By Robert Laurie ——Bio and Archives--March 2, 2015
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Last week, a debate in Washington and Baghdad became heated over when, how and who will liberate Mosul. A plan was announced to liberate the city in April or May by more than 20,000 US trained Iraqi soldiers.That meant that ISIS had another month or two to destroy humanity's history and behead local Christians before anyone showed up to stop them. For us, it seems like a long time to sit around twiddling our thumbs. If you're under ISIS occupation, it must feel like an eternity. Unfortunately, the lackadaisical timeline also looks like it was nothing more than wishful thinking. As The Daily Beast reports, we still intend to do something about ISIS, but we now have no idea when.
Just days ago, the generals were trumpeting plans to knock ISIS out of its most important stronghold in Iraq. Now, those plans are on indefinite hold. The U.S. military’s goal to retake Iraq’s second largest city from the self-proclaimed Islamic State has been pushed back several months at least, defense officials told The Daily Beast. That’s a major shift for the Pentagon, which recently announced that the first major ground offensive in the war against ISIS could come in the next few weeks. Defense officials once hoped that Iraqi troops could move into Mosul by the Spring and reclaim the city from ISIS. Now, those officials say, Fall is more realistic. And even that date was tenuous.
“It is an Iraqi decision but we don’t want to do anything until they are ready and can win decisively,” a military official explained to the Daily Beast. “They cannot now.” It’s another sign that the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS isn’t going nearly as smoothly as the American government had hoped.Wait, the U.S. is leading this? We could have sworn it was Egypt or Jordan. Isn't the Obama administration busy talking about jobs programs or something? Aren't they the ones frittering their days away trying to come up with new ways of downplaying our enemy's ideology? Last time we checked, they spent less time "leading" than they spent talking about the "legitimate grievances" that drive Muslims to Jihad.
The shift away from the Spring began in the last few days, in part because officials could not agree publicly about whether the Iraqi forces would be ready for the fight. Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday that it would be “six to nine months, best estimate,” before Iraqi forces could be able to launch a major counteroffensive against ISIS.Nine months, eh? That's just long enough for someone in Mosul to get pregnant, give birth, and have ISIS murder their child in service of "The Prophet Muhammad." Nine months from now, I wonder what the Obama administration's next excuse will be?
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