As Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) have been closing in on Tal Afar from the western Mosul axis, a town 33 miles west of Mosul, its top commanders have openly discussed their post-Islamic State plans to secure the border with Syria and push into the country. These senior commanders are closely affiliated with Iran. Their movements shed light on the next steps of the PMF and Tehran in Mesopotamia and the Levant.
Harakat al Nujaba’s spokesman vowed on Nov. 18 that the PMF, as “one of Iraq’s security institutions,” was ready to pursue the Islamic State into Syria per the request of the Syrian government and the approval of the Iraqi government and parliament.
“It makes no difference whether we fight terrorism inside Iraq’s soil or outside of it,” the spokesman said. An offshoot of Asaib Ahl al Haq, Harakat al Nujaba was formed to fight in the Syrian civil war on the side of the Assad regime and already has forces deployed to Aleppo.
On Nov. 16, Badr Organization leader Hadi Ameri told the press in Baghdad that Damascus had requested the PMF to deploy to Syria following the expulsion of the Islamic State from Iraq, and that the PMF would establish security by the border area, according to statements carried in Al Waght. Iraq’s Prime Minister had echoed those two points one day earlier, announcing to the media that Baghdad and Damascus were coordinated for exerting border security.
The PMF’s moves to establish presence by the border with Syria and shift into the war there reflect important components of Tehran’s long-term strategies in Iraq and Syria.
There are discussions in Western policy circles about Iran’s game plan to build a land corridor from Iraq to Lebanon with its proxies, anchoring Iranian-backed forces in the region. Tehran, however, already has freedom of movement stretching through the Mediterranean via its air bridge and has moved material and weapons to Syria and Lebanon with impressive results despite sanctions against Iran and two ongoing wars in the Middle East’s heartland. Iran has turned around the civil war in Syria, and has stockpiled more than 100,000 rockets in Lebanon. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders have been bragging about stretching to the Mediterranean for the past three years.
The hypothesized Iranian land corridor. Credit: The Guardian
Re-establishing a viable land corridor through Syrian territory would carry significant cost now. Iran used supply routes from Baghdad to Damascus during the early phase of the Syrian civil war before oppositions forces interdicted in 2012, as discussed by Will Fulton, formerly of the American Enterprise Institute. Turkish forces are expanding in northern Syria, and hostile Islamic State and rebels control territory between eastern and western Syria. The Iranian leadership is strategically risk-averse, and would not sacrifice its hard-fought gains in Syria for the glory of territorial conquest.
In Syria, Tehran’s short-term goal is to achieve military victory in Aleppo. This has demanded significant Iranian and Russian resources in the past year. The Hezbollah Brigades Secretary-General, Hashem al Heydari, told an audience of Iranian Basij paramilitary in Bojnourd, Iran’s northern Khorasan province, on Nov. 22 that victory in Aleppo was near. Military victory in Aleppo and continued gains in Damascus area can stabilize the regime and could be translated into leverage for future negotiations. Even if those negotiations aren’t fruitful, the regime can still win by consolidating control over “essential” Syria stretching from Damascus to the Mediterranean. Victory in Aleppo, in particular, would significantly dim the opposition’s chances of taking significant urban territory. The conflict would thus enter a new phase of a more classic insurgency, with Turkish-backed rebels posted in the northern countryside without being able to seriously threaten regime positions and major urban areas.
Although the PMF has left the option of pushing into eastern Syria on the table, the Iraqi militias would face significant challenges advancing through non-Shiite territory in eastern Syria, especially without reliable air support. Akram al Kabi went as far as marching into Raqqa while on a trip in Tehran in September, though other militia leaders have not publicly discussed this.
In Iraq, the PMF seeks to cement itself as a fabric of the Iraqi state. The Prime Minister’s order this past year to establish the PMF as an independent military institution in an effort to exercise more control already legitimizes their continued existence beyond the 2014 mandate based on the fatwa of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani to drive the Islamic State from Iraq. That threat is prescient as long as the group controls Raqqa and has a presence in Iraq. Unless Iraq can train between 50,000 – 100,000 troops, which it does not appear to have the will nor means to effectively do so, the PMF can make a strong case that its mandate is unfulfilled and that it fills security voids, pushing back against calls from certain quarters for dissolution and disarming.
The PMF’s mentors, the IRGC in Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon, have reinterpreted their respective raison d’etre of guarding the revolution and resisting Israel – both of which have transformed over the course of decades into dominant military institutions with political, economic, and cultural influence.
from Long War Journal – FDD's Long War Journal http://ift.tt/2fSE1us
via Defense News
No comments: