Obama is about to lose Iraq!

[Christians4LessGvt]

Ramadi's fall opens ISIS road to Baghdad.
Jordan warns US air strikes won't stop the terrorists' advance

DEBKAfile Special Report
May 18, 2015


Iraqi army tanks flee Ramadi

Jordan's King Abdullah has warned the Obama administration in an urgent message that US air strikes alone won't stop the Islamic State's advances in Iraq and Syria and, what is more, they leave his kingdom next door exposed to the Islamist peril. ISIS would at present have no difficulty in invading southern Jordan, where the army is thin on the ground, and seizing local towns and villages whose inhabitants are already sympathetic to the extremist group. The bulk of the Jordanian army is concentrated in the north on the Syrian border. Even a limited Islamist incursion in the south would also pose a threat to northern Saudi Arabia, the king pointed out.

Abdullah offered the view that the US Delta Special Forces operation in eastern Syria Saturday was designed less to be an effective assault on ISIS's core strength and more as a palliative to minimize the Islamist peril facing Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf emirates.

DEBKAfile's Washington sources report that US officials refused to heed Abdullah's warning and tried to play it down, in the same way as Secretary John Kerry tried Monday, May 18, to de-emphasize to the ISIS conquest of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's largest province.
At a news conference in Seoul, Kerry dismissed the Islamists' feat as a "target of opportunity" and expressed confidence that, in the coming days, the loss "can be reversed."

The Secretary of State's words were unlikely to scare the Islamists, who had caused more than 500 deaths in the battle for the town and witnessed panicky Iraqi soldiers fleeing Ramadi in Humvees and tanks.

Baghdad, only 110 km southeast of Ramadi, has more reason to be frightened, in the absence of any size-able Iraqi military strength in the area for standing in the enemy's path to the capital.

The Baghdad government tried announcing that substantial military reinforcements had been ordered to set out and halt the Islamists' advance. This was just whistling in the dark. In the last two days, the remnants of the Iraqi army have gone to pieces, just like in the early days of the ISIS offensive, when the troops fled Mosul and Falujah. They are running away from any possible engagement with the Islamist enemy.

The Baghdad-sourced reports that Shiite paramilitaries were preparing to deploy to Iraq's western province of Anbar after Islamic State militants overran Ramadi were likewise no more than an attempt to boost morale. Sending armed Shiites into the Ramadi area of Anbar would make no sense, because its overwhelmingly Sunni population would line up behind fellow-Sunni Islamist State conquerors rather than help the Shiite militias to fight them.

Iran's Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan, who arrived precipitately in Baghdad Monday, shortly after Ramadi's fall, faces this difficulty. Our military sources expect him to focus on a desperate effort to deploy Shiite militias as an obstacle in ISIS?s path to Baghdad, now that the road is clear of defenders all the way from Ramadi.

In Amman, King Abdullah Sunday made a clean sweep of senior security officials, firing the Minister of Interior, the head of internal security (Muhabarat) and a number of high police officers. They were accused officially of using excessive violence to disperse demonstrations in the southern town of Maan.

The real reason for their dismissal, DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources disclose, is the decline of these officials' authority in the Maan district,  in the face of the rising influence of extremist groups identified with Al Qaeda and ISIS, in particular.

http://www.debka.com/article/24609/Ramadi%E2%80%99s-fall-opens-ISIS-road-to-Baghdad-Jordan-warns-US-air-strikes-won%E2%80%99t-stop-the-terrorists%E2%80%99-advance

[Xavier_Onassis]

Obama never owned Iraq.

Get serious.

The King of Jordan has an army, let him handle it.

[Christians4LessGvt]

The US Lost 1,335 Soldiers in Anbar.....ISIS Just Took it Back.....Thanks Obama

[sirs]

I really don't think he cares, C.   

[Xavier_Onassis]

The US has already proven that it cannot rule Iraq and the people of this country do not want to send troops back to Iraq.

Remember whose stupid idea it was to invade Iraq.

[sirs]

Speaking of stupid, why this insidious effort to once argue something no one is supporting??     NO ONE, NOT EVEN BUSH, WANTED TO "RULE IRAQ".  Never.......did I mention, never?

[Christians4LessGvt]

Next challenge for US after Ramadi defeat:
Iranian ship nears Yemeni shore

DEBKAfile Special Report

May 19, 2015


Iranian aid vessel with "medical relief" personnel

Tuesday, May 19, two days after Ramadi's fall to the Islamic State landed a major blow to Baghdad and US strategy in the region, 10,000 troops, more than half American, ended a large US-led military exercise in Jordan that was designed to practice tactics for countering ISIS. Taking part surprisingly in the two-week exercise was a heavy US nuclear-capable B-52H bomber, which flew in from the United States, crossing through Israeli air space and returning to home base when it was over.

This was the first time in the 12 years since the US invasion of Iraq that a B-52H, which can deliver nuclear weapons and bunker buster bombers, has appeared in Middle East skies for any military mission.

East of Jordan, as some 25,000 refugees from Ramadi slept in the open, the Islamist conquerors began moving on their next target, the Habbaniyah air base some 70 km west of Baghdad. Its fall would cut Baghdad off from northern and eastern Iraq and place it under siege from three directions, north, east and west.

Most Arab members have dropped out of the US-led coalition committed to fighting the Islamist terrorists in Iraq and Syria. This has left the US Air Force to bear the brunt of the aerial campaign. Its average of 19 air strikes a day is far too few to have any real effect on ISIS's battle momentum. It certainly did not stop the long columns of black-clad Islamist fighters swarming on Ramadi from all directions in hundreds of tanks, APCs and minivans armed with heavy machine guns, and taking control of the capital of Iraq's largest province, Anbar.

Western intelligence from the Ramadi region offered disturbing accounts of thousands of fully-armed ISIS fighters springing up apparently from nowhere to descend on the city, with no one able to see where they came from and no air action to scatter them before they entered the city.

After the Ramadi defeat, the Obama administration?s next major test in the region comes from an Iranian cargo vessel heading, accompanied by two warships, for the Yemeni Red Sea port of Hodeida and scheduled to dock Thursday, May 21. According to Tehran, the ship will unload 2,500 tons of humanitarian aid for Yemen, and the hundreds of passengers who disembark are Red Crescent medical relief workers.

The Saudi, US and Egyptian fleets have imposed a sea and air blockade on Yemen to prevent Iran provding the Yemeni Houthi rebels with fresh arms. Saudi and other regional intelligence agencies are convinced that the "paramedics" are in fact Revolutionary Guards officers and instructors in disguise, sent to strengthen the Houthi revolt.

Washington, Riyadh and Cairo have all vowed to stop the Iranian flotilla from putting into port in Yemen and  said that its vessels will be forced to submit to inspections to make sure no illicit weapons are aboard and to confirm the passengers' identities.
Tehran, for its part has threatened to treat any such inspections as an act of war.

Deputy Revolutionary Guards Commander Gen. Masoud Jazayeri put it plainly when he said: "I am distinctly stating that the patience of Iran has limits. If the Iranian aid ship is prevented from reaching Yemen then they, Saudi Arabians and United States, should expect action from us."

DEBKAfile's analysts strongly doubt that the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier and strike force, which have been monitoring the Iranian flotilla's movements, will be ordered to intervene against the Iranian ships reaching the Yemeni port. It is not a good moment for President Barack Obama to upset Tehran when he is in dire need of the Iraqi Shiite militias controlled by Iran to stand up to ISIS before its columns reach Baghdad.

Without the US, it is hard to see Saudi and Egyptian warships directly engaging an Iranian naval force and risking a major military conflagration.

Therefore, just as the B-52H came and went without action to impede ISIS's creep closer to Baghdad, the Roosevelt is not likely to halt Iranian warships before they reach Yemen.

http://www.debka.com/article/24611/Next-challenge-for-US-after-Ramadi-defeat-Iranian-ship-nears-Yemeni-shore

[Xavier_Onassis]

The US did, in fact, rule Iraq for a while.
They did a terrible job of it, and handed it over to some Iraqis who had a more local sort of incompetence.

The money funding ISIS comes from sources in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrein. individuals in those countries.
ISIS control will affect the governments of each of these countries more than it will even affect the US.
Let the Sunni states send their troops. Americans tried, and failed after wasting billions and billions.

Blaming Obama for this is asinine and monumentally stupid.

Duct-tape Lindsey Graham to a drone and let him liberate Ramadi.  I do not actually give a shit.

[Christians4LessGvt]

Duct-tape Lindsey Graham to a drone and let him liberate Ramadi.  I do not actually give a shit.

Should we "duct-tape to a drone" the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee as well?

https://www.yahoo.com/digest/20150519/iraq-struggles-ramadis-fall-top-democrat-sounds-alarm-strategy-10522054

[Xavier_Onassis]

I think that duct taping Graham would be sufficient. I observe that Graham is from South Carolina, where Boeing makes drones. Perhaps that is why he is drone-happy. He says that he wants to kill anyone who THINKS about joining Isis with a drone, US citizen or not. Clearly an insane remark. But the silly nancyboy wants to fund his presidential campaign, so he is all for drones.

Iraq was a mistake, from beginning to end. Sending troops to Iraq again would be no more successful than the last time.

[sirs]

The US did, in fact, rule Iraq for a while.

That was never an intention or goal.....NEVER.  It was required after the mission was accomplished of taking down Saddam.  When Iraqis were ready to take back control, WE PUSHED FOR IT, WE SUPPORTED IT, as in we never wanted to rule Iraq.  It was messy, but Iraq was working.....Until Obama of course, when HE pulled all our troops out.  We have residual forces all over the globe to help reinforce and train the national forces.  But no, Obama couldn't be bothered to do that......and now we reap the repercussions

[Xavier_Onassis]

If Iraq can only be stable with US troops deployed there and getting shot every so often, then you have to weigh the dangers of what might happen in the US if Iraq were unstable vs the dead US soldiers and the billions of dollars it costs to keep them there.

The US has proven that it cannot make Iraq stable. The Sunnis want to be in charge because they traditionally have been in charge. The Shias want to be in charge because they are in the majority. Neither side is willing to make nice. American troops cannot force them to be nice.

We have spent a fortune training and equipping the Iraqi Army. There were 3000 of them at Ramadi. When they saw the ISIS troops coming, they wet their pants, screamed like little girls, turned bright yellow and fled, leaving millions of dollars of ammo and weapons behind. We cannot make Iraq independently stable if they behave like that. Even ARVN was more loyal to its government than these sissies.

Money and arms to support ISIS comes from Saudi and other Gulf citizens. The Saudis are far more at risk for ISIS domination than the US. You cannot have a real Islamic State unless you control Mecca and Medina. If the Saudis, Kuwaitis Emiris and others do not want ISIS to win, they can fight them.

The US has proven that it cannot  permanently cause Iraq to settle down into a stable country. If you think that the US ought to send troops, you pay for it. Hold a bake sale. Sell cookies or calendars.

[sirs]

If Iraq can only be stable with US troops deployed there and getting shot every so often, then you have to weigh the dangers of what might happen in the US if Iraq were unstable vs the dead US soldiers and the billions of dollars it costs to keep them there.

Now that's a reasonable argument to make.  Given the region any troops that remained indeed would be more at risk than some batallion still stationed in Germany.  Point being that Iraq was working, it was becoming more stable, ISIS was barely a blip before Obama took office.  It wasn't perfect, but nothing in the middle east is going to be perfect.  It can easily be argued that a remaining force stationed, like we have stationed in many other countries, following conflict, would have been in the best position to take out any growing insurgency, like ISIS, which would have led to even greater stability, and possibly a region wide suppression of Radical Isalmic terrorists.

We'll never know now, will we.

The US has proven that it cannot make Iraq stable.

As even Obama & Biden were spouting, before they pulled the wool out, the U.S. had proven ot could help make Iraq stable

We have spent a fortune training and equipping the Iraqi Army. There were 3000 of them at Ramadi. When they saw the ISIS troops coming, they wet their pants, screamed like little girls, turned bright yellow and fled, leaving millions of dollars of ammo and weapons behind. We cannot make Iraq independently stable if they behave like that.

Which takes us right back to the 1st paragraph, that if an existing U.S. force had still been stationed, not only would they not have run, the ISIS troops would have been beaten to a pulp.

Money and arms to support ISIS comes from Saudi and other Gulf citizens. The Saudis are far more at risk for ISIS domination than the US. You cannot have a real Islamic State unless you control Mecca and Medina. If the Saudis, Kuwaitis Emiris and others do not want ISIS to win, they can fight them.

Irelevent to the events in Iraq, and how Obama has allowed it to be lost

[Xavier_Onassis]

There is no way that this country can retain control of Iraq forever. It is not even desirable for us to try.
Iraq is for the Iraqis. If they cannot retain control because their army is a bunch of cowardly incompetents, then screw 'em.

Obama did not "lose" Ramadi, because he never owned it.

[sirs]

Nor did we have any intention to "control Iraq forever"