Iraq and ISIS: Are the RW "Experts" condemned to eternal ignorance ???

Who, what, where, when, how and why ??? Do they ever get it right?

For conservatives, getting the best of analysis from "their guys" means relying on American Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation. J Matthew McInnis and Ashton Gilmore are AEI' national security analysts.

The piece had to get vetted for publication. So here is what AEI knew about ISIS and Iraq after 12 years with Americans in the country.

The non-negotiables: What Iran and Qassem Suleimani have to do in Iraq

At that point Gen. Suleimani had already made his visit to al-Maliki in Baghdad and laid down a strategy for reorganizing the Iraqi military. He was sited up in Samarra at the al-Askari Shrine.

So... the AEI position starts off as follows:

The Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS) continues its march towards Baghdad, toppling cities and installing former Ba’athist governors along the way. In response, Tehran, and specifically Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force (QF) commander [Major General] Qassem Suleimani, have shifted into full crisis mode and show no intention of taking a “wait and see” approach to the conflict. The potential loss of Iraq is an existential crisis of the first order for Iran. Since the US invaded Iraq in 2003, Suleimani has had control of Iran’s policies and activities in Iraq. As he plans and executes Iran’s campaign to support Baghdad, Suleimani’s calculus is most likely driven by... five objectives.

Summarized:

1. Suleimani will coordinate IRGC and the regular Iranian Army to stop ISIS... establish a 100km “do not cross” line buffering the Iran-Iraq border.

2. Defend Shia populations and holy sites throughout Iraq.

3. Keep the friendly Iraqi government in power.

4. Shift assets from the fight in Syria to the Iraqi front, but without risking defeat for Assad. .....the IRGC and Hezbollah have generally avoided direct engagement with ISIS....

5. Interface for United States support operations.

That is today's Party Line for conservatives. Two items -- #2 and #5 -- are obvious. Let's rate the others today, four months down the road. See whether AEI had any idea what was going on in Iraq.

Hit or Miss ?

Item 1. ignores the Kurds and the working partnerships Suleimani had built up with both their main political groups. In the battles with ISIS before United States drones became active, saving Erbil from artillery attack brought Gen. Suleimani up there with a reported 70 Quds Force commandos, an IRGC artillery unit and surveillance drones. The Kurds' military credit Suleimani and Quds Force with saving Erbil.

Item #1 also misses the largest single armed force in Iraq, Asaib ahl al-Haq -- AAH -- which is the local Hizb Allah, Army of God. Same system as Lebanon in 1985 from reaction to President Reagan's slaughters and the Felangist "Christian" refugee camp slaughter. In Iraq, AAH is a work in progress that started in 2003 with careful recruitment, training in Iran, then fights with the "Coalition of the Willing" Americans and then Sunni mass murderers.

Item 3. misses it that demoting al-Maliki was critical to setting up alliances with Sunni tribes. These alliances are critical to holding Tikrit and Samarra. After west side of Tikrit was retaken July 18th, relying on local Sunnis for intelligence, Baathist officers and civil servants from the Saddam era were contacted all over Iraq with images of the butchered Air Force cadets.

Item 4. misses it that Gen. Suleimani immediately fielded some 50,000 reservists from Asaib ahl al-Haq. Quds Force has 6,000 men in Syria and an estimated 3,000 in Iraq through the middle of September. AAH led the west side of the action that links Tikrit-Amerli-Kirkuk. AAH also had men at Tikrit Dam, helping ISF hold the dam early in June.

In Syria the al-Qusayr battle in 2012 was the bloodiest engagement of that war. The Islamists got crushed. After that the ISIS units have avoided combat with main units of the Syrian army, Quds Force, and Hizb Allah.

What ISIS does do in Syria is to slaughter other rebels and civilians.

Our allies, the Persians, together with their buds the Kurds and AAH and even the less organized Sadr "militiamen" have taken to wearing American gear.

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One guess is that this allows US Special Forces guys to blend in. The US drones work  well at night with image recognition enhancements. That drone contribution is a big Biden deal.

And now English speaking Persians in full US uniforms have been observed food shopping at Tikrit. They are part of what had been described by the Iraqi military information office a month ago as a 13,000 man contingent. Cut that to 3,000 new arrivals and it's more of a reasonable guess. (Logistics for 13,000 is barely possible. For 3,000 fresh troops, logistics is double the effort from a couple months ago.)

The ISIS raiders ??? Notable for taking horrendous losses in August and September all over the battlefield areas. And bombing the ruins of a church in Tikrit a month ago, big for Instagram.

Back in Syria the ISIS strategy has moved over to taking territory. No one is sure why. This force is built to do light-armor movement which is good for inflicting damage. Possibly somebody read about John Boyd and maneuver warfare. That's what they've been doing.

But come October ISIS is throwing away hundreds of their raiders to grab static villages that lack military resources. Maybe they're bored ???

As to the United States and the Persians, another Boyd idea comes to mind:

OODA Loop or Boyd Cycle.

Observe, orient, decide, act.

All conflict is composed of repeated, time-competitive cycles of observing, orienting, deciding, and acting. The most important element is orientation: whoever can orient more quickly to a rapidly changing situation acquires a decisive advantage because his slower opponent’s actions are too late and therefore irrelevant—as he desperately seeks convergence, he gets ever increasing divergence. At some point, he realizes he can do nothing that works. That usually leads him either to panic or to give up, often while still physically largely intact.

What ISIS is going to have trouble getting oriented to is the situation where they are facing heavy-unit armored counterattacks. That change -- tanks and mobile artillery -- did not come at them in the last two years in Syria.

ISIS captured a couple dozen tanks up around Mosul. They know better than to bring them out in the open air in Iraq.

Persians in American uniforms ??? ISIS hasn't seen that before, either.

Matthew McInnis and Ashton Gilmore share a weakness with their brethren. They don't trust foreigners. Call around for live info out of Tikrit? No way. Get reads on what AAH can handle? Check for American involvement?

That's more than what AEI can handle. They're the better of the RW Think Tanks. The best they can do these days.

What, a "C-" as a research piece ???