Iraq Archive

France has suddenly and shockingly found itself in the middle of the Iraq maelstrom that it had managed up until now to avoid. With its armed forces engaged in the U.S.-led air campaign against the Islamic State group and a French citizen killed by the group’s sympathizers in retaliation, Paris’ policy in Iraq and the region beyond is being put to the test. In a recent statement, as succinct as it was scathing, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the spokesman for the Islamic State group (also known as ISIS), called on the group’s recruits and supporters to target France and its citizens […]

Soon after the George W. Bush administration toppled Saddam Hussein, it became clear that Iraq was headed for a bitter conflict driven by Saddam’s politicization of sectarian and ethnic divisions and the lingering pathologies of his parasitic dictatorship. Thus, for the U.S., getting out of Iraq required the rebuilding of an Iraqi army that could maintain internal security. The U.S. military embraced this challenge, lavishing money and effort to create a new Iraqi army designed for the sort of effectiveness and apolitical professionalism that characterizes America’s armed forces. The raw material that U.S. military advisers and trainers had to work […]

In a Sept. 13 speech, President Barack Obama unveiled his strategy for dealing with the Islamic State group. “We will degrade and ultimately destroy” it, Obama said, “through a comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy.” The strategy he outlined in the speech includes three components: U.S. airstrikes; increased support for militias and national militaries directly fighting the Islamic State group; and efforts to prevent the group from undertaking terrorist attacks against the U.S. or other nations. As always, Obama was careful, cautious and restrained, seeking an indirect and supporting role rather than the leading one. He ruled out large-scale American involvement […]

When President Barack Obama announced plans for calibrated U.S. air strikes in Iraq last week, he set off heated debates about the wisdom and chances for success of his strategy to “degrade, and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State group operating there and in neighboring Syria. This week, the White House announced another military deployment that, despite involving not air strikes but some 3,000 American boots on the ground, evinced barely a second glance: the medical humanitarian mission to West Africa to contain the ongoing outbreak of the Ebola virus there. The reason for the contrast in reactions is of course […]

Much of the discussion around the strategy unveiled this past week by President Barack Obama to combat the Islamic State has focused on whether or not the administration will be able to successfully forge a “core coalition” of states to participate in the fight, and whether that grouping will be substantive or a largely ceremonial equivalent of the “coalition of the willing” assembled by George W. Bush prior to the invasion of Iraq. But the main proposition is largely accepted as a given: The United States can supply air power, intelligence assets and even training and equipment, but other coalition […]

IRBIL, Iraq—As the United States is moving to broaden its war against militants of the so-called Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), perhaps its most important ally is the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of northern Iraq. The reasons are clear: In a region where states have either imploded or where stability flows largely from dynastic rule, the KRG is stable, its politics are in the main moderate and pro-Western and it holds regular elections. Yet the KRG has its own strategic agenda, some of which is potentially problematic. And under its democratic facade, […]

Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces, armed and trained by NATO countries and backed by U.S. air support, form the vanguard of the international coalition’s ground operations in Iraq against the militants of the so-called Islamic State. But the Western support comes amid growing concern that the Kurds could use these arms and newly gained military know-how to secede from Iraq by force and form an independent Kurdish state once the Islamic State—also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)—is defeated. NATO countries have explicitly conditioned their military support on the Kurds remaining in Iraq and cooperating with the […]

It seems the default policy recommendation of much of the U.S. foreign policy community these days to the outbreak of any sort of violence in another part of the world is for the United States to “train and equip” local forces. It is not difficult to see why this option is so attractive to Washington policymakers. It allows the U.S. to be seen as “doing something” to respond to far-off crises, but without having to cross the momentous political line of putting “boots on the ground.” Instead, “train and equip” pairs advanced U.S. military technology with non-Americans who are willing […]

There was fighting talk at last week’s NATO summit in Wales. The alliance’s leaders pulled few punches in criticizing Russia’s actions in Ukraine and agreed on plans to counter future provocations by Moscow. The U.S. corralled a posse of its allies to coordinate the fight in Iraq against the Islamic State. After a summer characterized by global turbulence and ill-concealed uncertainty in both the U.S. and Europe over how to react, the summit signaled that the West has some sense of shared purpose. Yet it will take more than a decent conference to restore the Western powers’ vim and vigor. […]

In responding to press queries last week about how the United States plans to tackle the threat from the Islamic State—also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS—President Barack Obama used an unfortunate choice of words in responding, “We don’t have a strategy yet.” The answer implied that Washington had been caught flat-flooted by the rapid deterioration of events in Iraq and was struggling to craft a response. In reality, whole segments of the U.S. government’s national security apparatus are devoted to strategic planning. With regard to the Islamic State crisis, options have been in development […]