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Foreign Affairs
Related: About this forumWhy Iraq's Military Has No Will to Fight
Why Iraq's Military Has No Will to Fightby Matt Schiavenza at the Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/05/why-iraqs-military-has-no-will-to-fight/394067/
"SNIP................
What accounts for the Iraqi militarys failure? Many problems stem from the Bush Administration decision to disband the existing Iraq military in 2003 and build a new one from scratch. Intended to rid the institution of officers linked to Saddam Hussein, the move instead left thousands of armed men unemployed and embittered. This contributed to a security vacuum within Iraqi society and fed a vicious anti-U.S. insurgency. Many high-ranking officials who served under Saddam have now become senior commanders with ISIS.
The Iraqi army is also notoriously corrupt, a legacy of Nouri al-Malikis years as prime minister. Fearful that a strong military would pose a threat to his power, al-Maliki replaced top commanders with political patrons drawn from his Shia sect, undermining any attempt to establish a merit-based system of promotion. So-called ghost battalions draw salaries despite never reporting for duty, and the forces who do remain are no match for fanatical ISIS fighters. Military training, no matter how intensive, and weaponry, no matter how sophisticated and powerful, is no substitute for belief in a cause, William Astore, a former U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, wrote last year in the American Conservative.
But the main problem with the Iraqi military is the problem with Iraq as a wholethe country effectively no longer exists as a unified state. Kurdistan, for all intents and purposes, acts as an independent country. Much of the Sunni population lives in territories controlled by ISIS. The rump Iraqi government, meanwhile, operates in close cooperation with Iran, who funds Shia militias that act as a paramilitary force. The Iraqi military, then, is less a cause of the countrys failures than a reflection of them.
In response to the persistent ISIS threat, some senatorsincluding the famously hawkish John McCainhave advocated redeploying American ground troops in Iraq. President Obama has resisted this move, telling Goldberg that instead the U.S. should seek effective partners within the Iraq government to help secure the countrys territory. But absent more fundamental changes in Iraqs political situation, its hard to see its military gathering the will to fight that Carter believes it lacks.
...............SNIP"
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Why Iraq's Military Has No Will to Fight (Original Post)
applegrove
May 2015
OP
Insulting the soldiers of another country, basically calling them cowards, is really a great
TwilightGardener
May 2015
#2
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)1. I remember when the same things were said
about the South Vietnamese military. The same old militaristic idiocy in a new package.
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)2. Insulting the soldiers of another country, basically calling them cowards, is really a great
way to build morale. They have long-standing deep troubles, heavy losses, and poor leadership--but you go to war with the army you have, as Assclown Carter's dear friend Donald Rumsfeld said.