Althouse: "Many questions will now be asked in Damascus and Baghdad

May 21, 2015

"Many questions will now be asked in Damascus and Baghdad — and above all in Washington..."

"... about how the militants have managed to score major advances in both Iraq and Syria this week despite all the efforts to stop them. IS was supposed to be on the defensive in Iraq, where the prime minister announced weeks ago the launching of a campaign to drive the militants out of Anbar province. Now he's lost its capital, Ramadi, just days before they took Palmyra in Syria. The western coalition's bombing campaign has clearly hurt IS where it could. But it could never compensate for ground forces which are not competent, equipped or motivated enough to stand firm and hit back. nly the Kurds in the north of both countries (most recently in north-eastern Syria) have proven able to do that."

From the BBC report "Islamic State seizes Syria's ancient Palmyra."

54 comments:

Anonymous said...: What are you talking about this for when we are busy fighting climate change??? Isis is JV.....; 5/21/15, 8:05 AM
Anonymous said...: President Barack Obama has called climate change a "serious threat" to America's national security and linked extreme weather to the rise of Boko Haram and the outbreak of war in Syria.

Mr Obama said rising sea levels could undermine the effectiveness of US forces, jeopardise its military bases around the world and cost hundreds of billions of dollars. He accused those who deny climate change exists of a "dereliction of duty".

(snip)

I understand climate change did not cause the conflicts we see around the world, yet what we also know is that severe drought helped to create the instability in Nigeria that was exploited by the terrorist group Boko Haram.

"It's now believed that drought and crop failures and high food prices helped fuel the early unrest in Syria, which descended into civil war in the heart of the Middle East."

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/05; 5/21/15, 8:08 AM
Jaq said...: Nobody in the Obama administration is even the tiniest bit worried about this.

They know that they have complete media superiority.

Obama was asked whether he might delay a pullout if it meant preventing outright genocide in Iraq.

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No, Obama said. “[If] that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now — where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife — which we haven’t done.” - Time Magazine.

So all is going according to plan, beyond some PR related air-strikes to salve consciences.; 5/21/15, 8:09 AM
Etienne said...: Interesting State Department briefing on the fall of Ramadi.

Background Briefing on Iraq

They say the car bombs took out whole city blocks. Decimating the leadership and their command centers. Thus, the soldiers had no choice but to retreat.

That's a big bomb. You can bet they are coming to America as well.; 5/21/15, 8:12 AM
Tank said...: The western coalition's bombing campaign has clearly hurt IS where it could. But it could never compensate for ground forces which are not competent, equipped or motivated enough to stand firm and hit back

Aren't these the "ground forces" we have been training and equipping for ten years at a cost of $1 Trillion Dollars? I want my money back !; 5/21/15, 8:16 AM
PB said...: What will Obama say when ISIS takes a town in the US? "Well, it's just Peoria. It's JV town."; 5/21/15, 8:20 AM
Peter said...: "Aren't these the "ground forces" we have been training and equipping for ten years at a cost of $1 Trillion Dollars?"

Those ground forces have been abandoning their American weapons as they retreat for years now.

It would be more efficient to cut out the middleman and just give the weapons to ISIS.; 5/21/15, 8:25 AM
MayBee said...: Obama may be able to keep the press from pushing him outside his bubble, but he can't make the real world actually look like the picture he paints.; 5/21/15, 8:33 AM
TreeJoe said...: The Kurds are the least supported, most attacked, most successful population in the middle east in recent times.

They deserve to take over Iraq simply because they are the only population who seem actually able to maintain and defend their people and borders.; 5/21/15, 8:34 AM
Sloanasaurus said...: Obama is leaving a lot of great stuff to his successor. A poor economy. Terrorist rule in the middle east. Destroyed relations with all of our prior traditional allies. A near nuclear Iran. An empty Treasury. Massive debt. Increased inequality. worse racial relations internally. What a great legacy.; 5/21/15, 8:35 AM
Known Unknown said...: It really all is Bush's fault.; 5/21/15, 8:40 AM
MayBee said...: I think we need to either announce we don't care and aren't going to do much about it, announce we care but we aren't going to do anything about it, or announce a strategy and act strongly against it.

Right now, we talk like we care and are doing something about it, but there is no strategy and so we aren't being effective. Which makes us look bad. It's the worst combination.; 5/21/15, 8:46 AM
Kyzer SoSay said...: Know what I'm starting to think it is? Kinda like Vietnam, these guys are forcing us to expend resources in certain areas that are not as strategically important, and then launching well-planned and coordinated offensives in places they really want control of, or at least want to inflict some hurtin' to.

Each time we grind them to a halt or repel them, we shout it from the rooftops, but to them it's no big deal. Then they hit the place they want, we either don't stop them or render assistance too late and ISIS gets a bit more of what they want.; 5/21/15, 9:05 AM
Scott M said...: I know people that have served with the Kurds and have immense respect for both the people and their ability to fight these fanatics.

1) Double, nay, triple our support for them.

2) Establish an American Foreign Legion and empty the prisons.; 5/21/15, 9:05 AM
TreeJoe said...: So wait, Al Qaeda was on the run and we assasinated OBL 4 years ago this month...

and since then the largest, most organized, most public, deadliest, most assertive, and most successful terroristic-islamocentric agency has emerged and taken over a swath of the middle east larger than the U.K.

They are resisting a vigorous U.S. air campaign, defeating the army we just invested a decade and a trillion dollars in, and publicly executing thousands of prisoners.

Meanwhile China and Russia are showing they are no longer intimidated by the U.S. / NATO militarily and a nuclear arms race is breaking out again.

I'm pretty sure on all fronts this the embodiment of a failed foreign policy. I don't think there's a better example of a failed foreign policy.; 5/21/15, 9:07 AM
Jaq said...: If we are not going to exert the will to win there, I don't want a single American pilot to risk his/(sure, why not?)her life there.

Hillary already gave shoulder mounted missiles to the "moderate rebels" in Syria that was used to shoot down a US Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan.

But these are not questions worthy of Hillary's time, nor do the American people have any right to know why the CIA is giving weapons to jihadis that are then used against the sons and (sure, why not?) daughters that we order into battle?

What Henry Ford did in 1940 is a much more critical issue!; 5/21/15, 9:15 AM
etbass said...: Wouldn't it be great if Saddam Hussein was still alive and in control in Iraq?; 5/21/15, 9:26 AM
gerry said...: But it could never compensate for ground forces which are not competent, equipped or motivated enough to stand firm and hit back.

What American blood won, Obama flushed down the drain to win points from a base that hates America. He could have maintained a defense force with deadly effectiveness, but withdrew, leaving a disastrous power vacuum behind.

Another. Obama. Progressive. Disaster.; 5/21/15, 9:29 AM
Sebastian said...: "Many questions will now be asked"

After the answers had been clear all along. Barry reaps what he sows.

The problem is that problems are portrayed as problems. They are not. They are desired outcomes. Features, not bugs. US loses, Barry wins.

JV over there is a distraction anyway. Let's focus on the stuff that matters: SSM, climate change, black lives, rape culture, nukes for Iran, Cuban cigars.; 5/21/15, 9:31 AM
deepelemblues said...: Had to laugh at all the commentary on "the limitations of American air power" coming out in allegedly hard-news stories the past week.

Sure, there are going to be limitations on what bombing accomplishes when you're the one putting those limitations on you.

The world would see just what the "limitations of American air power" are if the guy in charge of "American air power" would actually use it. Oooh, 19 airstrikes on Ramadi in the past 72 hours. How about 19 airstrikes on Ramadi in the last 19 minutes, every 19 minutes, for the last 2 weeks? The US is certainly capable of that. It just chooses not to do so.; 5/21/15, 9:34 AM
gerry said...: Wouldn't it be great if Saddam Hussein was still alive and in control in Iraq?

LBJ and John F. Kennedy (D) put Hussein into power.; 5/21/15, 9:36 AM
Jaq said...: Wouldn't it be great if Saddam Hussein was still alive and in control in Iraq?

And Assad in Syria and Khadaffy in Libya. You should ask Hillary about that.; 5/21/15, 9:52 AM
JackWayne said...: Why are you reading the atrocious BBC when Richard Fernandez is available?; 5/21/15, 9:55 AM
SteveR said...: In order for ISIS to not be advancing and taking territory, someone would have to be trying to stop them. Really trying.; 5/21/15, 10:07 AM
Brando said...: Think of Iraq as a hornets' nest, and ISIS as the hornets. We can either steer clear of the nest, figuring it's not worth our trouble to deal with it, or we can go all in with fire and spray and destroy the nest completely, hoping no new nests turn up.

But what we seem to be doing now is tossing rocks at the nest from what we think of as a safe distance, and wondering why that isn't enough to put an end to it. Piss or get off the pot.

I favor getting off the pot. We clearly don't have the stomach for imperialism. Maybe one of our neighbors can take care of the nest if it bothers them enough.; 5/21/15, 10:07 AM
Bryan C said...: "despite all the efforts to stop them"

Which efforts were those, exactly?

"Hey, guys? Maybe you should stop? Ok? Guys?"

In a few years President Clinton and Secretary of State Harf can announce their latest unilateral treaty strictly limiting the ISIS Caliphate to only short-range nuclear weapons and one one chemical warhead per missile. A brilliant diplomatic triumph marred only by the mass executions in Paris the next day.; 5/21/15, 10:14 AM
J. Farmer said...: Strange thing about the Shia-dominated Iraqi military. They would much rather be alive than die fighting for territory they have no real tribal connection to. It takes a lot more than training to create an effective, well functioning military.; 5/21/15, 10:36 AM
CWJ said...: Sloanasaurus and EMD,

You're both right. All current problems are Bush's fault. And if he/she has an "R" after his/her name, all problems inherited in 2017 will be Obama's successor's fault for not curing them immediately. Unless it can be positively spun, eight years in office without a trace will be Obama's legacy.; 5/21/15, 10:39 AM
J. Farmer said...: @deepelemblues:

"How about 19 airstrikes on Ramadi in the last 19 minutes, every 19 minutes, for the last 2 weeks?"

Ah, so we liberate Ramadi by completely destroying it. Brilliant. Why not just a nuclear strike in western Iraq? That would also certainly stop ISIS. So how many innocent Iraqi civilians should we be willing to kill to stop ISIS? 10,000? 100,000? 1,000,000?

@gerry:

"What American blood won, Obama flushed down the drain to win points from a base that hates America. He could have maintained a defense force with deadly effectiveness, but withdrew, leaving a disastrous power vacuum behind."

You don't know what the hell you are talking about. Most of the gains made against jihadi forces in western Iraq were due to the Anbar Awakening and the actions of local citizens, not US troops. Seeing that the US was totally incapable of defeating the Taliban, why do you believe it could have defeated an Iraqi guerilla insurgency? I know the 2008 talking point was that we had "won" Iraq, but it was always just that, a face-saving talking point so that the administration could negotiate a withdrawal of forces demanded by the Iraqi government and a majority of Iraqi citizens.; 5/21/15, 10:42 AM
CWJ said...: J. Farmer,

"I know the 2008 talking point was that we had "won" Iraq,"

It was also the 2010 talking point.; 5/21/15, 10:57 AM
chuck said...: The bombing campaign was never that serious. A serious campaign would have looked more like what preceded the Normandy invasion.; 5/21/15, 11:18 AM
damikesc said...: "It's now believed that drought and crop failures and high food prices helped fuel the early unrest in Syria, which descended into civil war in the heart of the Middle East."

I bet GMO foods, that Obama's supporters have fought and lied to African countries about, would have alleviated that.; 5/21/15, 11:25 AM
MAJMike said...: The real question is, "Should men be allowed to wear shorts in public?"; 5/21/15, 11:27 AM
mccullough said...: Maybe the moderate Muslims will stop them.; 5/21/15, 11:30 AM
Anonymous said...: Considering how this administration is dealing with Iran, how could anyone want Saddam still in power?

If anything, we'd be better off now if we'd taken out the Mullahs in Iran after we took care of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Instead, we left Iran intact and now Obama is going to let them have nuclear weapons. Leaving Saddam in power would mean he'd be getting nuclear weapons now as well.

Thank God we took him out.; 5/21/15, 11:35 AM
deepelemblues said...: @Farmer

Why would Ramadi need to be demolished? We do have those bombs and missiles that really do go right where we want them to go far more often than not. It's also not like ISIS and their slightly less anti-American opponents have left the city pristine.

Now an airstrike a minute for 2 weeks would be a little over 20,000, so yeah that was hyperbolic of me to say. But there are surely hundreds of fighting positions and thousands of ISIS targets overall in and around the city. A couple dozen airstrikes every 2 weeks - which is basically what the US has been doing since ISIS was blunted in Kobani - isn't going to get the job done in Ramadi or anywhere else and is far below what the US is capable of.; 5/21/15, 11:40 AM
buwaya said...: "Most of the gains made against jihadi forces in western Iraq were due to the Anbar Awakening and the actions of local citizens, not US troops. "

Well, yes, partly. But that leaves out the moral factors (in the French sense, of "the moral is to the material as ten is to one", which is much broader than the English morals (ethics) or morale) of

-Being able to call in US troops as needed, if pressed. They were not alone before their enemies.
- that of having the US on the spot to represent their interests vs the Shiite central government, the US serving as a court of appeals,
- and of an assurance of fair dealing in matters of pay, discipline, armaments and leadership.

It is in these "soft" areas one finds the key to the success of the old European colonial armies, and to a great extent their empires. Its why people like Clive, Coote, Mangin, Glubb succeeded. What, you don't know these people ? History is very badly taught, and misses the most important things.; 5/21/15, 11:41 AM
Paul said...: And the BIG question is.... Just which side is the 'JV' team.

I suspect it's ours.; 5/21/15, 11:51 AM
Anonymous said...: "....You don't know what the hell you are talking about. Most of the gains made against jihadi forces in western Iraq were due to the Anbar Awakening and the actions of local citizens, not US troops.."

On the ground were you?

All of the gains were made by US troops. Holding and maintaining those gains was by the Iraqis (Sunni) This was done with the assurance of US support.; 5/21/15, 11:56 AM
gerry said...: A few thousand additional combat troops, backed by helicopters, armored vehicles and forward air controllers able to embed with Iraqi units at the battalion level, as well as additional Special Forces troops able to move about the countryside, would certainly prevent further gains. They could almost certainly regain Ramadi and other recently lost areas of Anbar, in cooperation with local tribes. They might be able to do more.

...from that great right-wing co-conspiring Washington Post (May 18, 2015).

This describes what should have been done years ago, although it is a suggestion for action now. But nothing effective will be done. When one wants defeat as a result, Obama's policies are the perfect plan.; 5/21/15, 12:03 PM
Scott said...: deepelemblues said...

@Farmer

Why would Ramadi need to be demolished? We do have those bombs and missiles that really do go right where we want them to go far more often than not. It's also not like ISIS and their slightly less anti-American opponents have left the city pristine.

Now an airstrike a minute for 2 weeks would be a little over 20,000, so yeah that was hyperbolic of me to say. But there are surely hundreds of fighting positions and thousands of ISIS targets overall in and around the city. A couple dozen airstrikes every 2 weeks - which is basically what the US has been doing since ISIS was blunted in Kobani - isn't going to get the job done in Ramadi or anywhere else and is far below what the US is capable of.

Exactly this. When I was stationed in Korea in the mid 1990s my squadron's criteria for an 8-12 hour shift was a launch 12-pit 12-turn 8. In layman's terms, that means launch 12 fully loaded F-16s with bombs and missiles, once they fire them off, you have a hour and a half from the time they land until you send 12 more up again fully loaded for bear (integrated combat turn) and once THOSE land is to generate 8 more combat capable aircraft on your shift. That's war-fighting tempo and we could do that every day (plus we had incentive since the North Koreans had an armored division parked 90 some miles from my dorm room).

Leaving targets in and around Ramadi inside, we could easily cut it off from Iraq by, as the O/C said, pulling a Normandy and interdicting the roads in. In short, if you drive on that road, you WILL die.

Sadly, this would take some serious commitment from the leadership, which is lacking. Just because we are not currently doing it does not mean that we cannot do it.; 5/21/15, 12:04 PM
grackle said...: Aren't these the "ground forces" we have been training and equipping for ten years at a cost of $1 Trillion Dollars? I want my money back !

The "ground forces" have no military leaders who want to fight. If your leaders flee, your "ground forces" will also flee. Getting caught by ISIS fighters with US-supplied weapons and equipment would be a death sentence, which explains all the equipment being abandoned to ISIS. The "Trillion Dollars," like most of our foreign aid, was money down the universal rat hole of corruption that makes up most of the Islamic nations.

Just a thought: If you really want a war fought it's difficult to make someone else fight it for you. Especially if the folks you want to fight it see the US abandoning its allies in the Middle East. These people, the "ground forces," are not stupid. They can see, like we all can, that Obama is not serious about stopping ISIS, or Iran, or Assad. They don't want to end up in a mass grave somewhere in the desert after the Caliphate takes over.

A question: Are the Muslim "ground forces" more sympathetic to the US or to the fellow Muslims represented by ISIS? What, exactly, is their motivation to kill fellow Muslims?

And we haven't trained or equipped the only significant faction(the Kurds) in the region who actually want to fight ISIS. And all they want is weapons – they already know how to fight.

You may not like war but war likes you.; 5/21/15, 12:08 PM
Jaq said...: Prosperity is boring. Fighting is fun. Racial privilege is the motivation behind most wars. Islam explicitly promises absolute privilege to its adherents Montreal Jihadis head off to fight with ISIS.

I think the Canadians should have just quietly dusted them with RFIDs and let the useless goat fuckers go.; 5/21/15, 12:22 PM
Sammy Finkelman said...: The simple answers are:

In Iraq, ISIS used 30 or so car bombs, some of the 1995 Oklahoma bombing size, after which ISIS soldiers poured in and disorganized the Iraqi forces.

But more probably it wasn't just that, but Iran betrayed them because they don't want any forces they do not control battling ISIS. Iranian controlled officers may have gven orders to retreat.

The retreat was ordered on the grounds that if captured, soldiers would be executed.

2) In Syria, Iran has cut back on support, possibly because Iran is actually running out of money, or possibly because Syria has resisted Iran's strategy of attacking Israel. There seem to be some divisions about that in Damascus.

Apparently it strikes some people in Syria's government as exceedlingly foolish, inasmuch as Israel's former foreign minister has warned that if Syria starts something, Israel will not refrain from going all the way to Damascus, and this probably had the backing of Netanyahu as well.

(Iran may be doing this for its own reasons, but it might be being sold to Damascus as something that will gain a ceasefire where the U.S. would have to guarantee his regime.)

But as I said, anyway, for whatever the reason, Iran is cutting back on support of Syria, according to a published Israeli report. We seem to be seeing the results, and it's best understood as being because Bashar Assad is not enough of a puppet for Iran, so they are showing him how much he needs them.; 5/21/15, 1:35 PM
Sammy Finkelman said...: Now the Pentagon is talking about training Iraqi "Special forces"

Sort of like Gurkas I guess.

Problem" That takes time. AAnd you need boots on the ground for that too. Military professionakls apparently think that American spotters would help a lot for bombing when forces are in close contact.

In principle, the ground troops do not have to be American citizensz, of course. It'ss not like U.S. people have special abilities.; 5/21/15, 1:39 PM
SomeoneHasToSayIt said...: My favorite memories about the Obama years will be:

1. All the racial healing

2. The Middle East got decidedly better; 5/21/15, 2:50 PM
Clyde said...: You don't win wars with half-measures. Obama has been trying to fight ISIS on the cheap, with a strategy of using American air power to augment allied local forces on the ground. This has obviously not been a winning strategy, as the locals haven't been up to the task. Sadly, even if we were fighting to win and sending in American "boots on the ground," we'd just end up pissing away the victory afterwards, as we have in Iraq and are now doing in Afghanistan. The problem isn't with the military, it's with the civilian leadership and the ROE it promulgates. If you want to win a war, you have to kill the bad guys until they know they are defeated and are willing to change their evil ways. This worked admirably with Germany and Japan in World War II. "Rubble don't make trouble."; 5/21/15, 4:12 PM
Firehand said...: At this point, I think Obama does not actually WANT to 'degrade and destroy' ISIL. If he did, the Air Force and Navy are quite capable of blowing the crap out of lots of their supply and weapons structure, and troop concentrations. But they're not being allowed to because of the same kind of idiot-level rules of engagement that were so ruinous in both Iraq and Afghanistan('more American casualties than in Bushs' whole two terms', anyone?).

And the Kurds, barring a miracle, won't get the support they need because they might endanger The Lightbringers' 'political solution'. Whatever the hell it actually is.; 5/21/15, 5:38 PM
Drago said...: Clyde: "Obama has been trying to fight ISIS on the cheap, with a strategy of using American air power to augment allied local forces on the ground. This has obviously not been a winning strategy, as the locals haven't been up to the task"

Obama has been doing the absolute minimum so he can pretend he is fighting ISIS.

This is a winning strategy....if your purpose is seeing ISIS win.

After all, the most beautiful sound in the world is the call to prayer.

Particularly for those on their knees waiting to have their heads sawed off.

...but in a good way.; 5/21/15, 6:32 PM
Michael K said...: "The Kurds are the least supported, most attacked, most successful population in the middle east in recent times."

The Obama black thumb ?; 5/21/15, 6:52 PM
Michael K said...: " So how many innocent Iraqi civilians should we be willing to kill to stop ISIS? "

Much better to let ISIS kill them,eh farmer ?; 5/21/15, 6:56 PM
Michael K said...: " Obama has been trying to fight ISIS on the cheap, with a strategy of using American air power to augment allied local forces on the ground. "

Are you sure ? There is a serious school of thought that he does not want to do more than atmospherics to keep the Democrats on board. They don't really want to win anything.

Look at farmer's comments if you doubt that.; 5/21/15, 7:03 PM
Big Mike said...: Miss him yet?; 5/21/15, 8:29 PM
Anonymous said...: What I find strange is the fact that after a conquest ISIS can just hold a big military parade, sitting ducks for airstrikes.
It is as if Totus and consorts don't want to hurt them.; 5/22/15, 5:12 AM