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Is An Israeli Attack Upon Iraq Imminent?
Israel appears to be making its final diplomatic moves before striking at Iraq for 12 months of attacks by Iraq’s Islamic Resistance.
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Dr. Michael Izady of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs recently gave an interview to the Swiss-based International Relat... -
Professor Nadje Al-Ali is a professor of gender studies at SOAS, University of London. She has authored several books and articles... -
Recent media reports put into question the future of the U.S.-organized Sons of Iraq (SOI) program. Currently there are approximately 103,00...
4 comments:
The problem with the Awakening fighters not getting paid is that it seems genuinely hard to tell if it's corruption or ill-will, since even regular soldiers and police often go unpaid for long stretches of time.
On a more general note, Joel, do you have any thoughts on WTF is going on with the recent spate of big bombings in Ninevah? That seems not to have been the bad guys' MO in the Mosul area until fairly recently.
The lack of pay is probably a combination of all of the above. The government isn't good at paying anyone, they don't want to pay the SOI, and there's the corruption.
As for Ninewa, it seems like the insurgency is just returning to their previous 2008 levels after the dip due ot the provincial elections. I don't know if you remember it but there was a massive bombing of a Yazidi village in Aug. 07 that killed or wounded around 500. In Mosul in 2009 there was I think only one month that didn't have a mass casualty bombing. On Aug. 8 there was a massive bombing at a Shiite mosque in the city that killed 30 and wounded 88.Also the big impetus to start the last Baghdad offensive in Mosul was another big bombing, followed by a booby trap bombing the next day that killed rescue workers and the police chief.
As much as it isn't a solution at all, maybe we should consider paying them. $250 per month per fighter is not a lot of money in the context of our war effort. We could probably do that indefinitely.
Of course, we don't want to be solving the Iraqi governments problems for it in this way, but I imagine if things get bad again we might have to do that.
I think it's very unlikely that the U.S. will go back into Iraq in any large way. Not only that, but I don't think Maliki would let them. Whatever is going to happen to the SOI will be determined by Baghdad. The U.S. can only watch and try to get some leaders out of jail if they get arrested.
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