A Stark Warning On Iraq Intervention

Petraeus: U.S. Must Not Become Shia Militia's Air Force
- Nico Hines

David Petraeus [pictured], the former commander of coalition forces in Iraq, issued a stark warning to those advocating U.S. military intervention against ISIS militias bearing down on Baghdad.

He said it was only wise to offer military support if the political conditions were exactly right in Iraq, a scenario that is virtually impossible to imagine in the near-future, and that there was a great risk that the U.S. would be seen as picking sides in a religious battle that has been waged for generations. "This cannot be the United States being the air force for Shia militias, or a Shia on Sunni Arab fight," he said.
(Daily Beast)


"The State of Iraq As We Know It Is Gone"

"The state of Iraq as we know it is gone, and it's not going to be reconstituted," former CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden said. 

"We've got three successor states there now," Hayden added. "As much as we might look for opportunities to keep Iraq together, we need to be prepared for the reality that it's not going to stay together."
     
"We should snuggle up comfortable with the Kurds in Kurdistan, who have always been pro-American and actually have a functioning society and state right now." He called Nouri al-Maliki's surviving state "Shiastan."
     
"Then we've got Sunnistan, and that's the state under the control of ISIS right now, and frankly, we've got to treat that as if it were a safe haven for terrorists and begin to think about it the way we had thought about Waziristan for the last decade-plus." 
(Newsmax)


Why the Iraqi Army Collapsed - Salman Masalha
 
It should come as no surprise that the Iraqi army collapsed, as less than a decade ago the large Iraqi army folded rather quickly with the American invasion. The Iraqi army, neither the old one ruled by Saddam nor the new U.S.-trained one, could never be called "the army of the Iraqi people" because there's no such thing as the Iraqi people. The entire region is comprised of artificial states that have never managed to create cross-tribal or cross-ethnic national unity. 
(Ha'aretz)


Iranian Proxies Step Up Their Role in Iraq - Phillip Smyth
 
Given the difficult security situation it faces, the Iraqi government is likely to become more reliant on Iranian proxies.
(Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
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