Posted on 03/04/2015 6:25:32 PM PST by BeauBo
The Iraqi Security Forces, supported by several Iranian-backed Shiite militias and Sunni tribal fighters, have launched an offensive to retake Tikrit from the Islamic State... Massive columns of Shiite militas, including some groups that are listed by the US as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, have been leading the fight in Tikrit.
The operation, which involves more than thirty thousand Iraqi security personnel and militia forces, started on the morning of March 2. According to Al Jazeera, Iraqi forces and allied militias attacked the city from three sides while Iraqi aviation launched an aerial bombardment.
...with Putin following and doing the same. Putin should wear a leash.
The Iranians will be taking lots of souvenirs from Sadaam’s hometown of Tikrit.
The Sunnis in the region are no doubt crapping their pants. Many of the Sunni tribes in Iraq extend into Jordan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the region.
Sunni governments like Turkey may yet throw some significant support to halt the advance of the Shia, even if it is only at the Syrian border.
I don’t think they care. Shiites love Shiites. They love the Iranians and all they want is money. When Malawki resigned we paid him $50 million of your printed money and gave him a villa in the UAE so we could put this stooge in charge . What a knee slapping laughing joke this fiasco is and no weapons of mass destruction. Geezzz.
Good point about Turkey.
They can still be a game changer.
Then Russia has to decide who they will back.
By looking at a map of the ME you can see the strategic moves Iran is making.
We are doing nothing, because Obama shares that strategy.
People have to wake up.
“U.S. officials were largely left in the dark of the planning and timing of the operation”
There is probably a strong desire to have some degree of deniability. They have mobs of serious war criminals that they are going to run through a civilian city of all Sunnis, less than a year after extensive sectarian slaughter of Shia and desecration of all the Shia hold sacred.
Some of these militias recruited heavily from among violent criminals to get good killers. They committed terrible atrocities during the sectarian violence in Baghdad back around 2007 - a few sadistic psycho-killer types who really enjoy their work. Week-long torture killings and such. Mutilated corpses were the norm.
Tikrit is the Heart of the old Sadaam regime.
We should root for, and supply whichever side is losing....till they're all gone.
To an extent. However, the ethnic animosity is definitely present between Arabs and Persians.
I doubt you’ll find such strong sentiments among the IRGC, but if you talk to Behrouz on the street in Tehran, they’ll mention how they had an advanced culture thousands of years before the Arabs that was rivaling Rome.
Persians think of Arabs like we do, that they’re barbaric lizard-eating nomads (who also conquered them and trashed their civilization).
Then again, I hear that Arabs view Persians as effeminate elitist snobs and impious muslims...
The Sunnis who opened the doors for ISIS are going to pay dearly.
“I doubt you’ll find such strong sentiments among the IRGC”
Maybe not by race, but you will by religion.
IRGC are highly indoctrinated into Shia Islam, particularly into the extreme Twelver sect, which rules the country. They are all about a final apocalyptic conflict between the Shia and the Sunnis. They have extensive prophecy about the return of the Mahdi to lead them to conquest over the Sunni, and then the world. The regime propaganda and the Chaplains assigned to every IRGC unit stress that the end times of the final battle are now upon us.
Ashura, the main distinctly Shia holiday, is marked by bloody self-flagellation, where they mourn not having fought off the Sunnis who killed Ali’s son Hussein, and commit themselves to being there to fight the next time. The word Shia itself is a contraction of the phrase Shiatu Ali - those loyal to Ali. They sought to restore the descendents of Ali to rule the Caliphate, who they now view to be the Hidden Imam - the Mahdi (Messiah), who has been hidden from view in a well in Karbala since about the year 941.
The Mahdi is reported to have said:
Shi’as believe that Imam al-Mahdi will reappear when the world has fallen into chaos and civil war emerges between the human race for no reason. At this time, it is believed, half of the true believers will ride from Yemen carrying white flags to Makkah, while the other half will ride from Karbalaa’, in the `Iraq, carrying black flags to Makkah. At this time, Imam al-Mahdi will come wielding `Ali’s Sword, Zulfiqar.
They get super worked up over this stuff.
Demonstrating how sorry they are that the Shia did not arrive in time to fight for Hussein, and pledging to be there to fight for the Imam Mahdi when he returns to lead the final battle against the Sunni. 
i hope they kill many of those US/Euro Johny Jihads
As Saddam Hussein’s home town, whoever takes it over is likely to want to make sure his seed cannot sprout again. Whether that will be Iraq govt. forces or Iranian backed Shia forces will certainly affect that future. Here is the link for the most heavily followed FR post on this subject, 148 comments so far:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3263251/posts
In following the Tikrit offensive I came across this interesting comment:
“Sun Tzu famously said ‘Strategy without tactics is the long road to victory. Tactics without strategy is noise before defeat.’
So they are going to “take back” Tikrit. And eventually Mosul. I can assure you, it will be significantly “remodeled” after a “successful” military operation. So what?
Planners need to consider the conditions that existed prior to the IS seizing these cities in the first place. Why where IS forces successful and why did the Iraqi Army cut and run from their post? After the Iraq govt retake IS controlled areas, what is their plan to sustain Wide Area Security (WAS)?
The fact is, there is no overall strategy for dealing with IS or the wildly incompetent US and Iraqi govt.
At this very moment, IS now has agents working in Afghanistan paying off warlords and building the IS franchise. The 0bama Administration is now sending Army brigades back to Afghanistan. The US footprint in Iraq grows by several hundred soldiers every month. For our part, the war is simply not sustainable. We are launching $110,000 missiles at $20,000 pick-up trucks, manned with $3 terrorists. To deal with this problem with need a large, overarching, coherent national strategy. While we diddle at the margins, IS is working on a plan to take control of Pakistani nukes. When exactly do we plan to end this war in WWII sense of ending a war?
Our foreign policy is being run by 20 something girls from the suburbs with degrees from Ivy League universities. Shades of Kennedy’s ‘Wiz Kids’. They are completely out of their depth on how to deal with some of the most dangerous, violent and ruthless people on Earth. All of the posturing, briefings, talking heads, and “limited military objectives to achieve specific tactical objectives” are the noise before defeat.”
This question has been raised worthy of considering IMO....
“Is the WhiteHouse using Iraqi independence as collateral in their negotiations with Iran?
.... By not helping Iraq other then a token effort it makes Iran the only player on the ground and they have their own goals in mind. That works out perfectly for the WH which wants a nuclear deal with Iran and has no desire to be involved in this fight”
The underlying “intentions” of war and what nations stand to gain or loose are often not known by thier public ...rather the media often frames these.....
In Arab countries many various tribal individuals go to war, join in, simply because it gives them an otherwise purpose they have no other way to obtain....the Whitehouse and the Arab leadership knows this as well...and uses these miltants and otherwise soldiers to their advantages.....many times by proxy.
This war can shift more than once as they head toward Mosul.....which I understand the people there actually had welcomed ISIS. So how it really goes will be interesting.....currently it does appear the “tribes” are coming together against ISIS for the most part...how long they can maintain their “unity” is certainly debatable.
......”It is scaring a lot of Iraqis to see how in charge the Iranians are in this operation, and to see lots of Farsi speakers not in Iranian uniforms under arms”...
It would me if I was an Iraqi.....however in the end I do think Iraq will maintain independent of Iran. What that will look like remains to be seen....I tend to think it will remain more Shiite then Sunni...for the sake of peace with Iran as their neighbor.
How Saudi ultimately responds in the long run is still questionable should that occur. But I agree this is about who is going to headup the ultimate Caliphate.....and why WAshington is going to basically let them duke it out.
BTW...which thread are we using for this war...needs to be on one or labeled 1# and 2# as eventually was done for the Egypt revolution????
Kerry:
Your highness, sorry those b@stard frackers killed the oil price. It will be a while until Caliph Baraq has them shut down.
A photo posted by Mashregh News...affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards Corps, that shows top 'Iranian general Qassem Soleimani' (R) embracing the leader of 'Iraq’s Shiite Badr militia Hadi al-Amiri'..... This picture is not dated, but is thought to have been taken in 2014.
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