The problem here might be different than most Americans see at present. It is very very expensive to move American troops from the U.S. to Iraq (or Syria) to fight ISIS. So, in the long term Iran might have just been (biding it's time) to completely take over Iraq and Syria and make them a part of Iran. De Facto they have already done this. So, when American Troops finally leave Iraq and Syria for the last time (if that happens) we might see Iraq and Syria actually becoming a part of Iran. This is what the U.S. should actually be worried about now because this is where we are presently headed in the world.
begin quote from:
BAGHDAD
— American commandos are on the front lines in Syria in a new push
toward the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Raqqa, but in Iraq it is
an entirely different story: Iran, not the United States, has become the
face of an …
Middle East
Iran-Led Push to Retake Falluja From ISIS Worries U.S.
BAGHDAD — American commandos are on the front lines in Syria in a new push toward the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Raqqa, but in Iraq
it is an entirely different story: Iran, not the United States, has
become the face of an operation to retake the jihadist stronghold of
Falluja from the militant group.
On
the outskirts of Falluja, tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers, police
officers and Shiite militiamen backed by Iran are preparing for an
assault on the Sunni city, raising fears of a sectarian blood bath. Iran
has placed advisers, including its top spymaster, Qassim Suleimani, on
the ground to assist in the operation.
The
battle over Falluja has evolved into yet another example of how United
States and Iranian interests seemingly converge and clash at the same
time in Iraq. Both want to defeat the Islamic State, also known as ISIS
or ISIL. But the United States has long believed that Iran’s role,
which relies on militias accused of sectarian abuses, can make matters
worse by angering Sunnis and making them more sympathetic to the
militants.
While
the battle against the Islamic State straddles the borders of Iraq and
Syria, the United States has approached it as two separate fights. In
Syria, where the government of Bashar al-Assad is an enemy, America’s
ally is the Kurds.
But
in Iraq, where the United States backs the central government, and
trains and advises the Iraqi Army, it has been limited by the role of
Iran, the most powerful foreign power inside the country.
That United States dilemma is on full display in Falluja as the fighting intensifies.
Inside
the city, tens of thousands of Sunni civilians are trapped, starving
and lacking medicine, according to activists and interviews with
residents. Some were shot dead by the Islamic State as they tried to
flee, and others died under buildings that collapsed under heavy
military and militia artillery bombardment in recent days, according to
the United Nations.
The few civilians who have made it to safety have escaped at night, traveling through the irrigation pipes.
Continue reading the main story
In
an extraordinary statement on Wednesday, Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani, the world’s pre-eminent Shiite religious leader, who lives
in Najaf in southern Iraq and is said to be concerned by Iran’s growing
role in Iraq, urged security forces and militia to restrain themselves
and abide by “the standard behaviors of jihad.”
The
grim sectarian tableau in Falluja — starving Sunni civilians trapped in
a city surrounded by a mostly Shiite force — provides the backdrop to a
final assault that Iraqi officials have promised will come soon.
The
United States has thousands of military personnel in Iraq and has
trained Iraqi security forces for nearly two years, yet is largely on
the sidelines in the battle to retake Falluja. It says its air and
artillery strikes have killed dozens of Islamic State fighter, including
the group’s Falluja commander. But it worries that an assault on the
city could backfire — inflaming the same sectarian sentiments that have
allowed the Islamic State to flourish there.
Already,
as the army and militiamen battled this past week in outlying areas,
taking some villages and the center of the city of Karma, to the
northeast, the fight has taken on sectarian overtones.
Militiamen
have plastered artillery shells with the name of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a
Shiite cleric close to Iran whose execution this year by Saudi Arabia, a
Sunni power, deepened the region’s sectarian divide, before firing them
at Falluja.
A
Shiite militia leader, in a widely circulated video, is seen rallying
his men with a message of revenge against the people of Falluja, whom
many Iraqi Shiites believe to be Islamic State sympathizers rather than
innocent civilians. Falluja is also believed to be a staging ground for
suicide bombers targeting the capital, Baghdad, about 40 miles to the
east. The decision to move on the city was made after several recent
attacks in Baghdad killed nearly 200 people.
“Falluja
is a terrorism stronghold,” said the militia leader, Aws al-Khafaji,
the head of the Abu Fadhil al-Abbas militia. “It’s been the stronghold
since 2004 until today.”
He
continued: “There are no patriots, no real religious people in Falluja.
It’s our chance to clear Iraq by eradicating the cancer of Falluja.”
Prime
Minister Haider al-Abadi, who has stressed that civilians must be
protected in the operation and ordered that humanitarian corridors be
opened to allow civilians to leave the city safely, disavowed the
militia leader’s comments.
Reflecting
these concerns of sectarianism, and the deep sense of foreboding
surrounding a battle for the city, a chorus of voices in Iraq and abroad
has urged restraint.
In
his statement, Ayatollah Sistani said: “The Prophet Muhammad used to
tell his companions before sending them to fight, to go forward in the
name of Allah, with Allah and upon the religion of the messenger of
Allah. Do not kill the elderly, children or women, do not steal the
spoils but collect them, and do not cut down trees unless you are forced
to do so.”
The
concern was amplified in a second statement, released during Friday
prayers by a representative for the ayatollah, saying that “saving an
innocent human being from dangers around him is much more important than
targeting and eliminating the enemy.”
Accounts
of dire conditions in Falluja have emerged from the few residents who
managed to escape in recent days, Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the
United Nations refugee agency, told reporters in Geneva on Friday. She
said that some residents had been killed for refusing to fight for the
jihadists, and that those inside were surviving on old stacks of rice, a
few dates and water from unsafe sources such as drainage ditches.
“The
stories coming out of Falluja are horrifying,” Nasr Muflahi, the Iraq
director for the Norwegian Refugee Council, said in a statement. “People
who managed to flee speak of extreme hunger and starvation.”
To
allay fears that the battle for Falluja will heighten sectarian
tensions, Iraqi officials, including Mr. Abadi, and militia leaders have
said they will adhere to a battle plan that calls for the militias not
to participate in the assault on the city.
If
the militias do hold back as promised, then the United States is likely
step up the tempo of the air campaign, as it did in the battle last
year for Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province. In that fight, Iran’s
militias stayed on the sidelines.
The
American military role in Iraq has been limited mostly to airstrikes
and the training of the army. But, as in northern Syria, there are also
Special Forces soldiers in Iraq, carrying out raids on Islamic State
targets. In northern Iraq, where they work with Kurdish forces, two
American Special Forces soldiers have been killed.
Iraq’s
elite counterterror forces are preparing to lead the assault on
Falluja; they have long worked closely with the United States and are
considered among the few forces loyal to the country and not to a sect. A
few thousand Sunni tribal fighters from the area are also involved in
the operation.
The
United States military estimates that between 500 and 1,000 Islamic
State fighters remain in Falluja, and aid agencies have estimated the
civilian population left in the city at 50,000 to 100,000.
A
big question going into the battle is whether the Islamic State
fighters will dig in and fight or, as they have in some other battles,
throw away their weapons and try to melt into the civilian population.
“What
we have seen is two flavors of Daesh,” said Col. Steven H. Warren, an
American military spokesman in Baghdad, using an Arabic acronym for the
Islamic State. In Ramadi, he said, the Islamic State fortified the city
and fought for it, while in other cities of Anbar, such as Hit and
Rutba, the fighters largely fled in the face of government offensives.
For the United States, there is also the matter of history: Led by the Marines, its forces fought two bloody battles for
Falluja in 2004. Mindful of this past, American officials would have
preferred that the Iraqis left Falluja alone for now and focused on the
Islamic State stronghold of Mosul in the north.
But
the battle is coming, and there are echoes of that history already. One
rallying cry for the Iraqi forces is revenge for the killing, last
year, of a Shiite soldier who was captured by the Islamic State, paraded
through Falluja and hanged from a bridge.
If that sounds familiar, it is.
The American military’s assault on Falluja in April of 2004 was in retaliation for an episode that became an early symbol of a war spiraling out of control, the image of it as indelible as it was gruesome: the bodies of four Blackwater contractors dangling from the ironwork of a bridge.
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