This is Awkward

From the Washington Post.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi militia forces that have led the fight against Islamic State militants in Tikrit balked at U.S. intervention Thursday, saying that although most would remain in their positions, they will refuse to proceed with an offensive on the city.

One Shiite militia, Kitaeb Hezbollah, which is designated by the United States as a terrorist organization, said it would go as far as shooting down any plane belonging to the U.S.-led coalition in the area.

Another militia announced that it intends to withdraw.

The opening of the U.S. airstrikes in Tikrit on Wednesday drew Washington into a battle that has pitted the militants against Iraqi forces dominated by Iranian-backed militias, many of which are hostile to the United States.

An estimated 20,000 ground troops involved in the Tikrit offensive belong to what are known as “popular mobilization units” — an affiliation of Shiite volunteer fighters that formed after a call to arms from Iraq’s leading Shiite cleric but which has also become an umbrella for Shiite militia groups.

 

Although the United States wants Shiite militias off the battlefield, Iraqi officials have indicated that they plan for at least part of the popular mobilizations to be included in a new offensive for the city. That sets Haider al-Abadi’s government up for a potentially embarrassing public power struggle. Although the Iraqi government claims to control the mobilization units, militia leaders say the units follow their command.

If the freeze stands, it will mean that official Iraqi security forces, which have so far played a limited role in the fight, will be left to clear Tikrit alone.

The fight for Tikrit is considered a crucial test in the wider fight to drive the Islamic State from strongholds in northern Iraq, including Mosul, which has been the symbol and center of Islamic State power in Iraq since the militants took it last summer.

“All the popular mobilization will refuse to fight until the American airstrikes stop,” said Moeen al-Khadami, head of the popular mobilization committee on Baghdad’s provincial council. “Let them try to do it without us. America is just trying to steal our victory.”

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2 Responses

  1. Absolutely. Let it sink to its default level. In the long run, this best suits the interests of the non-Muslim world.

  2. Yes, by all means stand back and let Muslim devour Muslim. (And not let one *Muslim* from any of the warring territories, into the dar al Harb, from now on; and any Muslim that leaves the lands of the Infidels, to join the Jihad in the dar al Islam, does not get to return, ever, into said Infidel lands).

    BUT: it would I think be a good idea to find some way of getting the last remnants of the indigenous *non-Muslims* – the Mandaeans, the Yazidis, and last but not least, the Assyrian Christians – out of harm’s way, before sealing the borders and letting the Mohammedan Mob stew in its own juice. There *is* only one form of military intervention I would support: swift, carefully targeted overwhelming-force intervention to rescue these people, who will otherwise be subjected to genocide. Along with such of their cultural treasures – artworks, icons, manuscripts – as still survive and can be gathered up and transported. Just as the Jews of Israel rescued and took in the Jews of Iraq, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, so too could the majority-nominally-Christian countries of the West – and for that matter, Russia, and a number of other places – open the gates of hope for the last surviving non-Muslims, mostly Christian, of Mesopotamia. Get them out to our non-Muslim lands, to boost the non-Muslim demographic.

    The only other option would be to consolidate the region’s remaining Christians alongside the Maronites in a renewed Mont Liban. Let’s not forget how Kosovo was created – in an act of incredible stupidity – as a Christenrein, SErbrein country for Albanian Muslims. Well, that was a mistake, but…sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander; why can’t what was done for Muslims, by the West, in the Balkans, be done for…Christians, in the Levant? Why not massively assist the Maronites – reinforced by all the surviving Syrian Christians from both Syria and Iraq – to establish a heavily-fortified MUSLIM-free Mont Liban redivivus, contiguous in the south with Israel (a friendly and peaceful non-Muslim neighbour). NO Muslims. Root out Hezbollah and turf out all the other Muslims – including the ‘Palestinian’ Arab Muslims who’ve been squatting there causing trouble since the 1950s – into Syria and Iraq. Create a Muslim-free secular and Christian state; guaranteed and protected not only by the USA, and France, and Britain, but by Russia; *that* would be one for the books. Won’t happen, alas; but if the world’s non-Muslim leaders had any sense, it could work.

    (And one should plan for all eventualities; Al Sisi will not live forever. Depending on how things go in Egypt, the Copts in Egypt might need to be evacuated/ rescued one day…and.the logical place for a Copt-populated Nova Aegyptia is Sinai and the Gaza Strip. Population exchange: turf out all the Muslims from there, into Egypt; all surviving Copts leave Egypt, move into Sinai and Gaza strip, and turn Gaza into something like Monaco or Singapore, with a bit of help and encouragement from the West and Israel. Again, very unlikely, but it’s time we Infidels started seriously thinking about the kinds of Rescue Actions for fellow infidels currently trapped as indigenous minorities within the dar al Islam – and pushback and establishing and fortifying of bulwarks against the Empire of Islam – that might be possible, if our leaders got their heads straight).

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