When it comes to confronting ISIS, Matt Steinglass encourages the US to embrace a supporting, rather than primary, role:
It is much easier and less risky for America to aid the Iraqi government as part of an anti-ISIS coalition with Turkey and Iran than to do so in the guise of Iraq’s leading patron or ISIS’s archenemy. And a limited programme of military aid might be enough to ward off Republican attacks that the administration is doing nothing about ISIS; critics will be hard pressed to explain to a war-weary public why America should be doing even more to reinsert itself into Sunni-Shiite bloodshed in Iraq. This, in fact, appears to be the policy the Obama administration has selected.
I don’t see why the president should do anything to satiate the desires of the neocons – even a “limited program” of military aid. We’ve already given Maliki a huge amount of aid and he has proven unable to use it wisely. Without some serious concession to the Sunni minority – something I cannot see happening for real – it would merely increase the likelihood of ISIS getting its hands on our aid, rather than having it actually making the slightest bit of difference. But if this scenario rings a bell for you, you’re not hallucinating:
Iran, Turkey, and other regional players will have to take the lead in backing the Iraqi government and combating ISIS, because America lacks the expertise, the political will, and ultimately the capacity to do that job. We’ve tried it; it didn’t work. Perhaps the endgame will end up looking something like what happened in South-East Asia 40 years ago. After America’s departure and the collapse of its hapless proxies, regional powers moved in to assert their interests and create a new geopolitical order.
It’s not an accident that the latest Kagan war-manifesto also argues that we should never have left Vietnam either. Janine Davidson, who rejects the viability of airstrikes, thinks pre-conditioned aid is probably America’s only rational play:
[W]e can help Iraq get its security forces back in order. The uncomfortable truth is that it will take time. Iraq is in for a long, hard fight; any assistance the United States provides cannot be a quick, one-off effort.
More importantly, a successful strategy will require pressure on Maliki, whose horrifying treatment of the Sunni minority is largely attributable to Iraq’s current woes. As Dr. Walter Ladwig observed in his review of the United States’ new counterinsurgency doctrine, outside intervention in such conflicts can only succeed if the host nation is willing to change its ways—this, in turn, requires a motivating event and outside pressure[.]
Meanwhile, Gordan Chang is waiting for China to finally throw its weight around:
[The Chinese] would have a much harder time [than the US] if Iraq’s 3.7% of global production suddenly went offline. China, which is increasingly dependent on energy imports, is now that country’s largest foreign customer, taking an average 1.5 million barrels a day, almost half of Iraq’s production. China National Petroleum Corp., a state enterprise, swooped up Iraqi oil after last decade’s war—Beijing, by the way, sold arms that ended up in the hands of insurgents fighting Americans—by accepting Baghdad’s razor-thin margins and onerous conditions.
Then, many said it was China that won the Iraq War because it signed the major oil deals afterwards. As a result, Beijing now has a lot riding on the outcome in Iraq as ISIS takes on the Shiite-dominated ruling group in Baghdad.
But Russia, according to Fyodor Lukyanov, is likely to butt out:
Despite the serious Russian-US standoff over Ukraine, Moscow will definitely not try to play the role of spoiler and exacerbate the problems the United States faces in the region. There is too high a risk of collapse of the entire regional system, so close to the Russian borders. This is even more so because Russia-friendly Iran in this situation is as interested as the United States in maintaining the status quo in Iraq.
Moscow, however, is unlikely to undertake active efforts to assist Washington. For the Russian leadership, as well as for Russian public opinion, what is happening in Iraq is a verdict on the entire US policy after the Cold War, and the symbol of the resounding failure of those who only recently displayed the utmost arrogance toward everyone who disagreed with their policies. Putin sees in Iraq yet further proof of how right he was.
The Dish 