For five years ago. This month, the Iraqis declared victory over
the Islamic state or Isis, in the battle for the city of Mosul. That
marked a major turning point in the war against Isis militants across
the region. In the earlier American war in Iraq, the US committed
large numbers of ground forces and did the bulk of the fighting.
But in the war against the Islamic state, Iraqi forces led the way
with the United States, providing only limited military support and
advising.
Nick Schifrin is back now, with the conversation about a new book
that looks at the US role in battling extremism in Iraq.
When the Obama administration withdrew US forces from Iraq in 2011,
it declared it was turning the tide of war. But by 2014, the group
that called itself the Islamic state seized territory across Iraq
and Syria the size of Belgium. Reluctantly, the U. S went to war
again, this time with a different approach than previous invasions,
using proxy forces, a small number of U. S trainers and vast amounts
of air power.
That's the story told in Degrade and destroy the inside story of
the war against the Islamic state from Barack Obama to Donald Trump.
The author is Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Gordon. Who joins
me now, Michael, Welcome back. Thank you very much. You write that
this book isn't just about the past. It's a window into the future
because it will reveal the methods that the US will use again. Why
is that? Well, I think after, um
Several wars in the Middle East Afghanistan Desert storm. There's
not much appetite on the part of American public dissent tens of
thousands of troops back into the Middle East. Nor is there interest
on the part of policy makers. They're focusing now on China on Russia.
Those are the main threats driving Pentagon strategy, but the threats
aren't going to go away. So the concept of using a small number of
advisors
Coupling their mouth a proxy force partners on the ground and and
accessing airpower and reconnaissance is likely to be a template
that the US is going to use again in the Middle East, ungoverned
spaces and even in some great power scenarios like we're seeing in
Ukraine before that template was created. You write that the Obama
ministrations.
In the early days of Isis is emergence, misunderstood the evolution
of the Islamic state. President Obama, of course, famously called
it the JV team at one point, what was the impact of that misunderstanding?
Well, it left us unprepared for what it later had to do. Um, you
know, the very month that President Obama called Isis. The JV team
was the same month.
That the head of the Delta force and the senior special operations
commander for the Middle East went to Iraq, Rex counterterrorism
service and action and reported up their chain that it was overmatched.
That was having a hard time coping with this
Isis, which was really an evolution from an Al Qaeda in Iraq Group.
What was overmatched, of course, was the Iraqi military at the time,
and you and you describe it as rudimentary. What one soldier?
Referred to as a Valley Ford scenario, of course, a reference to
the American Revolutionary Army at its lowest point. Why have the
Iraqi military deteriorated to that point by 2014 2011 2010. When
the US start forces in Iraq, there was a very well understood part
of the Iraqi generals and the American generals that there was a
continuing need for a small American presence to mentor train.
Enable Iraqi forces But the politics in Baghdad and the politics
in Washington were such that American forces left at the end of 2011.
They were unable to reach a diplomatic agreement that would allow
them
To stay. As a consequence of that the US was not monitoring the deterioration
of the Iraqi forces. And also they weren't able to really check the
worst sectarian impulses of the Iraqi prime minister at the time,
Nouri al Maliki, who not only put in his sort of cronies, but took
actions that alienated the Sunnis and his country and provided a
Fertile ground for Isis to to gain a hold and the countryside. And
so by the time the Isis gained a hold in the countryside, where in
2014 and the plan that the U. S created in September, 2014 uses local
forces to take the lead, how important looking back is choosing the
right partner in that fight, and in general, how different was that
approach to what had preceded it was really extraordinary about this
particular campaign, and I was in a lot of it in Mosul and Syrian
saw
A lot of it firsthand is that there was no one partner.
There are a multitude of partners partners who didn't even get along
with each other. And wouldn't it be even dealt with each other? If
the U. S hadn't been there as a kind of a glue to hold it together,
and what President Obama was determined to do, as he didn't want
to send American troops back into ground combat now there were some
instances we were in ground combat. I have them in the book, but
in the main it was the local forces who are in ground combat, but
they were to be advised.
By small teams of Americans. One of the forces fighting on the same
side against Isis were actually Iranian forces. And you're the first
to report that an American Marine general encountered Iranian Kuds
force Commander Qasem Soleimani, who, of course, would later be killed
during the Trump administration. What is their meeting in Iraq say
about the fight against Isis?
In the very first years of the war. Americans and Iranians were on
the same battlefield and but they weren't fighting each other, and
they weren't trying to kill each other. It's a different situation
now, and they were basically trying to stay out of each other's way.
What happened in that instance was pretty extraordinary. Iraqi general
Lead costume Soleimani into a command post at Union three, which
is across the street from the American Embassy, and General Castel
V, who was the Marine general then was rather surprised to come face
to face with the kids Force commander. They had a discussion. It
wasn't about cooperation was more about the situation on the battlefield
and where forces were
Because they were in a deconfliction mode. But over time as the war,
it was clear that the US was going to win this war, which it did
win, the Iranians became more assertive and became more of a threat
to Americans and, ironically, custom. Samani was later killed by
an American drone, just a few miles from where that event took place
at the Baghdad International Airport revealed for the first time
the U. S has been reviewing in advance Israeli airstrikes in Syria.
That have been going on for years. There have been 400 of those strikes
since 2017. What does that review and why is that important? Well,
Syria is a very crowded place. Now It's sort of the strategic equivalent
of the Star Wars bar. You have
Turkey threatening to intervene. Still,
you have the Russians very active in there and actually quite successful
and intervening in that country at minimal cost to themselves. You
have the Iranians in there. You have Shiite militias in there. You
have Americans in there about 1000 in eastern Syria and the on Tom
Garrison.
From these and you have the Israelis taking
Action in the form of airstrikes against the Iranians and arms shipments.
The Iranians were trying to send to Lebanese Hezbollah to make their
weapons more accurate, So it's all mixed up. And in this environment,
Israel has a deconfliction arrangement with the Russians. They tell
them they're coming, but they have a much more formal.
Process where the U S Central Command. It's intended basically let
the Americans know if they're going into eastern Syria. This is what's
going to happen because they're American troops there, and they might
have to suffer the consequences in the form of Iranian retaliation.
The Americans have vetoed a few of those strikes.
But in the main, um they don't interfere. Michael Gordon, the book
is degrade and destroy the inside story of the war against the Islamic
state from Barack Obama to Donald Trump. Michael Gordon. Thank you