USA TODAY International Edition
Faltering war against ISIL requires a broader strategy
One year after Islamic State fighters overran Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, President Obama’s effort “to degrade and ultimately defeat” the group isn’t going particularly well.
The Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS, still controls Mosul and nearly a third of Iraq. And last month, the group humiliated the Iraqi army by seizing the key city of Ramadi, just 80 miles from the capital of Baghdad, routing government troops that vastly outnumbered the jihadists.
The defeat was so disastrous that Defense Secretary Ash Carter, in a candid assessment undoubtedly intended to light a fire under the Iraqis, declared that the Iraqi troops simply had “no will to fight.” Obama, meanwhile, told reporters at the Group of Seven summit in Germany this week that the U. S. didn’t “yet have a complete strategy” to fight ISIL.
None of this inspires confidence, nor does the president’s announcement Wednesday that 450 U. S. servicemembers will go to Iraq to join the roughly 3,000 U. S. trainers and support and security personnel already there. The goal this time is to energize Sunni Iraqis in the western province of Anbar, which contains Ramadi and which is where the U. S. turned around the war effort in 2006 by recruiting Sunni fighters against ISIL’s predecessor, alQaeda in Iraq.
Adding 450 troops might help at the margins, but it’s hard to see how this incremental step will blunt the serious threat ISIL poses to the stability of the Middle East and to the United States. Training the Iraqi army hasn’t worked well, despite the $ 20 billion the U. S. has spent since the 2003 invasion to stand up a fighting force. Politics and bad leadership have undermined the military, which faces a core problem: Iraq’s three sectarian groups — Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds — battle more fiercely on their own than they do in an army run by the nation’s majority Shiites.
Several other steps, short of recommitting thousands of U. S. ground combat troops in Iraq, merit consideration. These include embedding veteran U. S. troops in Iraqi units to improve their fighting ability; letting Americans act as forward spotters for airstrikes; and allowing Apache helicopter gunships to aid ground fighters.
The downside, of course, is that this would put more Americans in harm’s way. No U. S. military personnel have been killed in action against ISIL, but, then again, no war has ever been won by trying to avoid all casualties.
More important than tactics is the larger picture. This isn’t just an American fight. ISIL is a more immediate threat to neighbors such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey. A more robust international coalition of ISIL’s many enemies is needed to take the fight to the extremists, not just in Iraq but also in Syria, where ISIL’s headquarters and command structure are based.
None of this is easy, and it’s further complicated by Syria’s civil war and Iran’s support for Shiite militias within Iraq. The struggle is likely to take years, but it appears unavoidable. Allowing anti- U. S. terrorists to establish a haven — as happened with alQaeda in Afghanistan before the 9/ 11 attacks — is a mistake America should not repeat.