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The Fall of Ramadi
I’m sure you’ve heard the ghastly descriptions and fully understand the meaning of this. I don’t need to rehearse it. I’m puzzled by this:
The fall of Ramadi, despite intensified American airstrikes in recent weeks in a bid to save the city, represented the biggest victory so far this year for the Islamic State, which has declared a caliphate, or Islamic state, in the vast areas of Syria and Iraq that it controls.
Intensified airstrikes? Here’s the Department of Defense’s own list of airstrikes carried out near Ramadi since parts of the city fell under ISIS control late last month. If there have been others, they haven’t reported them.
On April 28, they reported one strike: “Near Ramadi, an airstrike destroyed an ISIL excavator.” On the 29th, one strike: “Near Ramadi, an airstrike destroyed three ISIL tanker trucks.” On the 30th, two strikes: “Near Ramadi, two airstrikes struck two ISIL tactical units, destroying an ISIL fighting position and an ISIL structure.” On May 1, three strikes: “Near Ramadi, three airstrikes struck two ISIL tactical units, destroying an ISIL fighting position, and an ISIL resupply cache.”
On May 1, Air Force Col. Patrick Ryder briefed Centcom via teleconference. He said there had been no significant changes in Ramadi during the past week. Iraqi forces continued to hold the key ground. ISIS was trying to keep the territory they’d captured in the east. “We expect Ramadi to remain contested,” he said. “ISIL has shown that Beiji and Ramadi are strategically important to them, and they are committing a significant amount of limited resources to secure these locations. [my emphasis]”
There are no further reports of air strikes near Ramadi until May 4, when only one was reported. “Near Ramadi, an airstrike destroyed four ISIL caches.” On May 5, one strike: “Near Ramadi, an airstrike struck an ISIL large tactical unit, destroying three ISIL structures, three ISIL tanks and an ISIL armored vehicle.” On May 6, two: “Near Ramadi, two airstrikes struck one large and one small ISIL tactical units, destroying four ISIL structures and an ISIL mortar system.” There were none on May 7, and none were reported again until May 11: “Near Ramadi, one airstrike struck an ISIL tactical unit, destroying an ISIL fighting position.”
None were reported on the 12th or 13th. There were two on the 14th: “Near Ramadi, two airstrikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and an ISIL fighting position.”
That evening, ISIS launched a massive attack against Iraqi units using car bombs, mortars, and snipers. But there are no reports of airstrikes near Ramadi on the next day.
The day after that, I suppose, is when the airstrikes “intensified.” The Department of Defense reported four on May 16: “Near Ramadi, four airstrikes struck one large and three small ISIL tactical units, destroying four ISIL vehicles, three ISIL structures, two ISIL fighting positions and an ISIL vehicle-borne improvised explosive device.” There were seven on May 17: “Near Ramadi, seven airstrikes struck one large and five small ISIL tactical units and an ISIL IED facility, destroying four ISIL resupply structures, three ISIL fighting positions, two ISIL buildings, two ISIL heavy machine guns, an ISIL VBIED and an ISIL motorcycle.”
There’s the intensifying air campaign: 25 airstrikes in total. That’s it. There are hundreds of strike aircraft within reach. We knew they were committing resources to Ramadi. We knew their objective and what would happen if they achieved it. It might be true that a war can’t be won through air power alone, but how can you know unless you try? Were they just sitting there with a bag of popcorn?
Then, as we know, yesterday ISIS took full control of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province. The Iraqi units abandoned their US-provided equipment–again. ISIS seized it all (apparently including RPGs) and no doubt more than replaced the materiel they’d lost to our intensified airstrikes. The reports of massacres are streaming in:
Ramadi’s mayor, Dalaf al-Kubaisi, said more than 250 civilians and security forces had been killed over the past two days, including dozens of police and other government supporters shot dead in the streets or their homes, along with their wives, children and other family members.
The mayor confirmed that 90 percent of the city is in ISIS’s hands. McClatchy is citing a local police officer who says 30 U.S. Humvees were abandoned to ISIS in just one neighborhood (Malaab), and the Ramadi-Baghdad road is “completely controlled by the Islamic State.”
As this is happening, the Pentagon fronts its own version of Baghdad Bob:
“Ramadi has been contested since last summer and ISIL now has the advantage,” Pentagon spokeswoman Elissa Smith said, using another acronym for Islamic State. She said the loss of the city would not mean the overall Iraq military campaign was turning in Islamic State’s favor, but acknowledged it would give the group a ‘propaganda boost.’
To counter the propaganda boost, they released the stirring story of our special forces dropping from the sky in a Blackhawk, engaging in hand-to-hand combat, killing a terrorist, blowing holes through buildings, freeing a slave, and saving some artefacts without hurting any women and children. Go, team America!
Are we children? ISIS now physically and symbolically rules Anbar, where more than 1,300 American soldiers and Marines died. They’ve got Mosul. There are reportedly no soldiers left to defend the roads to Baghdad. They’re on the the outskirts of Palmyra, the bride of the desert, the capital of the Arab Queen Zenobia in the third century A.D; they’ve murdered 23 civilians there, and they’ll surely bulldoze the city, just as they did Nimrud.
And instead of using our airforce–we could try that, at least–we’re countering “propaganda boosts” with “propaganda boosts.” But ours are directed at our own citizens. The rest of the world didn’t know or care who Abu Sayyaf was, and his death was definitely not, as our officials said, “a major blow to the Islamic State.” (And everyone and his uncle is called Abu Sayyaf, anyway. Abu means he’s Sayyaf’s father, it’s meaningless. Umm Sayyaf would be Sayyaf’s mother, but we’re saying she’s his wife. We didn’t know her name, so we gave her one that made no sense. We’ve been involved in this part of the world for decades, but we didn’t even try to sound credible about this. Why not?)
Published in General
Neither was Normandy. What in all hell has that got to do with it?
Israel is not shy? What does that mean, exactly? In what regional wars has she intervened when not attacked? What does all this have to do with any sense that you could blame Israel for not intervening in these wars?
I’m not qualified to comment regarding military tactics, etc. as others are here. But Claire, you researched the recent history above, and how we have been “handling” this crisis (not). A stable Middle East has been the goal of all other previous administrations, and for good reason – oil fuels the world’s economies, nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in the hands of groups like ISIS are a nightmare, the likes of we cannot imagine. The destruction of irreplaceable historical sites, millions of people again hurt, killed, displaced. The United States and coalition partners have kept it in check with great personal and financial sacrifice. They will not stop with the Middle East – they are after Western Civilization as we know it and have declared it. Even the European community has no apparent plan and ISIS has made it clear they are on the way.
We have clueless people currently in charge that don’t seem to see the big picture. On another note, I am in the Panhandle surrounded by 3 bases – there are always “practices”, maneuvers over Bay, activity of some kind day and night – “booms”, etc. All has been quiet for weeks – first time is 12 years here. Anyone have any info on that? “Are we on vacation?” Yikes…….
Hezbollah and Hamas are direct threats on the scale of Hezbollah and Hamas and Israel is not engaged in air strikes against them beyond the occasional missile interdiction strike.
They’re quite close with the Jordanians – or so goes the story. And Israel hasn’t been shy about hitting targets in the Arab world when they think it’s a real life-or-death struggle for them. For the past year they’ve flown sorties against the Assad government. Ergo, we know that Israel doesn’t consider ISIS as much of a threat as Assad (who’s an Iranian client).
Our interest is to keep ISIS from dominating the region. ISIS doesn’t have a prayer of actually moving into Baghdad, because it’s a Shi’ite city, and Moqtada al’Sadr will unleash his militias who are every bit as tenacious and fanatical as ISIS is on their home turf. Sunni areas like Ramadi…well…ISIS is to a large extent a Saudi/Emirati proxy against Iran. If the Sunni areas get burned, well, that’s just a bit of blowback for the oil sheikhs. If ISIS is destroyed, then Iran wins. If ISIS continues to rampage…well…ISIS wins. Solution – attrit ISIS, but only from the air. It will keep them from amassing the resources necessary to punch into Baghdad, but not kill them.
I’m not blaming Israel for anything – I think they’re very astute actors. Israeli forces have flown quite a few sorties against Bashar Assad, who is actually fighting ISIS. I’m saying that if Israel, which knows the region intimately, isn’t striking ISIS and getting all worked up about Ramadi, then we might take a look at what they’re doing and try to figure out why they don’t consider ISIS a problem at this time.
And they’re not even doing interdiction strikes against ISIS. What does that tell us?
Glad you’re in favor of that. My point is that this wasn’t done.
You mean, the Jews do not think IS is a threat to them at this time. Does anyone think that? Or is it that you think that IS for some reason should be attacking Israel &, since it is not, that tells you something? What?
Wasn’t it? Is ISIS in Baghdad now? What proportion of the looted vehicles from Iraqi Army dumps do they still have? Aren’t the Shi’ite militias finally coming out to play?
The Israel-Assad relationship has been an odd one.
On the one hand, Assad has long had the most to gain from war against Israel. Territorially, there was the Golan and possibly territory down to Haifa.
There also was (past tense) Lebanon. A 1970’s or 1980’s defeat of Israel would likely have led to Greater Syria. I think recent events are showing Hezbollah to be the second fiddle to Iran with Syria dropping to third.
War might also distract his Sunni population.
On the other hand, he has long had much to lose. A defeat would weaken him at home and possibly have lead to a Sunni uprising. Because of this, he seemed inclined to attack Israel only indirectly so as to not face a weakening reprisal. Thus, we see the transfer of missiles to Hezbollah which Israel tries to interdict.
Bit of both. ISIS has executed individuals for being “Israeli Spies” and they spout the standard anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli rhetoric. However, their actions reveal that they’re much more focused on Shi’ite and noncompliant Sunni threats, which means in practice they’re fighting Iranian proxies like Bashar al-Assad and the Iraqi National Army. Israel currently appears to see Iran and its proxies as being much more dangerous than ISIS, so they’re not doing anything about the black banners flying below the Golan Heights and instead are bombing Assad.
Both of these confirm that this really is a proxy fight between Iran and the Gulf states. Since both sides in this are really horrible, we don’t have an interest in definitively weighing in on one side or the other. What we do have an interest in is curbing the radicalization of the global Muslim population, which means we have to attrit ISIS. This is what we appear to be doing. I don’t understand all the panic.
Do you propose we now bomb to support the Shi’a militia in Ramadi (and spread Iranian control deeper into Iraq)? Or are you saying, “ISIS would never be so audacious and overconfident after this as to try to get to Baghdad with those tanks and missile launchers they just looted from the 8th brigade, on a highway they control?” Or that it wouldn’t ultimately be a big deal if they did, because then Moqtada al’Sadr would unleash his goons–and then we’d just join hands with Iran to destroy Baghdad in a sectarian killing orgy that will leave the Tigris and Euphrates run with blood?
Wouldn’t it have been more sensible–and more in keeping with the way we’d prefer to see ourselves as Americans–to have tried to stop them from taking Ramadi?
Adam,
This is interesting and has the highest likelihood of being the kind of thinking that the Obama induced DoD is up to. Now I suggest an analysis that questions the whole policy. What if we cease to be interested either in Nation building or Sunni Shia religious divides. Let’s just assume that the only thing we are interested in is whether the end result is Jihadist or non-Jihadist. By allowing the Iraqis to be pincered between the ISIS Jihadists and the Shia Jihadists the end result must be Jihadist. I suspect given the complete Obama psychosis this isn’t seen as a problem. If on the other hand we were to assert the importance of defeating Jihadists as of the highest priority, then what Claire is saying is true. This policy of letting them take Ramadi is the worst possible policy.
Just a thought.
Regards,
Jim
Could you say something about the strikes on Assad? What’s being struck?
Do you remember history before a few years back? Does your memory go back to 2008?
Any bomb we drop on ISIS de facto support Shi’a militias and Iranian proxies more generally.
As far as I know (and I am an educated layman with no military service record and no security clearances) ISIS has neither the numbers nor the equipment to actually push into Baghdad. Analysts like Gary Brecher who have knowledge of the region and a record of successful predictions don’t believe that ISIS is capable of doing much more than skulking around the edges of Baghdad. After all, they’ve been here once before.
I don’t think we were capable of keeping ISIS from taking Ramadi unless we want to redeploy American ground troops. Further, I don’t know that it’s even desirable. So long as neither the Iranian proxies nor ISIS look like they’re going to win the whole enchilada, we don’t have a ton to worry about except ISIS radicalizing lone wolves in the West.
A more proper analogy would be Malmedy. We do not have troops on the ground in Iraq, and our objectives in the region are complicated by the insane tribal politics of it all. Whether or not ISIS is in Ramadi isn’t all that important, and frankly it’s not our job to make sure they don’t get it. It sucks for the people of Ramadi that ISIS rolled in, but the Iraqi army has been going through these periods where they put up about as much resistance as wet toilet paper. That’s not our fault.
The problem is that the only results that don’t end up with “jihadists” taking Ramadi are 1) nuke it, or 2) declare it a protectorate and occupy it with American soldiers.
Here.
I’m not sure what you’re referring to. I remember when the Mahdi Army kicked the Iraqi Army’s butts in Basra. I remember that we signed the Status of Forces agreement in December that year. I can’t really think of anything else big. The “surge” was 2007, and that was really complicated.
I only found very limited stuff on the border. Is that what you had in mind? If not, please, say something meaningful.
What I mean is this–you talk about attrition as if it was strategy. It is the weakest response to allowing the collapse of Iraq after 2008.
I hear that Vietnam may soon be turning back to us anyway because who else will protect them from the Chinese?
But, yes. As C3P0 said “Here we go again.” Really, we don’t seem to have done much to ISIS despite our boasting of having killed so many of them. Like the Persian Immortal more just come up to take their place. We are playing a strange game of wack-a-mole in Syria and Iraq. Afraid of both failing and succeeding it seems we are committed to doing just enough to save face domestically. Maybe we really do have some long term plan and it will all come together in a masterful montage like in the Godfather when Michael settles all the family business, but I highly doubt that.
The single best piece I can see on the relationship is this from a few weeks ago. Though it has not been highly publicized, Israel has fought against various Syrian units since at least 2013, including several air strikes around Damascus, shooting down a Syrian army jet, and eliminating Syrian army mortar positions.
Attrition is a strategy – against ISIS, an emergent phenomenon. What that has to do with our involvement in the collapse of Iraq I have no idea. Iraq in 2008 was as strong as “expert” American assistance and a couple trillion dollars could make it. It crumpled like wet cardboard along sectarian lines once we left. Are you suggesting we should have made it a colonial dependency? At what cost? To what benefit?
There was never a lid. The violence since Saddam’s fall has been horrible, but less horrible than the violence before (except in Syria, where the “lid” was maintained). There hasn’t been a stable Middle East for a very long time. and, no, the Ottoman Empire wasn’t stable; in the last century of violence in the Middle East, a majority was inflicted during the three years in which the Ottomans were a thing.
That’s the same Saudi Arabia that’s bombing ISIS, right?
Seconded. This is the precise opposite of “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”
Sure, the Saudis figured out that we don’t like it when groups run around openly enslaving people (as opposed to clandestinely doing it) and burning people alive. But ISIS is their creation. The weapons and money that funded the early stages of the revolt against Bashar al-Assad – the same revolt that was the birthing-ground of ISIS – came from Saudi and the gulf states. Combine that with the fact that Saudi Arabia dumped quite a lot of their more radicalized prisoners in Syria to fight Assad and you’ve got a giant glaring neon sign that points from Saudi Arabia to Kobani.
FOX has a single anonymous source for this. Other news sources don’t appear to be agreeing.
Every news source, including FOX, appears to be suggesting that the Iraqis are fighting hard, despite suffering massively greater casualties than the US suffered at any point in the war.
One of the reasons that we were killing our enemies is that the US has been competing with Iran for influence. It’s regularly been stated by people on Ricochet that Iraq is a proxy state for Iran. You can see how false this is from the fact that Abadi has been preventing Iranians from fighting in Ramadi. As I’ve been saying for months, we’re helping a little, and that little might be enough. It turns out that it wasn’t enough in Ramadi, so we’re forcing the Iraqis into dependence on Iran, a concession that isn’t without cost (for instance, if we want sanctions on Iran, we need Iraqi compliance, since without Iraqi help, sanctions are meaningless).
These things aren’t black and white; going forward, we could still provide enough support that the Iraqis are persuaded that they have the choice to support the West; a choice that they’ve taken in the past. We’d need to actually provide that support, though, and need to avoid the Rand Paul style deadlines for withdrawing support.
I don’t think it was “The Saudis” as in, “the Saudi government”. There are some Saudis who want to overthrow the government, and they fund quite a lot of terrorism, sometimes against their government, but more often abroad. If ISIS wins, the Saudi government would fall, and not in a pleasant, peaceful transition of power, sense. It’s not the case that the Saudis have been pushed into intervening by the US, so much as the US has been pushed into action by the Saudis.
Not everyone fighting in Syria against Assad has been fighting in favor of ISIS. The Kurds of Kobane are one obvious example, but most of the opposition groups have been killing and being killed by ISIS. Even Al Qaeda has been alternating between alliance and opposition. When AQ think that you’re too extreme, you’re not in the regional mainstream.
My reading of American involvement in Fallujah and Ramadi included some retreats. Americans in other wars retreated more often, because retreating makes more sense when fighting relatively regular wars (ISIS is more like a traditional army than AQ was, which makes retreating a more useful strategic response than it would have been in most of Operation Iraqi Freedom). You see more decisions like the withdrawals from Wanat and Kamdesh in Afghanistan than in Iraq for this reason.
The Iraqi forces know that they’re going to have to retake the city, that it’s now going to be riddled with IEDs that will kill many of those who retreated, and that quite a lot of other Iraqis will die as a result. It’s still worth retreating if the alternative is a collapse, which would have seen far more deaths. That’s the same calculation that the US has frequently made in wartime. It’s a lousy deal if you’re a resident of Wanat, but victory ends up being more important than the protection of specific civilians, and protecting the whole of the unit sometimes means retreating despite knowing the cost.
One helpful thing to remember when judging whether motivation is the key difference is that battles haven’t been all that different when the Iraqi army was surrounded and every man defending the position knew that he was in an Alamo-like context, if he was lucky (ISIS are crueller than the Mexicans). Either you need to believe that they weren’t motivated to avoid torture and death, or you need to accept that there may be something you’re not grasping about the fight.
This is the beauty of the hawk’s rhetorical position: it is neutral to reality. If we intervene and things don’t go well, it would have been much worse. If we don’t intervene and things go for the worse then that’s Exhibit A in favor of intervention. If we intervene and things get better then it’s time to intervene somewhere else. If you don’t intervene and things get better then that’s because we intervened somewhere else.
Do, please, distinguish this from the dove’s position. Blanket support for policy x is generally indistinguishable from blanket support for non-x in most social science settings; most phenomena can be treated as evidence for not having gone far enough in either direction.
In this instance, though, I think that my claim of, to paraphrase, “sufficient military strength would mean that the Iraqi army could win this conflict” is pretty uncontroversial. ISIS has mostly been having a bad time for the past few months. They lost Tikrit, anti-ISIS rebels in Syria have won victories and seem likely to be bringing a negotiated peace, which would be terrible news for ISIS, they lost Kobane, and they lost Sinjar. They’re not invulnerable. Unfortunately, as in Nigeria, promises of US aid have not been followed by all that much actual US aid.
I don’t know if you disagree with any of my specifics here, but it seems more productive to discuss them than to generalize and dismiss my viewpoint entirely.