After Ramadi, ISIS Targets Abu Gharib
The loss of Ramadi, in hindsight, was a lack of will to fight by some Iraqi units and a lack of will of President Obama to send the air assets promised. To send the promised arms that could have halted the 27 VIED's used there to pierce Ramadi defenses from Iraq's Golden Division Regiment of 1500 men. The ISIS foes, knowing that Iraqi soldiers had no antitank weapons, simply destroyed barriers across the Euphrates with an armored bulldozer for over an hour. Gunfire simply bounced off, just like the early days of when the tank was a new weapon in WW1. With the barriers gone, ISIS, numbered around 500 men, poured across from various directions and the vehicle IED's hit their targets like small atomic bombs. They were packed with explosives.
The Iraqi soldiers, like the South Vietnamese in another war, relied and were promised American air support. History simply repeated. The few American sorties did little to ISIS, they were often too late for a moving target because American pilots had to get permission to engage before bombing. They could not engage in targets of opportunity. Thank you President Obama for being such a bad military leader. Not far away from Ramadi was also the the American 122nd A-10 Squadron-grounded. Why? Why? The weapons promised to the Iraqis were cheap copies of AK-47's, prone to falling apart quickly. The antitank weapons, 1000 of them, were not available either to use at Ramadi. Of course, the elite and well trained Golden Regiment did fight well but the Iraqi leaders had not resupplied the unit in a month and in the heat of the battle, they ran out of ammunition. This was a repeat in the last years of the Vietnam War, when America decided to abandoned an ally. So, no wonder Iraqis would rather have Iran's help, far more reliable. This is bad military policy.
But, now Iraq wants to retake Ramadi with militia. It's success is highly unlikely. At Tikrit, where ISIS only had 1000 fighters in the city center, it took 30,000 Iraqi troops and weeks to finally retake it! Not exactly inspiring! At Tikrit, most of the city was void of civilians and the Americans bombed it heavily even before the Iraqis were willing to enter. At Ramadi, Iranian militia are mixed with Iraqis and preparing to attack. They want the American air to support the attack. Will Obama allow this?
If the attack fails at Ramadi, ISIS will set its gun sights on Abu Gharib, a city very close to Bagdad and next door to the Baghdad International Airport. Its capture would cripple the morale and will of the Iraqis more. It would cause many to flee creating more panic. It would invite the Iranians to be more directly involved with troops because Iran will not allow Baghdad to fall. This would cause Obama to commit boots on the ground to some degree for political and military reasons. If that city falls, ISIS could threaten the international airport with its artillery, closing it, this would be catastrophic.
Obama's military timidness is simply making it worse than it has to be.