Gopal Ratnam
By Gopal Ratnam
The difficult and dangerous task of retraining Iraqi security forces to take on the IS militants who have made impressive gains in the north and west of Iraq will require large numbers of trainers from the US and Nato nations, according to a person familiar with joint assessments by the American-led coalition and the Iraqi government.
The expanded retraining effort being proposed by the US may require as many as 1,000 foreign trainers from the US, Britain, France, Germany and Australia to restore the beleaguered Iraqi security forces to a battle-ready state led by American advisers, said the person who spoke on the condition of anonymity because no decisions have been made. The US already has about 1,500 advisers in the country, and Western European allies have signalled their ability to send hundreds of trainers each, the person said.
While Britain and France are participating in air strikes against the IS and Germany is supporting Kurdish rebels in Iraq, getting those countries’ parliaments to approve sending ground troops into a war zone to train Iraqi forces is likely to be enormously complicated politically given the war fatigue in Washington and other Western capitals.
Alongside the significantly expanded training mission, the US-led coalition also wants to create an Iraqi national guard force of about two to three brigades or as many as 15,000 troops drawn from Sunni tribes in Anbar province. Those militiamen reporting to provincial governors would be charged with keeping the IS out of the Sunni heartland. Many of those tribesmen and their leaders participated in a 2006 uprising called the Anbar Awakening that helped the US defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq, only to turn on the government of then Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, who refused to pay the fighters or fold them into the standing Iraqi military after the violence subsided.
The US has proposed that the guard units be recruited, trained, and paid by Iraq’s Defence Ministry, as opposed to how it was done during the 2006 uprising, when the US recruited the tribes and had Baghdad pay for them, the person familiar with the discussion said.
The US still is in the early stages of assembling an effective coalition to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the IS, as US President Barack Obama has described the mission. But getting countries to sign up while questions about the future of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad remain unanswered is at the heart of the Obama administration’s challenge. Many Sunni Arab nations and Nato countries want to see Assad go, while Obama has declined to get the US involved in what he sees as an intractable civil war in Syria.
The one issue on which many countries agree is the need for Iraq’s military -- gutted as a result of Maliki removing talented Sunni officers and replacing them with Shia loyalists -- must be reconstituted to fight the IS. Western officials, particularly those in the US, were stunned by how rapidly the Iraqi Army collapsed in the early stages of the IS’s assault, fleeing by the tens of thousands and leaving behind large quantities of American-provided weaponry.
The key question of how the region’s Sunni Arab countries will contribute to retraining Iraqi security forces is part of the intense discussions between the White House and the government of new Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi. Both sides are trying to strike a balance between inviting such involvement and angering Iran, the Shia power whose support is critical to Abadi’s tenure.
The US is hoping that many Nato members will readily consent to sending their troops to train Iraqi forces, particularly after troubling revelations that citizens from Western Europe and Australia are both victims of the IS and participants alongside the militant group. The British Parliament in September overwhelmingly approved air strikes against the IS in Iraq after the militant group posted a YouTube video of the beheading of captured British aid worker David Haines.
Arab countries have been reluctant to wholeheartedly support the US strategy because it’s still unclear how the Obama administration hopes to tackle the IS without addressing the group’s presence in Syria, which would require the US to answer the question of what happens to Assad. Some US officials are beginning to see Assad as a vital, de facto ally in the fight against the IS.
Defence officials from the US and some European countries have said that without an effective ground force to supplement air strikes -- 487 to date -- the IS’s advance cannot be halted. In September, Gen Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said nearly half the Iraqi military, or 24 out of its 50 brigades, were incapable of fighting the IS.
In seeking contributions, the US has listed a broad set of ways countries can support the fight against the IS, ranging from participating in military action to something as prosaic as “exposing IS’ true nature,” using an acronym sometimes used to refer to the militant group. Using such a wide umbrella, the US now counts more than 60 countries in the coalition.
Getting Turkey to turn its military might against the IS has been the toughest challenge for the US because Ankara is trying to balance conflicting goals -- seeing Syria’s Assad gone while not yielding ground to Kurdish enclaves where rebels who have been battling Turkey for decades are now facing the wrath of the IS. Ankara’s refusal to come to the aid of Kobane -- a Kurdish enclave -- has inflamed Kurds in Turkey, leading to a Turkish air strike in the southeast of the country that shattered a two-year-long cease-fire between the two sides.
Turkey has said it won’t go after the IS unless the US-led coalition contains Assad by creating a no-fly zone and a buffer region along the Syria-Turkey border to shelter refugees.
But the Obama administration has resisted the idea, fearing that such a move would draw the US deeper into the three-year-long Syrian civil war that has failed to dislodge Assad. Dempsey, the top US military official, in 2013 told Congress that setting up a no-fly zone may cost as much as $1bn a month and put American pilots at risk of Syrian anti-aircraft fire.
The differences between the US and Turkey flared into public view this week when top US officials, including National Security Adviser Susan Rice, said that Turkey had agreed to allow its bases to be used against the IS, only to have Turkey quickly say that no deal had been reached.
Still, the US and Turkey share the same goals in the fight against the IS, the person familiar with discussions said.
While Turkey is not looking to militarily dislodge Assad, it is keen to set up an “exclusion zone” that will serve a dual purpose -- stop both Assad and the IS from attacking within that region -- the person said. As for Washington’s opposition to setting up such a zone, the person said, the US may have to rethink its position “because the very best strategies constantly adapt” to changes on the ground. WP-BLOOMBERG
By Gopal Ratnam
The difficult and dangerous task of retraining Iraqi security forces to take on the IS militants who have made impressive gains in the north and west of Iraq will require large numbers of trainers from the US and Nato nations, according to a person familiar with joint assessments by the American-led coalition and the Iraqi government.
The expanded retraining effort being proposed by the US may require as many as 1,000 foreign trainers from the US, Britain, France, Germany and Australia to restore the beleaguered Iraqi security forces to a battle-ready state led by American advisers, said the person who spoke on the condition of anonymity because no decisions have been made. The US already has about 1,500 advisers in the country, and Western European allies have signalled their ability to send hundreds of trainers each, the person said.
While Britain and France are participating in air strikes against the IS and Germany is supporting Kurdish rebels in Iraq, getting those countries’ parliaments to approve sending ground troops into a war zone to train Iraqi forces is likely to be enormously complicated politically given the war fatigue in Washington and other Western capitals.
Alongside the significantly expanded training mission, the US-led coalition also wants to create an Iraqi national guard force of about two to three brigades or as many as 15,000 troops drawn from Sunni tribes in Anbar province. Those militiamen reporting to provincial governors would be charged with keeping the IS out of the Sunni heartland. Many of those tribesmen and their leaders participated in a 2006 uprising called the Anbar Awakening that helped the US defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq, only to turn on the government of then Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, who refused to pay the fighters or fold them into the standing Iraqi military after the violence subsided.
The US has proposed that the guard units be recruited, trained, and paid by Iraq’s Defence Ministry, as opposed to how it was done during the 2006 uprising, when the US recruited the tribes and had Baghdad pay for them, the person familiar with the discussion said.
The US still is in the early stages of assembling an effective coalition to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the IS, as US President Barack Obama has described the mission. But getting countries to sign up while questions about the future of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad remain unanswered is at the heart of the Obama administration’s challenge. Many Sunni Arab nations and Nato countries want to see Assad go, while Obama has declined to get the US involved in what he sees as an intractable civil war in Syria.
The one issue on which many countries agree is the need for Iraq’s military -- gutted as a result of Maliki removing talented Sunni officers and replacing them with Shia loyalists -- must be reconstituted to fight the IS. Western officials, particularly those in the US, were stunned by how rapidly the Iraqi Army collapsed in the early stages of the IS’s assault, fleeing by the tens of thousands and leaving behind large quantities of American-provided weaponry.
The key question of how the region’s Sunni Arab countries will contribute to retraining Iraqi security forces is part of the intense discussions between the White House and the government of new Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi. Both sides are trying to strike a balance between inviting such involvement and angering Iran, the Shia power whose support is critical to Abadi’s tenure.
The US is hoping that many Nato members will readily consent to sending their troops to train Iraqi forces, particularly after troubling revelations that citizens from Western Europe and Australia are both victims of the IS and participants alongside the militant group. The British Parliament in September overwhelmingly approved air strikes against the IS in Iraq after the militant group posted a YouTube video of the beheading of captured British aid worker David Haines.
Arab countries have been reluctant to wholeheartedly support the US strategy because it’s still unclear how the Obama administration hopes to tackle the IS without addressing the group’s presence in Syria, which would require the US to answer the question of what happens to Assad. Some US officials are beginning to see Assad as a vital, de facto ally in the fight against the IS.
Defence officials from the US and some European countries have said that without an effective ground force to supplement air strikes -- 487 to date -- the IS’s advance cannot be halted. In September, Gen Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said nearly half the Iraqi military, or 24 out of its 50 brigades, were incapable of fighting the IS.
In seeking contributions, the US has listed a broad set of ways countries can support the fight against the IS, ranging from participating in military action to something as prosaic as “exposing IS’ true nature,” using an acronym sometimes used to refer to the militant group. Using such a wide umbrella, the US now counts more than 60 countries in the coalition.
Getting Turkey to turn its military might against the IS has been the toughest challenge for the US because Ankara is trying to balance conflicting goals -- seeing Syria’s Assad gone while not yielding ground to Kurdish enclaves where rebels who have been battling Turkey for decades are now facing the wrath of the IS. Ankara’s refusal to come to the aid of Kobane -- a Kurdish enclave -- has inflamed Kurds in Turkey, leading to a Turkish air strike in the southeast of the country that shattered a two-year-long cease-fire between the two sides.
Turkey has said it won’t go after the IS unless the US-led coalition contains Assad by creating a no-fly zone and a buffer region along the Syria-Turkey border to shelter refugees.
But the Obama administration has resisted the idea, fearing that such a move would draw the US deeper into the three-year-long Syrian civil war that has failed to dislodge Assad. Dempsey, the top US military official, in 2013 told Congress that setting up a no-fly zone may cost as much as $1bn a month and put American pilots at risk of Syrian anti-aircraft fire.
The differences between the US and Turkey flared into public view this week when top US officials, including National Security Adviser Susan Rice, said that Turkey had agreed to allow its bases to be used against the IS, only to have Turkey quickly say that no deal had been reached.
Still, the US and Turkey share the same goals in the fight against the IS, the person familiar with discussions said.
While Turkey is not looking to militarily dislodge Assad, it is keen to set up an “exclusion zone” that will serve a dual purpose -- stop both Assad and the IS from attacking within that region -- the person said. As for Washington’s opposition to setting up such a zone, the person said, the US may have to rethink its position “because the very best strategies constantly adapt” to changes on the ground. WP-BLOOMBERG
