Iraqi forces capable of defeating Daesh single-handedly: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Zayd al-Isa, Iraq affairs expert in London, to discuss the latest gains made by Iraqi army troops and volunteer forces on the battlefield against the ISIL Takfiri terrorists in the western province of Anbar.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Do you think that the Iraqi military is able to recapture Ramadi, make more advances, but yet perhaps there is a push back coming from other forces they are engaged in Iraq. And I am talking about some US forces, not to mention now Turkish forces.

Isa: I do believe that the Iraqi forces, if they are allowed to be fully backed up by the Popular Mobilization forces which have been spearheading and have been at a forefront of combating [and] countering ISIS and have single-handedly by themselves managed to liberate the areas of Jurf al-Sakhar Amerli and also the entire province of Diyala as well as seizing back and claiming back the highly important city of Tikrit, are actually fully capable of taking back Ramadi. It has been the US which has been dragging its feet, having cold feet about the Iraqi army, going in and liberates Ramadi.  

Let’s remember that Ramadi was actually not defended by the Popular Mobilization forces, because the US defiantly and adamantly refused to allow the Popular Mobilization forces to enter Ramadi, to actually protect it and defend it and to prove that we have [Martin] Dempsey, the previous head of the US forces; actually saying that Ramadi was insignificant; it was not strategic enough and even if it fell to ISIS, then it will not affect our campaign to actually defeat ISIS.

So we can clearly see that the US wanted Ramadi to fall; it did actually not back up the forces that were there to defend it and it was actually done in order to appease the Saudi regime which is part and parcel of the so-called US-led coalition that is in preparation for the agreement on the Iranian nuclear program. So that was actually the background to the fall of Ramadi.

Now we can see that the US also has been dragging its feet about Iraqi forces moving towards Mosul because the US needs ISIL and throughout its campaign, the US-led campaign, it has been actually trying to contain [and] weaken ISIS but only to the extent where it remains a potent, credible and viable threat to use it with its main allies, Saudi Arabia and actually Turkey, to achieve its overarching goal that is the Saudi goal of toppling the Syrian-elected government to weaken and destabilize Iraq, to try to bring it to its knees and also to use it as a military arms in order to actually lunch an aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

We can clearly see that the US is taking advantage of, in my opinion, the misguided pledge by the Iraqi government, which actually pledged to Joe Dunford , the new US head of the forces, that Iraq would not ask that the Russian army or the Russian forces to launch airstrikes in coordination with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

So what I see is that it is absolutely crucial for Iraq now, particularly with the Turkish invasion of Iraqi soil and defiant refusal of Turkey to withdraw its aggressive forces, that Iraq asks the Russians and also the Iranian government to actually launch airstrikes to dislodge and also to move aggressively against ISIS because we have seen that the US alliance is not genuine in its actually pursuit to degrade and dismantle ISIS.

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