Iraq must use militias wisely to stop ISIL: Pundit

Press TV has conducted an interview with Nabil Mikhail, a professor at George Washington University, to investigate the seizure of the Iraqi city of Ramadi by the ISIL Takfiri terrorists.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: How imperative is it for Iraq and its security for Ramadi to be retaken as quickly as possible?

Mikhai: It is so crucial. You have to establish the credibility of the government of Prime Minister Ebadi. You have also to stop their march towards Baghdad. You have to start your tapping carefully and quickly because after the Iraqi army took over Tikrit there were some sort of lull period, they basically slept somehow, and they did not make or declare any type of deterrents to stop ISIL from moving.

It is a strategic move, but what happened or what has been happening over the past 72 hours is the return of geopolitics. Anbar is a huge province, so it could be also something undermining a coherent power like ISIL.

Is also secures the border with Jordan, so you can also expect to some guerrilla movements or some sort of activity between the Iraqi Jordanian borderline. It also could be a subject to heavy attacks by the Iraqi army, the Iraqi army really cannot afford to lose the province of al-Anbar, so it is going to be a very important arena for conflict. I am still confident with the government of current prime minister but some actions has to be planned and executed smartly, promptly, and triumphantly.

Press TV: Mr. Mikhail you spoke of the offensive deliberate Tikrit and Salahuddin province as a whole, do you think that the lessons that were learnt from that offensive were not applied as quickly as they needed to be when it came to Anbar?

Mikhail: This is a good question and it should be examined first by military experts, I would like to hear what the Pentagon says, what the Iraqi military establishment says about it, but definitely there were some sort of relaxation that you did not take enough power to protect the next area of conflict, but still you can contain ISIL but make sure that the next target should not be Baghdad, because I understood from the Iraqi experts that the distance between Anbar and Baghdad is a little over 100 kilometers.

So, you have now start to fortify the highways, you have to use the Jordanian border carefully, you have to start hitting ISIL. ISIL also could be undermining its strength by spreading to ten as the expression goes but a quick military plan is needed and the prime minister should not be attacked because he is now at the center or at the heart of the debate over how to rescue Iraq, stop politics, apply geopolitics, Iraq can defeat ISIL.

 Press TV: Do you think it was a prudent move on the part of the Iraqi government to hold off the volunteer forces or the popular mobilization unites from joining the fight in Anbar until now?

Mikhail: Again, this is a good question but it will generate tough exchange and it could be some sort of not just self-examination but self-torture. You are trying to assign responsibility for a field action and it could be a prelude to self-defeat, so you can examine the situation in this way but the whole thing about the militias is that they are used selectively.

So if you have some people volunteering to fight ISIL do it but do it in a smart way, do it selectively, let them hit ISIL in the areas where it is their traditional bastions of power who are the control the geography where they do not have to move and risk any logistical loss.

You can arm them, you can recruit them, but make sure that you defeat ISIL, ISIL will not cross the Anbar province to any other area and the opposite could happen. We are very pessimistic now, but if really the Iraqi army in cooperation with any type of militia or popular resistance type of effort are able to force the ISIL to retreat.

It could really change the calculus of power in Iraq and it could be the beginning of a new move, but again the United States has to study carefully what is going on in Iraq because when it declared fighting ISIL not the whole power put defeat that extremist group. So we are seeing now an intermittent type of conflict that pops from one area to the other with disastrous consequences for the population and Syria’s geopolitical risks.

HRM/NN                      

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