Battle for Mosul Tests Obama Strategy to Shift Fight’s Burden From U.S.

Air Langhi · Oct 18, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/18/us/politics/mosul-iraq-obama-strategy.html

WASHINGTON — As Iraqi forces launch their long-awaited campaign to retake the city of Mosul from the Islamic State, President Obama’s doctrine of aiding other countries militarily rather than leading every fight is facing its greatest test yet.

How well the Mosul campaign goes, not just the fighting over the coming days and weeks but the rebuilding of the city in the months after that, will help define Mr. Obama’s legacy as a wartime leader who sought to take the United States off the front lines of the counterterrorism war.

On Monday, in keeping with the president’s insistence that the Iraqis take the lead, the White House said that Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi was “calling the shots.” But the reality is that roughly half of the 5,000 American troops now in Iraq are likely to be involved in the operation, which could eventually require 30,000 Iraqi and Kurdish troops.

About 200 to 300 of the Americans are Special Operations commandos advising Iraqi and Kurdish troops — a mission that will put them a few miles behind the front lines, communicating with Iraqi soldiers via radio. A few dozen are forward air controllers, who are already calling in airstrikes against Islamic State targets, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the American commander in charge of the coalition in Iraq and Syria, said on Monday.

The other Americans range from Apache helicopter pilots to intelligence analysts at Iraq’s military headquarters.

“Our men and women in uniform, who are serving in Iraq, are putting themselves in harm’s way,” said the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest. “There’s no one, including the commander in chief, who would downplay the risks that they are taking on our behalf.”

For the White House, there were other tensions, including the need both here and in Iraq to cast the United States in a supporting rather than a central role. At one point, Mr. Earnest noted that the United States had helped the Iraqis stabilize two other smaller Iraqi cities, Ramadi and Tikrit.

“We’ve done this,” Mr. Earnest said, before catching himself. “I should say, the Iraqis have done this — on a smaller scale.”

Mosul is the largest example of a counterterrorism model that the Obama administration has put in place from Afghanistan to Libya. In Somalia, Special Forces troops are training Somali and other African troops to combat the militants of the Shabab. In Syria, about 300 Special Forces troops are aiding Syrian Kurdish and Arab militias with training and air support in the battle against the Islamic State.

“We need partners to fight terrorists alongside us,” Mr. Obama said at West Point in 2014, when he laid out the counterterrorism strategy to cadets graduating from the United States Military Academy.

But these partnerships have a mixed record. In Iraq, troops have successfully driven the Islamic State out of every major city except Mosul. But in Afghanistan, the Taliban have made steady gains in seizing territory from the American-trained Afghan security forces. They now control at least 30 percent of Afghanistan, and threaten the northern city of Kunduz.
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The United States has already failed once in training Iraqi troops. After $25 billion in aid and nearly a decade of training, the Iraqis melted before the advancing militants of the Islamic State in 2014.

Critics have derided Mr. Obama’s approach as an example of “leading from behind.” But other officials said that if the Mosul operation were successful, it would vindicate Mr. Obama.
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If a country can't defends its own territory why does it exists as a country. Its not like they are fighting the Nazi German war machine. They are fighting a bunch of terrorist with far less resources. If they lose which they might since the Iraqi soldiers seem to want to turn and run what is the point of trying to support Iraq?

rage · Oct 18, 2016

Air Langhi said: ↑

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/18/us/politics/mosul-iraq-obama-strategy.html

If a country can't defends its own territory why does it exists as a country. Its not like they are fighting the Nazi German war machine. They are fighting a bunch of terrorist with far less resources. If they lose which they might since the Iraqi soldiers seem to want to turn and run what is the point of trying to support Iraq?
Click to expand...

According to you, only the tough should survive? Like 200, 500, 1000 years ago ... ?

SamFisher · Oct 18, 2016

Air Langhi said: ↑

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/18/us/politics/mosul-iraq-obama-strategy.html

If a country can't defends its own territory why does it exists as a country. Its not like they are fighting the Nazi German war machine. They are fighting a bunch of terrorist with far less resources. If they lose which they might since the Iraqi soldiers seem to want to turn and run what is the point of trying to support Iraq?
Click to expand...

Probably because having even a barely stable, partially functional nation-state in the region is more favorable to U.S. and international interests (and human decency) than a charred hellscape rampaged by a really obnoxious, shitty death cult whose major export is televised murders.

Exiled · Oct 18, 2016

if it wasn't for US election ,Obama would had continued asking himself this Question:what would go wrong if we don't do this or that
if it wasn't for Erdogan determination to stop militia from killing civilians in Mosul, there would be no plan to evacuate civilians

Dubious · Oct 18, 2016

Why does Iraq exist as a country? Shia, Sunni. Kurd and no tradition of participation in a government.
But no insurgency can hold out against a super-power proxy, it was always just a matter of time and money.

sirbaihu · Oct 18, 2016

Air Langhi said: ↑

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/18/us/politics/mosul-iraq-obama-strategy.html

If a country can't defends its own territory why does it exists as a country. Its not like they are fighting the Nazi German war machine. They are fighting a bunch of terrorist with far less resources. If they lose which they might since the Iraqi soldiers seem to want to turn and run what is the point of trying to support Iraq?
Click to expand...

Dude congratulations on paraphrasing Hitler:

"Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live."
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/adolfhitle393185.html

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Battle for Mosul Tests Obama Strategy to Shift Fight’s Burden From U.S.

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