What are we doing in Iraq?
The Islamic State’s latest victory in Iraq is not just a military setback for the U.S.-led coalition.
It also calls into question — for Canada as well as the U.S. — the entire rationale for fighting this war.
Washington and its allies went to war in the Middle East last year to protect Iraq from a ruthless terrorist army that had seized entire sections of the country.
The fact that the Islamic State, sometimes known as ISIS, committed gruesome crimes made this war more palatable to voters in Canada and other western countries.
But in essence, the war was designed to defeat an insurgency that threatened the territorial integrity of a country deemed essential to U.S. interests.
At the very least, war planners hoped to drive ISIS back into Syria where, over time, it could eventually be degraded and destroyed.
But the militants’ stunning capture of Ramadi on Sunday underlines the frailty of the Iraqi state that this war is designed to bolster.
Just 112 kilometres from Baghdad, Ramadi is the capital of Anbar province in Iraq’s Sunni heartland.
When U.S. troops invaded Iraq in 2003 to depose Saddam Hussein, regime loyalists in Anbar were among their fiercest enemies.
But when ISIS attacked Ramadi last week, Iraqi army units virtually melted away. In at least one case, they abandoned their U.S-supplied heavy weapons to the militants.
The problem is not just one of poor training and corruption, although both are endemic in the Iraqi army.
Rather it is the political cleavage in Iraq between Sunnis, Shiites and ethnic Kurds. In effect, the country is coming apart at the seams.
The Shiites control Baghdad and the south. The Kurds (aided by Canada and others) control the north. The Islamic State controls much of the Sunni middle and wants more.
In the north, the Kurdish Pesh- merga fight ISIS not to protect the Baghdad regime but to create a proto-state of their own.
No one expects Kurdish fighters to wage war outside of what they call Kurdistan. And they don’t.
In the south, Shiite militias, many of which are backed by Iran, protect their own co-religionists. In some instances, they commit atrocities against Sunnis.
All of which helps to explain the Ramadi debacle. The Shiite militiamen are seasoned fighters and could have taken on ISIS. But Sunni tribesmen in Anbar province mistrusted them. So the militias were kept out of the battle.
The local Sunni tribes were also willing to fight. But Baghdad’s Shiite-dominated regime was reluctant to arm them, in case they switched sides. They too were excluded.
Iranian-controlled militias are among the most successful antiISIS fighters. But the U.S. didn’t want to be seen co-operating with Iran on the battlefield. So these militias weren’t welcome in the defence of Ramadi.
That left ordinary Iraqi soldiers, backed by coalition airstrikes, to fight Islamic State on the ground. Many were demoralized. Other so-called ghost soldiers existed only on paper, part of a scam that allows corrupt Iraqi officers to pocket kickbacks.
In the aftermath of Ramadi, Bagh- dad and Washington have been forced to rethink. The Shiite militias have been allowed into the area and are massing for a counterattack. There is talk of the United States’ arming of Sunni tribal militias.
But the central problem remains. Iraq is a unified nation in name only. The U.S., Canada and others are fighting to protect a country that, at root, no longer exists.
That ISIS is able to score military victories says much about its zeal and brutality.
But it also suggests that many in Iraq’s Sunni regions have little faith in their own government. For countries such as Canada at war in Iraq, this is relevant information.
If the aim is to protect the territorial integrity of Iraq, this war is futile. For all intents and purposes, Iraq is no longer a coherent nation-state. That is one lesson of Ramadi.
If the aim is to defeat ISIS at all costs, then relying on airstrikes and the Iraqi army is not enough. That is the other lesson.
But are Canadians willing to follow this logic through to the end? Are we willing to commit large numbers of Canadian ground troops to ensure victory over what Prime Minister Stephen Harper calls the “international jihadist movement”?
If not, what exactly are we doing in Iraq? Thomas Walkom’s column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.