During the period from the American withdrawal from Iraq at the end of 2011 to the period before ISIL rose up to take Mosul, collapse a large portion of Iraqi security forces, and generally take hold of western and northwestern Iraq, I periodically begged the Obama administration to pay attention to rising jihadi strength.
So I make a call to the Trump administration to pay attention to the rising ISIL terrorism in Iraq:
The Islamic State is creeping back into parts of central Iraq just seven months after the government declared victory in the war against the group, embarking on a wave of kidnappings, assassinations and bombings that have raised fears a new cycle of insurgency is starting again.
The small-scale attacks are taking place mostly in remote areas that have been neglected by the government and are chillingly reminiscent of the kind of tactics that characterized the Islamic State insurgency in the years before 2014, when the group captured a vast swathe of territory across Iraq and Syria.
This was inevitable and only the timing of when survivors of the territorial caliphate would resume insurgent and terrorist tactics in Iraqi territory was uncertain.
What part of fanatical killers on a mission from God is unclear? Keep killing the jihadis and make sure that Iraq tries to build rule of law to prevent the appeal of ISIL from turning Iraq's Sunni Arabs out for the jihad--again.
Or do we want to wait until we have Iraq War 3.0?
UPDATE: This was predictable:
With its dream of a Caliphate in the Middle East now dead, Islamic State has switched to hit-and-run attacks aimed at undermining the government in Baghdad, according to military, intelligence and government officials interviewed by Reuters.
I must say that I assume rebels in Syria will eventually go to insurgency in their post-territory world. Unless they are truly broken. Are they?
