It is shocking that international commitment to liberating large parts of Iraq from Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) has been so weak, and that the headlines coming out of the Paris conference on Iraq are so bland. It is ludicrous that early communiques from the conference only managed to state that western and Arab states carrying out air strikes on Daesh have backed Iraq’s plan to retake territory from the terrorist movement.
Iraq’s international allies have consistently under-supplied Iraq’s armed forces with weapons and ammunition, so that Daesh and its allies have both out-fought and out-gunned the Iraqi forces. In this desperate situation it points to the current Daesh victory that the only modest objective in which the Iraqis have succeeded is to retake the city of Tikrit, while Iraq’s second largest city Mosul remains firmly under Daesh control, Ramadi has just been lost, and a third of the country is still under terrorist rule.
In this situation, the international coalition allies need to do a lot more to support the Iraqi government of Haidar Al Abadi. While they are deeply wary of putting forces on the ground, the war against Daesh cannot be won from the air alone. Troops are needed and while the Iraqi forces should take the lead in the action, they certainly need more active support than they have been getting. They need heavy weapons, ammunition and more active logistics, command, control and intelligence support.
In the absence of proper international military support, Al Abadi has turned to Iraq’s Shiite militias that are backed by Iran, which will have dangerous long-term political consequences. Much of the international attention of the Paris conference was focused on the need for Al Abadi to build up a more inclusive rapport with the Sunni part of Iraq, which is absolutely necessary and it was a mistake for Al Abadi to exclude the Kurds from the conference. But this must not stop Iraq’s allies from doing a lot more to help Baghdad on the ground.
