers of Sunni Arab and Kurdish soldiers desert the
ISF, leaving an even more homogeneously Shia force. There are still
Sunnis and Kurds in the ranks and in the officer corps, but that seems
likely to dissipate over time.
This is a trend that is common to these kinds of intercommunal civil
wars. The “Syrian Armed Forces” of today are nothing more than the Asad
regime’s militia, heavily comprised of Alawis and other minorities
aligned with the regime. All throughout the Lebanese civil war, there
was an entity called “the Lebanese Armed Forces” (LAF) that wore the
uniforms, lived on the bases and employed the equipment of Lebanon’s
former army. But they had become nothing but a Maronite Christian
militia (after all of the Muslims and Druse deserted in the late 1970s),
and their commanders nothing but Maronite Christian warlords. The same
is already happening with the ISF and that trend is likely to continue.
This is important because one of the worst mistakes the United States
made in the 1980s was to assume that the Lebanese Armed Forces were
still a neutral, professional armed force committed to the security of
the entire state. That was a key piece of the tragic U.S. mishandling of
Lebanon. When the Reagan Administration intervened in Lebanon in 1983,
one of its goals was shoring up the LAF so that it could stabilize the
country. Everyone else in Lebanon—and the Middle East—recognized that
the LAF had devolved into a Maronite militia and so they saw the U.S.
intervention as the (Christian) United States coming to aid the
(Christian) Maronite militia. That is why all of the other warring
groups in Lebanon immediately saw the American forces not as neutral
peacemakers, but as partisans—allies of the Maronites—and so started to
attack our forces. It led directly to the Beirut barracks blast and the
humiliating withdrawal of our troops.
There is the same danger in Iraq. If we treat the ISF as an
apolitical, national army committed to disinterested stability in Iraq,
and provide it with weapons and other military support to do so, we will
once again be seen as taking a side in a civil war—even if we are doing
so inadvertently, again. Everyone else, including our Sunni Arab
allies, will see us as siding with the Shia against the Sunnis in the
Iraqi civil war. That perspective will only be reinforced by the ongoing
nuclear talks with (Shia) Iran. It is why any American military
assistance to Iraq must be conditioned on concrete changes in Iraq’s
political structure to bring the Sunnis back in and limit the powers of
the (Shia) prime minister, coupled with a thorough depoliticization of
the ISF . That is the only way we may be able to convince the Sunnis that we have not simply taken the side of Maliki and the Iranians.
What happened to the ISF? Many have been
asking what happened to the Iraqi Security Forces that brought them from
the successes of 2007-2008 to the collapse of their units in northern
Iraq last week. Obviously, a definitive answer to that question will
only be provided by historians at some future date, but a number of
factors have been known about the ISF for some time and these
undoubtedly caused the collapse in part or whole.
First, it is important to recognize that the ISF built by the U.S.
military in 2006-2009 had only very modest military capabilities
(primarily in counterinsurgency/counterterrorism/population control
operations). Throughout the modern era, Arab militaries have never
achieved more than middling levels of military effectiveness and on most
occasions, their performances were dreadful. Iraq was no exception.
(Those looking for additional information on this may want to read the
chapter on modern Iraqi military history in my book,
Arabs at War.)
This was largely a product of factors inherent in Arab culture,
education and economics. With enormous exertions, a small number of Arab
militaries overcame these problems to perform at a mediocre level.
However, whenever Arab regimes politicized their armed forces to try to
prevent a military coup against themselves, the performance of their
armies dropped from bad to abysmal.
American military trainers and advisors were able to marginally
improve the military effectiveness of the ISF by introducing rigorous,
Western-style training programs and partnering closely with Iraqi forces
in ways that allowed U.S. personnel to get to know their Iraqi
counterparts. As a result of this familiarity, over the course of many
months, the Americans figured out who were the good Iraqi soldiers and
who were the bad, who was connected to the terrorists or militias, who
was connected to organized crime, who was smart and brave, and who was
lazy or cowardly. And the U.S. military then went about systematically
promoting the best Iraqis, and pushing out the bad ones.
The greatest impact of these American efforts with the ISF in
2006-2009 were to depoliticize it, both to modestly increase its combat
effectiveness and to make it professional, apolitical and therefore
accepted as a stabilizing force by all Iraqis. Again, this was largely
performed by promoting professional, patriotic Iraqi officers and
removing the sectarian chauvinists. The U.S. also pressed Baghdad to
accept more and more Sunni and Kurdish officers and enlisted personnel
into the ranks. As a result, the ISF became a far more integrated force
than it had been, led by a far more apolitical and nationalistic officer
corps than it had been before. Indeed, in 2008, when Prime Minister
Maliki sent heavily Sunni brigades from Anbar down to Basra to fight the
Shia militia, Jaysh al-Mahdi, the Shia of Basra welcomed the ISF
brigades and fought against the Shia militiamen.
Unfortunately, despite the boost it gave him, Prime Minister Maliki
saw this largely apolitical and professional military as a threat to
himself. He feared that it was overrun by Ba’thists (he sees far too
many Sunnis as closet Ba’thists), unwilling to follow his orders
(despite the fact that it had always done so), and looking to oust him
at the first excuse. So, beginning in 2009-2010, he began to remove the
capable, apolitical officers that the United States had painstakingly
put in place throughout the Iraqi command structure. Instead, he put in
men loyal to himself, often because they had been the ones passed over
or removed by the Americans. The result was a heavily politicized and
far less competent officer corps.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Maliki’s officers saw little need for the
rigorous training programs the Americans had put in place. They closed
many of the training facilities we built and allowed training to fall by
the wayside. Not surprisingly, when these formations got into action
again—both in some skirmishes with the Kurds and more bloody fights
against Sunni militants—they did very poorly, undercutting morale.
Finally, beginning in 2011 immediately after the departure of the
last American soldiers, Maliki began to use his new, politicized ISF to
go after his political rivals, many of them leading (moderate) Sunni
leaders. This was a critical element in his alienation of Iraq’s Sunni
community, and further demoralized the Sunni Arab, Kurdish, and other
minority personnel in the ISF. It also disappointed many of the Shia
soldiers and officers who preferred to be part of an apolitical,
national military and had never wanted to become part of “Maliki’s
militia.”
Not surprisingly, when this force came under tremendous stress, it
fractured. As noted above, it is now being rebuilt, but not as a
national army: as a Shia militia. And the U.S. should only be providing
it with aid if we are given the right and the ability to turn it back
into an apolitical, national army.
