Professor Vijay Prashads reading of the menace of ISIS in Iraq and Syria--and the challenge of the forces in the region to confront it--the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 remains the principal culprit: Alignment among the countries of West Asia to tackle the Islamic State is meagre. Suspicion between the Peshmerga and the Iraqi Army prevent these natural allies from proper coordination. Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki promised to send his air force to assist the Peshmerga. But the question is: what air force? When the U.S. destroyed the Iraqi state in 2003, it was slow to allow the military to be rebuilt and rearmed so that it could operate independently of U.S. air cover and heavy weaponry. Iraq’s army, like Afghanistan’s army, formed under U.S. tutelage, was to operate as the front-line forces for U.S. operations. It is simply not able to fight the Islamic State on its own --- which is why it consistently asks the U.S. for aerial support, a dependent mentality that reproduces the idea that only the U.S. is capable of being the worlds policeman. “America is coming to help,” said U.S. President Barack Obama on August 8. But only because the U.S. has created a situation where Iraq cannot help itself. The U.S. also bombed U.S.-made M198 howitzers, which the Islamic State had stolen from the Iraqi Army in June and had deployed near Irbil.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 23:46:25 +0000