The Triple Victory of the Islamic State in Iraq

By capturing Ramadi, the Islamic State is making a mockery of the American strategy of using airstrikes, and has revealed the failure of the government to restore a semblance of unity to country.

Last week, Gen. Thomas Weidley, number two in the American high command in Iraq, made a statement which should have resulted in his immediate recall to Washington. He said that, “The extremists are on the defensive and are incapable of assembling large forces capable of launching coordinated attacks. This is the result of the aerial campaigns undertaken with our allies.”*

The Limits of Undertaking Everything by Air

On the following Tuesday, May 19, the tanks and armored vehicles of the 8th division of the Iraqi army – followed by the troops who piled into whatever trucks they could find – abandoned the town of Ramadi, barely putting up a fight. Ramadi, which has 500,000 inhabitants, is the capital of Anbar province, and is as far from Baghdad as Chartres is from Paris. In other words, the Iraqi army has allowed the Islamic State group to take control of a town which is almost at the gates of the Iraqi capital. It left behind weapons, munitions and provisions, and showed no concern for the distraught civilians who fled as fast as they could in front of the barbarian hordes.

This is the most serious defeat for the Iraqi army and the coalition that supports it, since Mosul was taken 11 months ago, when the army also fled in desperate fashion. However, 3,000 American military advisers have since arrived in Iraq to reinvigorate the army. They have trained 7,000 Iraqi soldiers and another 4,000 should follow. But a few jihadi suicide attacks have been enough to make a division flee.

This is not due to a lack of air support from the U.S. Air Force and its allies, which includes France and the Gulf states. Over the course of a month, there were 170 strikes on the Islamic State group columns advancing towards Ramadi, and there were seven bombardments on the eve of the town’s fall. An entirely air-based strategy is increasingly showing its limitations, especially given the minimal willingness of the Iraqis to fight. Even American public opinion is beginning to be swayed. Although Americans are reluctant for any engagement by ground troops in the fight against the jihadi, a poll taken last month showed that just under 50 percent of Americans are aware that airstrikes may be inadequate and may now support the engagement of ground troops to put an end to the threat of the Islamic State group.

The Failure of the al-Abadi Government

But the most serious failure revealed by this military defeat is once again that of the Iraqi government and Prime Minister al-Abadi to restore at least a semblance of unity to the country. The Shiite authorities’ mistrust of the Sunni tribes, which the election of a new government was supposed to have overcome, has proved disastrous in Ramadi. Reinforcements, weapons and funds, all of which had been promised, never reached those defending Ramadi, who had not been paid for six months. Maybe this was because corruption continues to infect the country and funds and weapons were diverted to the black market. Or maybe it was due to a continuing mistrust of Sunnis, who were at best suspected of preparing for the return to power of the supporters of Saddam Hussein, or at worst, of secretly fueling the jihadi insurgency, which, like them, is Sunni.

Since the fall of Ramadi, al-Abadi has said many times that he would speed up the formation of a Sunni militia to reconquer the territory lost to the jihadi, but the tribal chiefs may no longer trust him. Especially since, instead of sending weapons to the Sunni tribes, the prime minister has called in the Shiite militia to reconquer Ramadi as quickly as possible, rather than the army. But these infamous paramilitary groups, which stem from the Iranian Hezbollah, are accused of continuing to commit atrocities against the Sunni population.

While awaiting this counterattack, the White House has opted for wishful thinking. So on Monday, Obama’s spokesman, Eric Shultz, declared, “We cannot deny that Ramadi is a setback. But you must admit that we have also had some successes like the defeat inflicted on the extremists who wanted to take Tikrit, or the successful strike by Delta Forces which prevented a jihadi chief from causing damage at the Syrian border.”*

Indeed, but we could also remind him that after Ramadi in Iraq, the incomparable ruins of Palmyra in Syria are now falling into the hands of the barbarians.

*Editor’s Note: Although this quote was accurately translated, it could not be verified.