Can flood cities and cause droughts
The control the so-called Islamic State – al Baghdadi’s caliphate – over Iraq’s largest dam in Mosul seems disputed for the moment, but even if they are beaten back from the facility, they have reached an important milestone. Even the Americans were forced to take notice after brushing off the issue for months, and sorties are underway.
If militants are able to retake the dam, however, and even hold it briefly, they could flood entire cities including the capital. They could also cut off water supply to thousands, causing serious drought. The Americans have been forced to act because the government is clearly bracing for an assault on Baghdad, and the road south to Basra’s oil fields. For the moment, Maliki seems to have decided not to venture north to retake Mosul, Tikrit, etc. And the famed Turkish peshmerga troops, too, have been unable to stem rebel advances near their regions. They expanded their territory and moved to take the dam in the wake of the army’s withdrawal. But so far militants seem to have had the better of them.
The American component of the anti-IS onslaught will be the game changer, even though Obama has taken far too long to respond to perhaps the greatest crisis in the Middle East. Already, thousands of people have been killed as so called caliphate forces consolidate and prepare for the tough fighting ahead. Entire communities of Christians have had to leave areas they have inhabited for nearly two thousand years. And the shi’a, forever bearing the brunt of militant Islam, have all but been wiped out from areas under rebel control; thousands have been summarily executed, and many more have fled.
Unless the tide is turned urgently, Iraq risks being partitioned into at least three states, with the shi’a, sunni and Kurds fighting it out to protect their respective populations. It bears noting that areas where IS has made advances are the same regions where al Qaeda troubled the Americans the most, and many of these cities had to be taken and re-taken a number of times before the war was over. And the manner in which militants have rebounded so strongly is proof enough, if any was still needed, that the Americans did not finish the job before leaving. They engineered a fragile truce, with local sunni tribes backing government forces against rebels, but that arrangement quickly fell apart after the US withdrawal. It is hoped that Washington will be more prudent in its engagement with Iraq this time. It has had to return to clean a mess of its own making. And hopefully it will lend a bigger hand than a few air strikes.