Baghdad alone cannot free Anbar

Anbar, an Iraqi province, is now a potential security challenge to Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

The terrorist group Daesh managed to defeat Iraqi army troops in three villages surrounding the most populated town of Ramadi, paving the way to reaching the border points of Saudi city of Arar and Jordanian border point of Trebil.

It is no surprise that the Iraqi army, where there is widespread corruption among senior officers and tens of thousands on the payroll “ghost soldiers”, is no match for a group of well-trained and ideologically motivated fighters like those of Daesh.

The surrender, last June, of four army divisions, with their state-of-the-art tanks and missiles, gives clear signals that the battle for Ramadi cannot be left to the ministry of defence in Baghdad, since a loss of the city would mean the expansion of terrorists to areas adjacent to Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

The Baghdad government is still adamant in refusing the offer of some Arab capitals to send infantry troops to fight Daesh in Iraq, as the air bombardment by coalition forces can partially help, but cannot win the final battle on the ground, especially in Anbar’s difficult terrain.

The real motive for this rejection is the Sunni nature of Arab armies offering help.

No legitimate justification was given by Baghdad, which cannot defeat Daesh single handedly, through its army and security forces, and will not let other Sunni armies help defeat it.

The Iraqi media admit that Tikrit was liberated from Daesh weeks ago through the help of Iranian militias supervised by General Qassem Suleimani, head of the Iran Revolutionary Guards, who had to leave his Syrian military operation room and lead the offensive of thousands of Iranians in Tikrit.

The nearly two million Sunnis in Anbar are willing to offer thousands of volunteers to fight Daesh, in case they are properly armed and there are guarantees that there will be no stab in the back similar to the ones they suffered a decade ago when chemical weapons were used against Fallujah and other Sunni cities in Anbar.

Baghdad should be induced now, diplomatically, to accept an Arab force, similar to the Arab force that Saudi Arabia welcomed in the fight against the Yemeni Houthis, like Kuwait welcomed two decades ago, and within the same parameters that the Arab League approved for Libya and Riyadh. 

To confront such a potential security threat, His Majesty King Abdullah stressed in his interview with Fox News last week that Jordan will fight the sources of terrorism, regionally and locally.