Iraq crisis: West must take up Tehran's offer to block an Isis victory

Patrick Cockburn

Sunday 15 June 2014

World View: Extremists have a grip on the country as Sunni Muslims decide that the jihadists are preferable to persecution by the official Iraqi army


Even the fanatics of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) are astonished at the extent of their own victory in taking control over Iraq's second city, Mosul, in the past week. "Enemies and supporters alike are flabbergasted," said Isis spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani. It is difficult to think of any examples in history when security forces almost a million strong, including 14 army divisions, have crumbled so immediately after attacks from an enemy force that has been estimated at between 3,000 and 5,000 strong.

It is a rout without precedent. I have written frequently in the past in this newspaper that the Iraqi security forces were a corrupt patronage machine that exploited and persecuted the local population. It was significant that for the first six months of this year, Isis secured its grip on Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, without any sustained effort by the army to dislodge them other than indiscriminate bombing and shelling of the city.

In March Isis even held a parade in Abu Ghraib, where the infamous prison had to be hastily evacuated, and which is a dozen miles from the centre of the Iraqi capital. A friend in Baghdad was shocked and half-amused to learn of Isis's presence from a pro-government television news channel that announced "a great triumph by the Iraqi security forces in defeating the terrorists east and west of Abu Ghraib".

Corruption in the army took place at every level. A general could become a divisional commander at a cost of $2m (£1.18m) and would then have to recoup his investment from kickbacks at checkpoints on the roads, charging every goods vehicle. An Iraqi businessman told me some years ago that he had stopped importing goods through Basra port as unprofitable because of the amount of money he had to spend bribing officials and soldiers at every stage as his goods were moved from the ship at the dockside to Baghdad.

in full: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/iraq-crisis-west-must-take-up-tehrans-offer-to-block-an-isis-victory-9537866.html