Guerrillamerica – by Samuel Culper
Well, most of us knew it was only a matter of time. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), an al-Qaida affiliate, made international headlines this week as they took over Mosul and now threaten Baghdad. ISIS, formerly Islamic State of Iraq, was started by a guy named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (we waxed him during my first tour in 2006) under the name Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad. Sometime around 2004 or 2005, Zarqawi officially picked up the mantle of al-Qaida and later started the Islamic State of Iraq as an umbrella for several groups, each of which pushed to topple the US-backed Iraqi government, and eventually rid the State of Iraq of all Shia Muslims. That’s important to understand: with al-Qaida support, these groups formed a Sunni coalition to fight and expel Shias from Iraq.
During the days of Saddam Hussein, the Sunni minority oppressed the Shia majority in Iraq. But since the rise of Shia politics in democratic elections, that power balance has been inverted. And with that rise of Shia power comes Iranian influence to maintain that new power in the region. It’s been said that the major support of Sunnis in Iraq comes from their Saudi neighbors, and the major support of Shias in Iraq comes from their Iranian neighbors. Boiled down, Iraq is a battlefield for the sectarian supremacy of the Middle East. For the record, I hope they both lose. (Lebanon was primarily a Christian nation until their civil war in the 70s and 80s, during which time the country went to Shi’ite.)
Okay, so as if the Sunni insurgents weren’t bad enough, Iranian proxy groups really scare me. Groups like Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH) and Khataib Hezbollah are no nonsense killing machines. They make Jaysh al-Mahdi look like the girl scouts. The mastermind behind Iranian proxies is a dude named Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian IRGC-Quds Force who has his fingerprints all over the Middle East. These guys are very capable and well-funded adversaries. Made worse, many of these guys we detained several years ago have now been released. I was on a bus at Fort Lewis, recently back from an Iraq deployment, when I heard the news that Layth al-Khazali, detained leader of AAH, had been released by the Government of Iraq as part of a reconciliation plan. Another guy, Mahmud Daqduq was released in 2012. Layth al-Khazali went back to being a Shia terrorist (of course), and I can only imagine that Daqduq went back to being a terrorist as well. (That’s the problem with adversaries motivated by ideology. Also consider that the Khazali brothers broke off from Jaysh al-Mahdi because they weren’t killing enough Americans or Sunnis.)
So we have the capable leadership of these Shia groups back on the battlefield. And just a few days ago, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani (correction: of Iraq, not Iran) issued a fatwa calling for “all able-bodied” Shias in the region to go defend their brothers in Iraq from the Sunni Horde currently taking over large swaths of the nation (and, remember, who seek to rid Iraq of all Shias).
I’m going to be very interested to see what these Iranian proxy groups do in response to the the Sunni Horde’s ‘March on Baghdad’ (which I think is an inaccurate depiction but is being portrayed by the media, none the less), a city with a large Shia population. Baghdad is an interesting city. Just like most cities with lots of racial, ethnic or religious violence, sectarian lines are very well drawn. There are lots of homogenous districts and little unity with opposing sects. At any rate, because of the Shia majority and the seat of the Iraqi government, I don’t think Baghdad is in imminent danger of being overrun by al-Qaida, although they’ll likely have a real mess on their hands. This could be the start of the civil war many Iraq veterans have been predicting since the middle of their first tours (although one could make the argument that there’s been a sectarian civil war since the fall of Saddam).
Alright, so here’s why this clash of civilizations is going to matter to America. For starters, Iraq’s oil is important, however, the US only receives about 3% of its oil imports from Iraq. On the other hand, oil revenue constitutes around 95% of Iraqi budget funding, and Iraq needs those oil exports to pay for just about everything. Below is a map roughly illustrating ISIS-held territory, along with oil field locations. [ The latest news is that the Kurds (I love the Peshmerga; they’re the Three Percenters of Kurdistan) took over the city of Kirkuk and the oil fields outside of Kurdistan in northeast Iraq. Kurdistan is so awesome that it’s the only place in Iraq where women wear blue jeans and you can buy alcohol from a corner liquor store.] So if ISIS truly wanted to create an Islamic State of Iraq, they would seize the oil fields and institute their own shadow government until they gain enough legitimacy (if that could ever happen) that they become the government de jure.
But the reason why Iraq really matters is that America faces a no-win situation right now and five or ten years from now. Immediately, we’re helpless to stem the hemorrhaging Sunni-Shia violence. There’s no good solution. On one hand, Maliki has completely ignored and mistreated the Sunnis of Iraq, which led to ISIS’ ability to take Mosul with relative ease. On the other hand, here’s a resurgence of the same Sunni insurgents that moderate, nationalist Iraqis like the Sahawa Movement and the Sons of Iraq fought so hard to defeat.
And if the civil war in Syria is any yardstick, an Iraqi civil war could be much, much worse due to its geographic proximity to the sectarian heavyweights of Saudi Arabia (Sunni) and Iran (Shia), the decade of violence including assassinations and mosque bombings (what seems to be the Islamist raison d’etre), and the capable and funded Sunni and Shia terrorist leadership still on the battlefield. So if we do nothing, ISIS likely still exists in a handful of years, and their territory becomes another Afghanistan-esque training base from which al-Qaida can launch attacks against European infidels (or American).
But if we intervene (as Charles Krauthammer said, cruise missiles make small presidents feel big), action is likely to be taken without the approval of Congress, we’re still meddling in Middle East affairs, and cruise missiles and drone strikes don’t win complex conflicts (and there’s some data to suggest they make them worse). Although cruise missiles will give the appearance of American action in Iraq, and we may take out some leaders and we may give the news cameras a show, it won’t be significant enough to make any appreciable difference in the long run.
So where does that leave Iraq? If there was just one lynchpin, I’d say its the interests and goals of Iran. Iran has influence in Iraq, and they’d like to hold the ears, if not the minds of Iraqi government leaders. Most Likely Course of Action is that Iran defends Iranian-Shia interests in Iraq, and uses their proxy warriors to continue the civil war. Most Dangerous Course of Action is that Khameini starts feeling a little froggy and decides to invade and take back Basra, scoring a huge win for Iranian nationalism (Basra was the site of numerous rebellions against Saddam, and was a key battleground in the Iraq-Iran War of the 1980s), and a large boost in oil production and exports. And at this juncture, what’s America (or the world for that matter) to stop them?
http://guerrillamerica.com/2014/06/why-the-iraqi-civil-war-matters-to-america/