Mister President, What Is Your National Security Team Doing to the Iraqi Kurds?

By streiff | 9:28 PM on October 16, 2017
The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.
Iraqi security forces and Popular Mobilization Forces patrol in Tuz Khormato, that was evacuated by Kurdish security forces, 130 miles (210 kilometers) north of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Oct. 16, 2017. Two weeks after fighting together against the Islamic State, Iraqi forces pushed their Kurdish allies out of the disputed city of Kirkuk on Monday, seizing oil fields and other facilities amid soaring tensions over last month's Kurdish vote for independence. (AP Photo)

Iraqi security forces and Popular Mobilization Forces patrol in Tuz Khormato, that was evacuated by Kurdish security forces, 130 miles (210 kilometers) north of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Oct. 16, 2017. Two weeks after fighting together against the Islamic State, Iraqi forces pushed their Kurdish allies out of the disputed city of Kirkuk on Monday, seizing oil fields and other facilities amid soaring tensions over last month’s Kurdish vote for independence. (AP Photo)

Advertisement

One of the anomalies of the fight against ISIS is that our strategic monomania on suppressing one of the frequent millennia cults that arise in Islam (Christianity has them too, they just don’t kill people–at least on the industrial scale–and tend sit on empty hilltops awaiting the Second Coming) is that we found ourselves allied with a state sponsor of terror: Iran. Today, the Iranian militias we trained and equipped rolled over an ostensible US ally, the Kurdistan Regional Government, began what looks like a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kirkuk and topped it all off with the beheading of captured Kurdish peshmerga.

This is the background…or at least as best as I can sort it out.

Tony Badran, who is one of two or three absolute “must follow” folks on Twitter to understand what is happening in the Middle East, has two prescient pieces here on Iran’s warnings to the KRG on the dangers of seeking independence. See my post from yesterday for details on the various Kurd factions, their alliances and rivalries.

These quotes are not from today but from three years ago.

Advertisement

In our haste to eradicate ISIS, a course of action that I think was more visceral (they were so Muslim that Obama thought they weren’t Muslim) and political (saying we were destroying ISIS became a substitute for strategic thinking) that we ended up allied not only with al-Qaeda-lite militias in Syria but with actual subsidiaries of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in Iraq. These militias, called Popular Mobilization Forces, or PMF, are descendants of the Sadrist Shia militias we fought in Iraq. Only now we have trained and equipped them because they are an official part of the Iraqi Army.

And, of course, by focusing on ISIS we have placed ourselves on the same side as Bashar Assad, who we are allegedly opposing, Russia, and, as I mentioned, Iran.

https://twitter.com/omriceren/status/919995240932696064

Because of our support of the PMF and the Iraqi Army, we are now in the position of using Rodney King diplomacy because we have soldiers at risk.

And the German military assistance group is looking for the exits:

https://twitter.com/ObserverTurkish/status/919997606272622593

Advertisement

Naturally, the Turks have come in on the side of anything that stymies Kurdish independence.

Today, Iraqi forces, with IRGC advisers in tow, rolled into Kirkuk to reclaim it from the KRG and peshmerga.

Note that they are using Turkmen militia here, an ethnic group that is predisposed to disposing of Kurds.

This is the flag raising in Kirkuk.

Who are these people? They are Iranian assets leading forces we have trained and equipped.

https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/919980002195726336

Advertisement

https://twitter.com/NadavPollak/status/919883459618902018

And with the victory in Kirkuk, we see some familiar things happening.

Advertisement

What is notable in this is that the PUK, the Patriotic Party of Kurdistan, one of the minority parties in the KRG, has sided with Iraq.

All we can say to the KRG and peshmerga, who have been our most loyal Middle East ally after Israel for the past two decades is

In all fairness, this strategy was developed by the Obama administration and it was developed without any real complaints out of CENTCOM. And the monomaniacal focus on the destruction of ISIS made partnering with the IRGC inevitable, never mind their track record of blowing up American installations. This policy has continued under the current Defense Secretary and National Security Adviser because they were pretty much co-opted by the status quo when they came on board. We’ve kept on staff Brett McGurk–the nimrod who screwed up Iraqi SOFA negotiations while sleeping with a Wall Street Journal reporter (FEMALE, THANK HEAVEN!!) and getting blow jobs from a State Department staffer (FEMALE, THANK HEAVEN!!) on the roof to the US embassy in Baghdad–who has seen this plan through to its unfortunate, though logical and foreseeable, consequences.

Advertisement

ISIS is gone. This romance we have with Iranian proxies, be they the PMF in Iraq or the Lebanese Armed Forces, which are a thinly disguised adjunct of Hezbollah and Iran, has to cease. We need to keep our eye on the main objective in the region which is crushing Iranian hegemony. To do that, we need allies. And this is not how to treat them.

Streiff

Former infantry officer, CGSC grad and Army Operations Center alumnus. Also an amateur historian (Colonial America) and a dabbler in historical fiction.
RedState member since 2004. "He would rather pinch off his own head than admit he's wrong" -- Daily Kos. Follow me on Twitter. 

Read more by Streiff

Recommended

Biden Brags About Defying the Supreme Court As the Slurring and Incoherence Hit a Fever Pitch Nick Arama
EXCLUSIVE: FEC Reports Show Ted Lieu Apparently Used Campaign Donations For Personal Gain Jennifer Van Laar
Whoops: Biden Just Let the Cat Out of the Bag About Raising Your Taxes If He's Put Back In Office Nick Arama
WATCH: CNN Reporter’s Play-by-Play of Man on Fire Incident at Trump Trial Courthouse Has People Talking Sister Toldjah
Cannibal-Gate Escalates After the White House Offers Up Another Excuse for Joe Biden's Bizarre Lie Bonchie
Press Shoots Airballs on WNBA 'Fair Wage' Talk As One Question Shuts Them Down, Sending Them to the Bench Brad Slager

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Trending on RedState Videos

Advertisement
Trending
1
Biden Brags About Defying the Supreme Court As the Slurring and Incoherence Hit a Fever Pitch
2
EXCLUSIVE: FEC Reports Show Ted Lieu Apparently Used Campaign Donations For Personal Gain
3
Whoops: Biden Just Let the Cat Out of the Bag About Raising Your Taxes If He's Put Back In Office
4
WATCH: CNN Reporter’s Play-by-Play of Man on Fire Incident at Trump Trial Courthouse Has People Talking
5
Cannibal-Gate Escalates After the White House Offers Up Another Excuse for Joe Biden's Bizarre Lie
Catholic St. Louis University Tells Bud Light 'Hold My Beer,' Asks Dylan Mulvaney to Speak
Becky Noble
Springtime in Alaska: Take Care and Beware of the Bears Up There
Ward Clark
How to Debate an 'Ethical Vegan'
Ward Clark
'The Voters Don't Like Her': Arizona Focus Groups Offer 'Brutal' Assessments of Kamala Harris
Brittany Sheehan
Pro-Hamas Protesters Return to Columbia University, Vow to 'Hold This Line'
Ward Clark
Here Is What Motivates White Progressives Like Katherine Maher
Jeff Charles
Advertisement