Iraqi men outside the main army recruiting center in Baghdad on Thursday, volunteering for military service against insurgents.
Karim Kadim/Associated Press
Friday, June 13, 2014
Iran has reportedly (click here) intervened in the Iraq conflict, deploying a branch of the Revolutionary Guards to bolster Iraqi government troops who have been routed by the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis).
Iran’s Quds Forces helped troops from Nouri al-Maliki’s beleaguered Shia-led Iraqi government to retake 85 per cent of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s birthplace, from Isis yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said the Islamic Republic “will not tolerate this violence and terrorism . . . we will fight and battle violence and extremism and terrorism in the region and the world”....
The media isn't even reporting it correctly.It is more or less like a hurricane blew through the region. It is basically over. The Kurds now hold the northeast, the Sunnis have Al Anbar and the Shi'ites are holding the south. If the ethnic forces didn't respond there would have been far more upheaval than this, but, it is the end of the country of Iraq. The remaining provinces may in time be annexed by Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kurdistan. This probably gives Kurdistan it's first autonomous land with defined borders.
This movement had begun under the no fly zones. If one recalls the first place the USA parachuted into Iraq was within the Kurdish region in the north. Why? Because it was friendly to western forces. The Kurds developed their civilization including governing authority under the no fly zone. As a matter of fact, except for the Saddam invasion into the Shi'ites lands of the south in 2002, the ethnic sections of the country were doing well.
The issues with the Shi'ites screams eons of abuse by the influence of a Sunni dictate. Mass graves, dry wetlands, absent water supplies and then the 2002 invasion into their territory killing 50,000 Shi'ites. This new advance by Sunni extremists is not foreign to Iraq. But, this time there will be sincere divisions within the country and it will permanently split. I am sure the 'province' of Baghdad will attempt to continue to claim to be the government of Iraq and why shouldn't they unless of course the Sunni militias are successful in entering the city and destroying the seat of government.
The UN is correct in warning about violence by the extremist militias, but, as witnessed in this report the people are less inclined to be afraid of them than welcome stability.
This is Iraq and with the ending of so called democracy as The West knows it, there is greater chance the people will find peace within their own regions. If Saudi Arabia annexes An Albar the Saudi government's laws will come to bear and the most violent and threatening of the militants will eventually be found and treated as would any other Saudi citizen in reformation of their lives.
There is too much strength within the separate ethnic groups to expect this to get out of control. I don't see genocide or ethnic cleansing occurring as under Saddam Hussein.
It is up to the people to come to their own defense and the Grand Ayatollah al Sistani can do exactly that. He marshals them to defend what is their's through some extraordinary circumstances. Never before had I witnessed masses of people come together to defend their Holy Land and stopped a USA military directive. It was amazing. Not a shot was fired either. I am less worried about this outcome than if the USA decided to return to the region and cause their own form of violence.
ERBIL, Iraq — After Islamic extremists (click here) swarmed his city this week, Saad Hussein fled here with his wife and six children. But after one night, he was on his way back home to Mosul, hearing that things were quiet there.
“What can we do?” said Mr. Hussein, at a checkpoint on the road from Erbil to Mosul. “You have to depend on your God.”
Another man stood nearby, his two small sons tugging at his belt. He had left Mosul and was waiting to enter Erbil, about 50 miles to the east. “We don’t know what will happen in the future,” said the man, Ahmed Ali, 31. “The government is not there. It’s empty.”
As many as 500,000 Iraqis fled Mosul this week after the city was besieged by the extremist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, many of them Sunnis who seemed less fearful of the beheadings and summary justice that the group is known for than of their own government and the barrage it might unleash in an effort to take the city back.
That many Sunnis would prefer to take their chances under a militant group so violent it was thrown out of Al Qaeda sharply illustrates how difficult it will be for the Iraqi government to reassert control. Any aggressive effort by Baghdad to retake the city could reinforce the Iraqi Army’s reputation as an occupying force, rather than a guarantor of security....
