DebkaFiles, November 28, 2016
Mosul: The gate to hell
After the Iraqi city is liberated from the clutches of the Islamic State group, it could turn into a bloodbath of a different kind as the victors try to divvy up the spoils according to their own conflicting priorities.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror
An Iraqi army tank advances toward Qara Tappa, during fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State terrorists southeast of Mosul, Wednesday | Photo credit: AP
This week I spoke with a journalist in the Kurdish region of Iraq. As a Kurd, her ear is finely tuned to what is happening in Mosul. The battle there is important to her people, and they are especially concerned with what will happen after it's over.
It is clear that the city will be freed from the burden of the Islamic State group. The question is what will happen then. The situation is complicated. Almost all the problems of the entire Middle East are folded into the battle to free Mosul. It is generally hard to find in a single place or event a combination of the relations and forces that characterize an entire variegated region, but that's the situation in the wrecked city, which is still in the clutches of Islamic State.
Sometimes, there are challenges in history that focus and unite various players to promote something of mutual interest. In such cases, the combined energy may create something new, but often, when the challenge is no longer a factor, the same forces and energy turn into a destructive fire that wipes out not only the temporary cooperation but also everything else around it. This is what happened to the cooperation between the communist superpower (the USSR) and the democratic Western countries, led by the U.S., in the war against Nazi Germany. The alliance held steady until Germany was conquered, and then fell apart.
Something similar could happen in Mosul, the focus of so many different powers. In the future, this battle might turn out to be a defining moment for the Middle East.
Five major armies are battling in the area, and other smaller armies have been dragged in. The big forces are:
1. The Iraqi army, under the auspices of a Shiite government influenced by Iran, which was trained by and enjoys significant aid from the U.S. and is supposed to remain neutral in inter-ethnic battles.
2. The Shiite militias, who do what Iran wants and promote the most narrow interests of the Shiites on the backs of the Sunnis, including aspiring to cleanse the area of any Sunni presence.
3. The peshmerga, the Kurdish military force, whose autonomous region borders Mosul and which they want to expand, or at least bring Mosul under its influence.
4. The Sunni militias based on clans from western Iraq and the area, who are fighting, among other reasons, to make sure that the city does not become a place where the Shiites will wipe out the Sunni presence in a region that was never Shiite.
5. The Turks, who do not recognize the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which after World War I delineated the Turkish borders in this region, and now want to prevent the Kurds from gaining any ground. If possible, they would also like to grab areas that until now have been ruled by Iraq.
All these forces are bearing down on Mosul, united in their goal of eradicating Islamic State. The question is, what will happen "the day after," when their common enemy is gone? Indeed, each group can be expected to do everything to achieve its own goals, even at the expense of the other groups. Part of the conflict between them is the result of long disputes and the lack of ability to compromise.
A scenario in which the Shiites take Mosul -- and they have a decent chance of doing so -- would create a massive challenge. If that happens, it is obvious that most of the Sunni residents of Mosul could be slaughtered en masse or even expelled from the city. For Iran, Mosul is a key city. If they manage to "cleanse" it and the surrounding area of Sunnis, a long-held Shiite dream will come true. They would have an opportunity to plan their moves to the west, from south of Turkey to northern Syria, and -- after taking Aleppo in Syria -- toward the Mediterranean Sea, by joining forces with the Syrian Alawites and the Shiites and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
That would complete what the king of Jordan fearfully termed the "Shiite crescent," an Iranian corridor that would cut the Arab world from Tehran to Baghdad and from Baghdad to Damascus and Beirut. Finally, Iran could advance and expedite what it started right after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's Islamic Revolution of 1979 and used to call "exporting the revolution," an effort that gained real momentum following the nuclear agreement between Iran and the West that was spearheaded by the United States. It would be a clear geographic statement of Iran's rising power in the region.
Iran and the U.S. joining together in the fight against the extremist Sunni organization and the harsh results for the Sunnis after the fighting, particularly if the battle ends with Sunni citizens being slaughtered wholesale or exported, could lead the Sunnis to feel they have lost their way. How would Saudi Arabia, which is trying to lead the Sunni Arab majority, respond? And how would Turkey, which has a history of rivalry with the Persian Empire, respond? Will it act like a Sunni leader and position itself differently than it is today, namely a strong country whose status in the Middle East is changing from a bit player to a leading actor?
If the Turkish army marches into Iraq, Baghdad would face the difficult decision of how to exert its sovereignty, and the U.S. would not look on from the sidelines. So this is not a step the Turks would take lightly, but it should nevertheless be taken into account. Or might the result actually be a stronger Islamic State, because the Sunnis would have no other alternative, and regular Sunnis citizens who have no desire to be involved will flood into Europe and beyond as refugees? And in the background, what will happen to Kurdistan, which is afraid of Turkey?
A ticking bomb
The world, united in the desire to see the barbaric group in Mosul wiped out, is becoming more fearful that citizens who left to fight in Syria and Iraq might return. They will come home with military knowledge, a desire for revenge and a sense that they have nothing to lose. It will be difficult to handle them, since they are local citizens. Many countries will be forced to take a different course of action, including the approach of their legal and intelligence systems, to confront the enormous threat.
So the place where the world might celebrate the defeat of the most brutal terrorist organization could become the start of a new hell made up of all the ills of the Middle East. The Shiite-Sunni conflict, the threat of radical Sunni Islam to the countries' existence, the struggle by proxy between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the tension between the Kurds and the Turks, the Iranian dominance in the face of waning U.S. strength, and Russia, which is working to keep Syrian President Bashar Assad in power. When all these opposing forces feel that the time has come to divvy up the spoils, it could be very bad.
Ahead of yet more bloody struggle in the region, Israel must continue to stay out of the historically colored game by major powers, precisely define its own vital interests, and only address the incidents that cross the lines it drew in the shifting, blood-soaked sands of the Middle East
My comment
The current war in Iraq is at the convergence of the early settlements after the Noaic flood.
This northern Middle East region is described in Ezekiel 38; 39 and is the same today [Turkey/Syria/Iraq/Iran]
This setting is moving toward the fulfillment of the visions of the prophets concerning a regathered Israel at the time of the end
The major populations of the region are the adherents of Islam today and to be watched by the student of Bible prophecy
https://www.google.com/maps/@35.2304599,46.3625565,4.96z
