2014 in Iraq

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/iraqs-political-situation-dire-as-maliki-digs-in/2014/08/11/1c70942a-213a-11e4-958c-268a320a60ce_story.html?hpid=z1

Iraq’s president named prominent Shiite politician Haider al-Abadi as the country’s new prime minister Monday, dislodging incumbent Nouri al-Maliki after eight years in office despite a show of force as he clung to power.

President Fouad Massoum called on Abadi, a member of Maliki’s ruling party and currently the deputy speaker of parliament, to form a new government.

Maliki has been standing his ground despite mounting pressure from domestic opponents and the Obama administration for him to step aside. He has been widely blamed for the growth of an insurgency by Sunni Muslim extremists that has ravaged the country.

x-post re $ to ISIS:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/isis-saudi-arabia-iraq-syria-bandar/373181/

The worry at the time, punctuated by a February meeting between U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice and the intelligence chiefs of Turkey, Qatar, Jordan, and others in the region, was that ISIS and al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra had emerged as the preeminent rebel forces in Syria. The governments who took part reportedly committed to cut off ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, and support the FSA instead. But while official support from Qatar and Saudi Arabia appears to have dried up, non-governmental military and financial support may still be flowing from these countries to Islamist groups.

fucking al-nusra

who is more anti-american: ISIS or the GOP?

ugh, i miss the trenchant social commentary thread

are we being greeted as liberators again?

no but Cheney is greeting Obama as a traitor again

obama is a huge traitor! what was he thinking, arming the iraqi insurgents? good thing the GOP is around to straighten this all out

nyt: "The Kurds have begun receiving weapons from outside sources, American officials said on Monday. Although the United States was aware of the weapons deliveries, officials would not comment on the types of arms or on who was providing them."

Turkey is no doubt giving this development some serious side-eye.

no doubt turkey would prefer no kurdistan

That has been the traditional position but Erdogan and Barzani are fairly close these days. There's a strong probability that they still don't want an independent Kurdistan but if it happened and it created a strong ally partially reliant on Turkey, some are saying he might not think it is the worst thing that could happen.

i know that the relationship has made a lot of strides but surely he must be concerned about a kurdish separatist movement in turkey if kurdistan became a reality?

or are you saying that he might be willing to just cede that area?

I am surprised to hear that Erdogan would even entertain the possibility of a kurdish state on their border

No, Turkey would want to keep it. The theory is that Iraqi Kurdistan could be contained within its current borders. I doubt they really want to risk it, but the upside in extending Turkey's informal influence is supposedly a factor the government is considering. Xp

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/hillary-clinton-failure-to-help-syrian-rebels-led-to-the-rise-of-isis/375832/

Clinton v. Obama re whether there were moderate rebels in Syria who could have been helped early on, and whose possible success could have affected ISIS. She seems to be staking out a political position for 2016...

such bullshit monday-morning quarterbacking to position herself as sufficiently hawkish, v pukeworthy

like I get it Hillary you are into wars and shit

ok now I can't figure out if Obama is more evil or stupid

(his three predecessors who bombed Iraq, including Mr Hillary, it's a little more clear)

eh I think the idea that we could have armed/financed a coalition of anti-Assad fighters (that *weren't* explicitly jihadist) is p specious

If only we'd asked all the good rebels to stand over to one side and all the bad ones to stand on the other. "Hands up if you're planning to use our weapons for jihad! OK, no weapons for you."

"Are you affiliated with Al-Qaeda, Al-Moderat, or other?"

remember how far being a uber hawk got hillary in 2008? oh yeah second place.

finally we'll have a Thatcher of our own

god it's horrible this woman is the presumed nominee – again.

and Rob Reiner has made sure "there is no one else" this time

I think Hillary can fuck this up as badly as she did last time and Warren or some other dark horse will swoop in and take it form her.

At least I can hope..

Hope was the last election bro

ERBIL, Iraq — A helicopter carrying aid from Iraq’s Kurdish autonomous government to stranded Yazidi refugees in the Sinjar mountains of northern Iraq crashed on Tuesday, killing the pilot and injuring other passengers, including a Yazidi member of Parliament and a New York Times journalist.

from NY Times

http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/08/11/obamas-drive-war-iraq

Yesterday's take, but what will they think today

the quantum theory of obama: he is either a tyrant or an empty suit, depending on how one stages the experiment

tbf the same dynamic was true of dubya

that's true, he was king george and curious george at the same time. sometimes i miss him, at least he presented streamlined evil that was easy to hate. obama is more of a crushing apathy.

obama will be remembered as a great president. bush is the posterboy for everything wrong in the invisible united states caste system. simplistic and binary perhaps but fuck it it's true

prophetic shakey:
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/08/12/us_attempts_to_build_coalition_of_the_willing_for_iraq

the good news and bad news of Malike being out of power

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iraq-maliki-20140814-story.html#page=1

U.S. officials hope Abadi, the prime minister-designate, will be willing to share power with Sunnis, drawing support away from the insurgency. But some officials acknowledge that the U.S. may have to get more deeply involved militarily in coming months to give Abadi time to implement the kind of political measures that Washington has long sought.

Iraq faces a massive challenge regaining the territory it has lost since Islamic State forces swept out of Syria in the spring and raced across the country’s west and north, relying on a patchwork of disgruntled Sunni militias to help hold cities and drive out government troops.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/yazidis-killed-in-kocho-near-sinjar-after-obama-calls-off-rescue-mission/2014/08/15/31478a3c-e46e-4c4c-8406-d0f27073a308_story.html?hpid=z2

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-iraq-islamic-state-fighters-capturing-yazidi-women-to-take-them-as-wives/2014/08/16/3a349cd6-24d2-11e4-958c-268a320a60ce_story.html?hpid=z1

More trouble for the Yazidis while elsewhere the Kurds & the Iraqi armi with US airsupport are trying to take back Iraq's largest dam.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/iraqi-ground-forces-us-jets-launch-offensive-to-retake-dam-from-militants/2014/08/17/d904756d-10ab-47b9-889c-d3b00343470f_story.html?hpid=z1

I know some would prefer isolationism from the US and West, but US supported (via planes and drones) Iraqi govt & Kurds have retaken Mosul dam. No further word on Yazidi women seized by IS extremists

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/18/iraqi-kurdish-forces-recapture-mosul-dam-isis

obama will be remembered as a great president. bush is the posterboy for everything wrong in the invisible united states caste system. simplistic and binary perhaps but fuck it it's true

so much for the rumor that this level of delusion was not to be found on ILX

obama probably will be 'remembered as a great president,' tbh. ppl used to speculate that bush will eventually enjoy some kind of truman-style reevaluation but i doubt it.

feel like obama will be like carter in that he will accomplish exponentially more out of office than in it

or he'll cash out something fierce and continue to confirm that he was not who we thought he was in 08

maybe he'll work pro bono for whistleblowers, refreeze those icecaps with his breath, and free Iraq as a commando

the standards for 'great presidents' have been pretty low ever since everyone decided reagan got to join the club.

I say ugh to having to boil down opinions on a president to one sentence. I cannot apply one word ("great") or sentence to the handling of NSA, whistleblowers, Wall Street, the stimulus bill, health care, Libya, Iraq, climate change and more. My opinion on his handling of each of these varies. Plus, this thread is supposed to about Iraq in 2014.

Journalist James Wright Foley beheaded by ISIS. 2011 short piece on his kidnapping by Jon Lee Anderson:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/libya-four-missing-journalists

So what I picked up so far is that ISIS won't stand much of a chance if they try to expand north (wd mean fighting Kurds in Kurdish territory) or south or east (wd mean fighting Shia in Shia territory). Is this accurate? Are they likely to try, regardless?

I'm not sure how much of it is our airstrikes and how much of it is Kurds/Shia. But I would guess they'd have a much harder time fighting and governing in Kurd or Shia territory than they have had so far.