Iraq�s ISIS challenge: Holding on � for now

Two months after the Islamic State, or Daesh in Arabic, announced the revival of the caliphate, the Iraqi landscape is marked by both uncertainties and some surprising certainties.

The certainties:

• Iraq�s fragile democratic institutions have proved resilient enough. A new president has been chosen in horse-trading among 20-plus parties across the spectrum. The politicians also settled on a new prime minister more rapidly than at any time since Iraq�s liberation in 2003.

The administration of President Fouad Masoum and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi isn�t yet in full gear, but it has already persuaded a growing number of Iraqis that there may be some light at the end of the tunnel.

�A month ago we were thinking of shutting up everything and leaving,� a Najaf businessman tells me after detailing his group�s investments in the southern Iraqi city since 2006. �Now, however, we think it wise to wait and see. Iraq still has a chance to pull it off, against all odds.�

Amid all the doom and gloom, one hears similar voices in Baghdad, which is subject to almost daily car bomb attacks by Daesh and allied groups.

•  Reimposing despotic rule on Iraq isn�t as easy as some imagined. All three of Iraq�s post-liberation prime ministers tried to do so and failed � the last of them, Nouri al-Maliki, more dramatically than others.

Though still plagued by a despotic culture formed over decades, a growing number of Iraqis no longer see the state as a mere machinery for repression. Even with intimidation tactics and fat bribes, Maliki never managed to silence Iraq�s free media.

•  Iran�s hopes of playing boss in Iraq have been dashed. Tehran did all it could to keep Maliki in his seat, even sening Gen. Qassem Suleimani (who controls Iranian-financed gangs across the Middle East) to Baghdad and Erbil, the Kurdish capital, to lobby for him.
•  The oil-rich Arab states have also failed to gain a decisive influence in Iraq by sponsoring Sunni terror groups in the name of preventing the creation of a �Shiite Crescent� by Iran.Arab money and support helped counter Iranian money and support for armed Shiite groups � also helped create and fatten Daesh. Senior Arab figures now admit this may have been bad strategy and that their hopes of domination in Iraq are as forlorn as Iran�s.
•  Having absorbed the initial shock of Daesh�s rise, Iraq is starting to fight back.

In recent days both government units and Kurdish peshmerga (death-defiers) have inflicted serious defeats on Daesh units in a series of battles, regaining control of 30-plus villages and towns across more than 600 miles.

Several top Daesh figures have been killed or captured, including �Defense Minister� Khalil al-Mufakhakhah and nine of his commanders.

Yet chief among the many uncertainties is the ability of Iraqi and Kurdish units to actually defeat Daesh. The best information is that only three or four brigades of the Iraqi army are capable of planning and fighting a battle. So far only one unit, the �Golden Brigade,� has been a credible fighting force.

Washington�s hope that the peshmerga could defeat Daesh with US air support seems overly optimistic.

Today�s Peshmerga units aren�t the legendary forces who fought Saddam Hussein in the 1960s and �70s. Most current peshmerga, recruited after Saddam�s fall, had no fighting experience until now.

Without a crash training program and massive deliveries of weapons, they won�t be able to go beyond tactical victories. Daesh is better armed and led by seasoned fighters with years of jihadi experience and/or army service.

Another uncertainty concerns the position of major Western powers � especially President Obama�s studied ambiguity. Also uncertain is the stance of the so-called Muslim world.

The moribund Arab League held a meaningless meeting; the Islamic Conference beats the drums about Gaza rather than calling for a common effort to crush Daesh.