Drawing criticism from Iraqi officials, 60-year-old Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said the Iraqi military has lost their will to fight, allowing the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria to take Ramadi, the capital of Sunni-rich Anbar Province. Abandoning their weapons to ISIS in Ramadi, just as they’ve done in other parts of Iraq and Syria, ISIS proved to be a superior fighting force. “What apparently happened was that the Iraq force showed no will to fight. They were not outnumbered, and they vastly outnumbered the opposing force, and they failed to fight and withdrew from the site,” said Carter. Carter’s comment speaks volumes of what the Obama administration intends to do between now and the day President Barack Obama leaves office: No combat forces in Iraq. While Capitol Hill and a sizable field of GOP candidates debate the issue, Obama has no intent of starting up a new Iraq War.
Carter’s comments are the strongest yet from the White House that Obama has no intent to putting ground troops back in Iraq. Whatever’s gone wrong with Iraqi military, Obama refuses any longer to have the U.S. do the heavy lifting. “That says to me, and I think to most of us, that we have an issue with the will of the Iraqis to fight ISIL, and defend themselves,” said Carter, simplifying the talking points, to combat any attempt by the GOP on Capitol Hill to push for more U.S. ground troops in Iraq. Carter says nothing about how the Iraqi military for years under former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was infiltrated by Sunni militants with little sympathy for the Shiite-controlled Baghdad government. Whether admitted to or not, Iraqis don’t want to be controlled by Shiites with loyalty to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, something expected under Haider al-Abadi’s government.
White House and State Department officials led by Secretary of State John Kerry don’t want to admit that Iraq’s a lost cause, regardless of the nearly 5,000 U.S. troops killed and price tag of over $1 trillion. Many in Iraq’s military actually cheer on ISIS, precisely because they don’t want to be ruled by Shiites. However the former Bush administration demonized the late Saddam Hussein, he was Sunni Baathist who ruled Iraq with an Iron fist for over 30 years. Carter’s sort of correct that Iraq’s military lost their will to fight but not for the reason’s given. Infiltrated by Sunni militants, the Iraq military wants no part of today’s Iraq, run by Shiites and with loyalty to Iran’s Ayatollah. White House officials haven’t admitted that the Iraq War pushed the government closer to Iran, a bitter enemy of the U.S. Both al-Maliki and al-Haider sit dangerously on the Ayatollah’s fence.
White House officials starting with Obama should level with the public that there’s nothing the U.S. military can do to stop the sectarian war started when former President George W. Bush toppled Saddam April 10, 2003. Without Saddam’s repressive Baathist rule, the restive Shiite population led by such characters in the early days of the Iraq War as Muqtada al-Sadr, whose 10,000-strong volunteer al-Mahdi army routinely massacred U.S. troops. Obama likes to blame the mess in Baghdad of the poor representation of Sunnis in Iraq’s Shiite governments since the fall of Saddam. Truth be told, the Sunni minority in Iraq shows more loyalty to ISIS than Iraq’s Shiite government. It’s no accident that Saddam’s 72-year-old, red-haired vice chair of the Islamic Command Council Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri and current head of Iraq’s Baath Party leads ISIS’s military advance toward Baghdad.
Al-Douri and his former Republican guard followers want to conquer Baghdad and purge the city of any U.S. influence. Viewing Iraq’s Shiite government as a U.S. puppet regime, al-Douri wants to return Iraq to Saddam’s former greatness. Massacring hundreds of civilians in the ancient city of Palmyra, al-Douri sends a message to any ISIS foe: Saddam’s former generals won’t stop until reaching Baghdad. “The Observatory has confirmed that the Islamic State has executed 67 civilians, including 14 children and women in Sukhnah, Al-Aminyah, near Palmyra. Reports by the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights have tried but failed to get the U.S. and Western powers to take a more active role in Iraq’s sectarian war. GOP presidential hopeful Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) ironically agrees with Obama on the issue of sending more ground troops to Iraq: No way that he’d do it.
White House officials don’t have to impugn the integrity of Iraq’s beleaguered military, only recognize it’s been infiltrated by Sunnis more loyal to ISIS than the current Shiite Baghdad government. “Air strikes are effective but neither they, nor really anything we do, can substitute for the Iraqi forces’ will to fight,” insisted Carter, signaling that, no matter what the pressure from the GOP, there will be no more combat troops dispatched to Iraq. White House officials must level with the American people that Iraq’s military can’t win the fight against ISIS because many back a return to Baathist rule in Iraq. Some Iraqi lawmakers accept Capitol Hill hawks, like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, blaming Obama for ending the war prematurely. No one saw al-Maliki’s contempt for the U.S. military more than Obama, prompting the Dec. 15, 2011 pullout.
