The US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has told Congress that not enough Iraqis are coming forward to be trained as members of the Iraqi army. This has led some US politicians to question the Iraqis' willingness to fight for their own country. A few hardline Republicans are starting to say that American troops need to be deployed once again to take on Daesh (the self-proclaimed IS) terrorists. The sense of déjà vu is as strong as it is depressing. At the end of his lackluster presidency, Barack Obama is on the verge of reversing one of his earliest acts in office, the bringing home of US ground forces. The likelihood of mission creep is clear for all to see. The few hundred American trainers and advisors will expand slowly as will the troops necessary to guard them. US advisers are already working closely with Iraqi central command, thus having indirect contact, at the very least, with Iranian military personnel who are “assisting” the Iraqi army. It is this awkward reality that may be holding back further expansion of Washington's military role in Iraq. Until Obama can cut his longed-for nuclear deal with Tehran, there can be no overt working with the Iranians. His fixation on an accommodation with the slippery and dishonest regime in Tehran has completely distorted his judgment. To defeat the rabid wolf that is Daesh, he is prepared to lie down with another wolf. American politicians are also questioning the will of the Iraqi military. Despite billions of dollars spent on extensive training at all levels and spending billions more on sophisticated equipment, the Americans have not created an effective fighting force. There is no getting away from the wretched truth that, first in Mosul and then in Ramadi, Iraqi forces who outnumbered the terrorists by ten to one, abandoned prepared positions and fled, leaving behind vast stores of ammunition and equipment. Analysts can blame the local commanders, the lack of a strong cadre of NCOs and poor intelligence, but what is most evident here is the unwillingness of the Iraqi army, at all levels, to stand and fight. There is an insulting subtext to the criticism of some American politicians, which is that the Iraqis are cowards. Given the best training and the best equipment that money could buy, they still cut and ran. In actual fact, the debacles suffered by the Iraqi army suggest that the training itself was deficient. What was clearly missing was psychological preparation for the horrific propaganda of the terrorists. In depraved video after video posted on social media, Daesh demonstrates that any soldiers who are captured are shot dead. The terrorists parse this brutal message with the announcement that they are not afraid to die unlike those who oppose them. When faced with what is effectively a demented death cult, a special sort of training is required which was clearly lacking. This should not only have embraced pride in unit, unwillingness to let down comrades and an overwhelming sense of duty, but also the fundamental lesson that the only things these soldiers had to fear was fear itself. Getting troops to march up and down smartly, strip and reassemble weapons at breakneck speed and operate advanced military equipment is only part of the story. The key mental preparation was clearly lacking.
