Faced with fierce resistance from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, [ISIS], Iraq’s army retreated from closely guarded territory near Mosul, once Iraq’s oil-rich second largest city. Promising to retake Mosul in 2016, 63-year-old Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, couldn’t explain the current retreat, other than saying the army was regrouping. With Mosul densely fortified by ISIS fighters, it’s going to take more than the Iraqi military to succeed in retaking Mosul. “The Iraq Army commenced an assault on ISIS strongholds around Mosul, but when ISIS fired back, the Iraqi Army ran away and the assaults ended,” said an unnamed Iraq security official. Meeting with al-Abadi today in Baghdad. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry vowed to “turn up the pressure” on ISIS, without announcing anything specific. Since pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq Dec. 15, 2011, ISIS ran wild.
President Barack Obama and Kerry are late to the party of ridding Iraq and Syria of ISIS, now so dug into Iraq and Syria’s populations, rooting them out will cost unknown numbers of civilian casualties. Obama claims his decision to pull out of Iraq was a prior agreement by former President George W. Bush. White House officials claimed former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki refused to give the U.S. military an immunity agreement for continued U.S. troop presence. Whatever the reasons for the Dec. 15, 2011 pullout, ISIS ran wild in 2014, seizing some 30% of Iraq and Syria. Obama and Kerry have made the situation worse supporting the Saudi and Turkish-backed insurgency against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Obama’s support of the Brig. Gen. Salim Idris’s Free Syrian Army, supplying arms and cash to so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels.
Collapse of the Free Syrian Army handed ISIS untold numbers of U.S. arms, tanks, armored personnel carriers, including steel-reinforced Humvees. While never acknowledging the fiasco essentially arming ISIS, Obama continues to rubber stamp the Saudi and Turkish policy of toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, despite driving U.S.-Russian relations to Cold War lows. Obama and Kerry have stubbornly backed the Saudi-funded proxy war against al-Assad, making U.N. Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura’s Geneva peace talks impossible. When 54-year-old Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir insists there can be no peace unless al-Assad leaves Damacus, it doesn’t leave de Mistura much wiggle room. Kerry hasn’t helped matters backing the Saudis at the expense of U.S.-Russian relations. Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn’t wavered one bit in his support of al-Assad.
Operating on a shaky Feb. 27 ceasefire, Saudi rebel groups, led by Jaysh al-Islam, weren’t happy when its founder 44-year-old Sheikh Zahran Alloush was killed by a Russian air strike Dec. 25, 2015. While his brother Mohammed took over, Russian air strikes nearly wiped out the Saudi-funded rebel groups before reluctantly agreeing to the Feb. 27 ceasefire. Obama and Kerry haven’t helped U.N. Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura’s Geneva peace talks backing the Saudi proxy war to topple al-Assad. Withdrawing Russian forces March 15, Obama and Kerry hoped Putin changed his mind backing al-Assad. Unlike Obama and Kerry, Putin has been remarkably consistent backing al-Assad’s Shiite government. Meeting with Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov March 24 at the Kremlin, Kerry failed to convince Putin to toss his long-time ally al-Assad under the bus.
Responding the April 3 Panama Papers scandal involving offshore tax havens and money laundering, Putin blamed the U.S. for the smear, stating it was because of his success in reinforcing the legitimate sovereignty of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Why Obama and Kerry thought Putin changed his mind on al-Assad is anyone’s guess. “In the coming weeks and months, the coalition will worke with Iraq to turn up the pressure even further. We will continue targeting and taking out [ISIS’s] leaders, and we will train local forces to take and hold more ground,” said Kerry, addressing recent reports that the Iraqi Army cut-and-ran around Mosul. Kerry needs to address Turkey’s air strikes against the U.S.-backed Kurdish YPG forces, the best hope in battling ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan equates the YPG with the Kurdish PKK, considered a terror group by Ankara.
Kerry must do more than bring empty promises to Baghdad, whose beleaguered military needs all the help its can get. Unwilling to confront Turkey, the White House employs a “circular firing squad” policy, backing Saudi Arabia’s proxy war against al-Assad, and, doing nothing to stop Turkey’s attacks against the Kurds. Without confronting Ankara and Riyadh, it’s unrealistic to think de Mistura’s Geneva peace efforts can accomplish anything. Obama’s Syrian policy undermines any coherent attempt to defeat ISIS. Nether Turkey nor Saudi Arabia are invested in evicting ISIS from Iraq and Syria. Allowing the Turks to attack the Kurds runs counter to Obama’s stated goal of defeating ISIS. Instead of pandering to the Saudis and Turks, the White House needs align U.S. foreign policy with Putin, letting al-Assad stay put while doubling down on eliminating ISIS.
