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)
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.
From the archives. Two pieces on KRG from 2014 that are perhaps of some relevance today. https://t.co/aiR3db77EI; https://t.co/zANmRYNQfT
— Tony Badran (@AcrossTheBay) October 16, 2017
These quotes are not from today but from three years ago.
By way of background: pic.twitter.com/F8akuDZ9Ti
— Tony Badran (@AcrossTheBay) October 16, 2017
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.
4- The strangest thing about this situation is that both sides (peshmerga &Iraq army) are equipped/trained by U.S. https://t.co/1kGovmtPmR
— Jenan Moussa (@jenanmoussa) October 16, 2017
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.
— U.S. Embassy Baghdad (@USEmbBaghdad) October 16, 2017
And the German military assistance group is looking for the exits:
https://twitter.com/ObserverTurkish/status/919997606272622593
Naturally, the Turks have come in on the side of anything that stymies Kurdish independence.
23- Turkey says it fully supports Baghdad in restoring stability in #Kirkuk &countering the PKK.
— Jenan Moussa (@jenanmoussa) October 16, 2017
Today, Iraqi forces, with IRGC advisers in tow, rolled into Kirkuk to reclaim it from the KRG and peshmerga.
2- Context: Baghdad wants to take back from KRG 2 military bases &3 oil fields mainly located outside residential Kirkuk. Kurds refuse that. pic.twitter.com/xkXXlUKDMb
— Jenan Moussa (@jenanmoussa) October 16, 2017
Shia militias publish videos of burning Kurdish houses in Tuz Khormato in south Kirkuk #Iraq #Kurdistan via Turkmen Youths of Iraq T.G.M pic.twitter.com/BVUOBZ7dkg
— Fazel Hawramy (@FazelHawramy) October 15, 2017
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.
Lowering of Kurdish flag, raising of Iraqi at Kirkuk's provincial council building. CTS's Asadi, Badr's Amiri and PMU's Mohandes look on pic.twitter.com/NlsaC12ssE
— Loveday Morris (@LovedayM) October 16, 2017
Who are these people? They are Iranian assets leading forces we have trained and equipped.
https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/919980002195726336
6- Do you see the flames in the horizon? This is Baba Gurgur oil field. It's still in Kurdish hands &I am looking at it right now. @akhbar pic.twitter.com/Tq4t98fABC
— Jenan Moussa (@jenanmoussa) October 16, 2017
10- Iraq forces say K1 military base in western #Kirkuk is now under control. Check it's location on map. @akhbar pic.twitter.com/OAmxTFZzri
— Jenan Moussa (@jenanmoussa) October 16, 2017
3- Friday night, we passed by one oil field claimed now by Baghdad. It's called Bai Hassan &it's huge. Have a look pic.twitter.com/TaN11os80e
— Jenan Moussa (@jenanmoussa) October 16, 2017
Statement from the Peshmerge General command: From the dawn of 16/10 IRGC popular mobilization forces under the command of Uranian Officer Iqbalpur with support of some other Iraqi forces lunched offensive in Kirkuk area.
— Hemin Hawrami (@heminhawrami) October 16, 2017
Statement from the Peshmerge General command: We reassure Kurdistan people despite the Iraqis, & IRGC plots and treason of some officials, Peshmerge are defending heroically . This plot will fail and the will of our people will prevail.
— Hemin Hawrami (@heminhawrami) October 16, 2017
https://twitter.com/NadavPollak/status/919883459618902018
And with the victory in Kirkuk, we see some familiar things happening.
Iraqi soldier steps on German, American and Kurdish flag pic.twitter.com/3TyMZ2kX9E
— Syrian Civil War Map (@CivilWarMap) October 16, 2017
#BREAKING: At least ten Peshmerga soldiers beheaded by Hashd al-Shaabi in Kirkuk https://t.co/YYDZjIWjZu #KurdistanBlockade pic.twitter.com/Ny8TPh18Dv
— Rudaw English (@RudawEnglish) October 16, 2017
Everybody here on Kurdish side outside Kirkuk in state of shock. Peshmergas can't believe Kirkuk has fallen in one day. pic.twitter.com/7cy2qOPvV4
— Harald Doornbos (@HaraldDoornbos) October 16, 2017
32- From talking to people massively leaving Kirkuk, u definitely get the sense Kurds lost the city for now. Everyone is stunned. @akhbar
— Jenan Moussa (@jenanmoussa) October 16, 2017
⚡️ “How the battle for #Kirkuk unfolded step by step"https://t.co/XqnHFkRf9f
— Jenan Moussa (@jenanmoussa) October 16, 2017
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.
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.
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