A Foreign Policy Conducted so Stupidly that it Burns

[by Mark Safranski, a.k.a. “zen“]

Karl Marx once said history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce. The United States, on the other hand, has in a short quarter-century moved from parody to farce:

SNL Desert Storm Press Conf (3 34) from Wendy Hall on Vimeo.

Only the outcomes are likely to be tragic.

Barring a Bugs Bunny-level reverse-psychology Information Operation in progress, we have a highly centralized White House whose micromanagement of military campaigns by amateur staffers includes briefing the enemy:

An Iraqi military operation to retake the country’s second largest city from Islamic State is likely to begin in April or May, according to a US official.

A force of 20,000-25,000 Iraqi and Kurdish forces will aim to seize back Mosul from an estimated 1,000-2,000 IS fighters, who took it last June after government forces melted away in the onslaught.

The planned spring assault on the city, with a population of over a million, will involve about 12 brigades, five of whom will soon have coalition training, the official at US Central Command added.

No decision has been made on whether small numbers of US military advisers might need to be on the ground close to Mosul to direct close air support.

The main attack force would include five Iraqi army brigades, the official said.

Three smaller brigades would act as a reserve force, and three brigades of Kurdish Peshmerga troops would contain the city from the north and isolate it from Islamic State forces further west.

A so-called Mosul fighting force consisting mainly of former Mosul police officers and tribal fighters also is being assembled for the assault, the official said.

A brigade of counter-terrorism troops would also be employed in the fight, he said, adding if Iraqi forces were not ready by April or May the operation could be delayed.

Hey, good to know! No word yet as to whether the dime store “caliph” of Daesh, Abu Big Daddy or whatever he’s calling himself, will be sharing defensive  battle plans with Wolf Blitzer.

The story continues:

It is very unusual for the US military to openly discuss the timing of an upcoming offensive, especially to a large group of reporters.

I’ll say. It pretty much only happens when the military is ordered to do so by some gaggle of clueless civilian officials without military experience who are consistently too goddamned arrogant to listen to those who do.

Predictably, this Einstein play by our generation’s best and brightest immediately stirred guarded criticism from the hired help and bombast from the evil Republicans (TM); So Operation Countersplainin’ was immediately launched, using one of the administration’s faithful scribes, with full twitter battalions supporting:

….So why did a senior military official spill the details of the war plan to rout the Islamic State from Mosul?

The answer: The Pentagon and Iraqi military commanders are hoping to avoid a massive, bloody battle in Iraq’s second largest city. “We want Mosul to look a lot more like the liberation of Paris than Stalingrad or Fallujah,” said a senior military official familiar with the planning. In other words, U.S. and Iraqi commanders are hoping that they can convince most of the Islamic State fighters to leave the city before the big battle…..So far it remains unclear whether the strategy will work.

SPOILER ALERT!: Uh…no….no it won’t. And if it did, so what?

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