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Obama’s New Plan to Save Iraq: Tear It Apart
Daily Beast ^ | 06/11/2015 | Nancy A. Youssef

Posted on 06/11/2015 8:07:06 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

The White House is moving to arm Iraq’s tribal and religious militias. But these forces hate the Baghdad government almost as much as they hate ISIS.

President Obama’s decision to send an additional 450 troops to Iraq is the latest example of a strategy mired in double paradox. The U.S. wants to save a unified Iraq—by strengthening the ethnic and religious militias that could tear the country apart. And to pull it off, Washington is counting on the cooperation of groups divided by a chasm of suspicion.

In its announcement Wednesday, the Obama administration said the additional American troops are supposed to help more Sunnis come forward and eventually receive U.S. military training. The goal is for those Sunnis to align with the largely Shiite government in Baghdad to drive out the self-proclaimed Islamic State, the Sunni-dominated terror army that controls the region where they live.

But there’s a major catch. Several, actually. For these Sunni fighters, fighting ISIS not only means going to war against their fellow Sunnis. It also means teaming up with the central government in Baghdad—a government dominated by their Shiite rivals with a long history of mistreating Sunnis.

In Iraq, Sunni leaders describe a central government that is deeply distrustful of its potential trainees, unwilling to give them arms provided by the United States, and quick to turn a blind eye when sectarian forces carry out attacks against them.

“This is a half-measure not designed to achieve effects on the ground but a response to critics,” an adviser who works with the U.S. military on its strategy against ISIS explained to The Daily Beast. “This is the least they could do with the least amount of risk.”

(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: bootsontheground; iraq; kurdistan; obama; obamairaq; sunnis
I personally am rooting for a Kurdistan to be formed INDEPENDENT of Iraq.
1 posted on 06/11/2015 8:07:07 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

The Turks would not like that................


2 posted on 06/11/2015 8:21:22 AM PDT by Red Badger (Man builds a ship in a bottle. God builds a universe in the palm of His hand.............)
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To: SeekAndFind

No one had the brains or guts to speak the truth. When you invade a country like Iraq, Vietnam, or the Phlippines, you had better be prepared to stay for 50 years or longer.


3 posted on 06/11/2015 8:29:10 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: SeekAndFind

Going back to the Joe Biden “all Gaul is divided into 3 parts” strategy, eh?


4 posted on 06/11/2015 8:31:38 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: SeekAndFind

Just more “lines in the sand,” literally.


5 posted on 06/11/2015 9:09:10 AM PDT by vette6387
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To: PGR88

Former Military Leaders are saying ISIS will be long term to correct...and once done will incite a Sunni vs. Shia civil war.


6 posted on 06/11/2015 9:33:30 AM PDT by caww
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To: Red Badger

Some of the Iraqi Kurdish people are saying the whole region is braced for the big war, the war that has not yet happened, the Shiite-Sunni war and that an Iraqi civil war “is almost unavoidable.”


7 posted on 06/11/2015 9:35:47 AM PDT by caww
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