Be on the lookout for a major battle against ISIL in Iraq starting in October. Mosul has been under ISIL control since June 2014 and now US backed Iraqi forces are inching near the major city. “The military offensive, months in the planning, is now tentatively scheduled to begin sometime in early October, with a final battle for Mosul coming at the end of that month.” The battle will be waged by a band of fighters comprised of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, the Peshmerga (Kurdish warriors) and Iraqi Security Forces. All of these groups are receiving support from the United States to the chagrin of our Iraqi and Turkish allies. Long story short, these three groups do not like each other and have all been accused of human rights abuses. But they are all against ISIL and that’s good enough for Washington. It goes without saying, but it will be interesting to see if this makeshift political alliance will be successful and how the groups will get along after the battle.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/23/middleeast/iraq-nineveh-mosul-scene/
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Your last couple of sentences speaks to serious concerns I’ve had for a while now regarding these same efforts. During the last Iraq war, the U.S. adopted a strategy that many simply referred to as The Surge. A part of that strategy was to employ former Iraqi troops that had turned into insurgents as a result of the power vacuum and the Iraqi military being disbanded. Most of those recruited were Sunnis. Once the Shia government took over the government and military, most of those Sunnis were once again displaced due to distrust between those two groups. Much later after the war and after a heavy handed Shia government had oppressed the Sunni minority , Isis moved in facing little resistance from their fellow Sunnis. It’s been said that many of the seasoned Isis fighters were ex Iraqi military. What will happen when Isis is gone? Will the Shia continue their heavy handed treatment of the Sunnis? How will the Sunnis respond? Will the cycle just continue with a new extremist group? From everything I’ve read, I get the feeling that the rise of Isis was more economical than it was ideological.