WASHINGTON — The capture of Ramadi last weekend by Islamic State fighters is a significant setback for U.S. strategy in Iraq and shows that, nearly a year after the extremists overran Mosul, the U.S. still doesn’t have a viable plan for protecting the country’s Sunni areas.
The collapse of the Iraqi army in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, was in some ways a replay of the Mosul debacle in June 2014. The Shiite-dominated Iraqi military, though trained and retrained by the U.S., appeared to lack the leadership or will to fight off a relatively small but ferocious onslaught of Sunni insurgents.
The Ramadi defeat exposed the sectarian tensions that underlie this war. Among the urgent questions: Are Shiite regular army troops ready to fight and die to protect Sunnis, or will their lines collapse in Sunni areas, as happened in Mosul and now Ramadi? If the tougher Iranian-backed Shiite militias are sent instead to do the job, will the Sunni population see them as a Shiite occupation army — setting the stage for a generation of sectarian revenge killing?
The U.S. Central Command offered bland reassurances in the hours before the lines buckled in Ramadi. Via teleconference from the Middle East, Marine Brig. Gen. Thomas D. Weidley told reporters Friday that the U.S.-led coalition’s strategy was on track. Ramadi was “contested,” he said, but the Islamic State was “on the defensive” throughout Iraq and Syria, and resistance was mostly “small-scale, localized, harassing attacks.” He said the U.S.-led coalition had conducted 165 airstrikes in the past month to support the Iraqis and that coalition planners were “working closely with the Iraqi security forces to control critical infrastructure.”
The Centcom briefing proved grossly overoptimistic. According to field reports compiled by a consulting firm, the extremists began Friday with a car bomb attack in Albu Diab, north of the city, that was a “likely diversion tactic.” As Iraqi troops rushed north, the insurgents sent a wave of at least four car bombs into the city center. They did their work. The government defense lines broke.