Iraq Civil War: Three Questions

There are three questions that beg answering about the Iraq civil war.

How Could the CIA/Pentagon NOT Foresee This Possibility?

Our spy agencies communicating with each other.

It's not like the ethnic factions in Iraq were unknown. Pretty much the entire decade of the Iraq occupation was consumed with dealing with the blood letting of those factions trying to kill each other. It's not like the goal of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which has been around since 2004, to form an Islamic state of the Sunni tribes that live in eastern Syria and Western Iraq was a secret. It's all right there in the name.

My best guess is that the intelligence agencies were totally insulated in their bubble and only told each other what they wanted to hear. Anyone with a dissenting opinion would be labeled "not a team player" and reassigned to the Thule, Greenland listening post.

Why has the Iraq Army dissolved Like Wet Paper Mache?

Let's face it, in Iraq being in the army isn't considered an adventure, it's just a job. And certainly not a job worth dying over. When the US was training the Iraq army it had a couple of goals. First, it didn't want the Iraq Army thinking it could stand up to the US army of occupation. It was mostly trained to be subservient bitches. Second, it wanted an integrated force not dependent of tribal loyalties. But, Iraq is a collection of tribes, not a nation so the Iraq Army is devoid of any loyalty. Finally, the Iraq Army is, like the government, corrupt. The rank-and-file know their generals got their appointments through bribery and spend all their time sucking at the golden teat of the American taxpayer.

There is nothing new here. It is exactly the same state of affairs that caused the Vietnamese army to fold like a cheap Chinese lantern in 1975. The army can think of a lot better things to do, like going home,
than fighting and dying for the absentee gangsters who command them.

How Will the "Who Lost Iraq" Debate Play Out?
It is an American habit to find scapegoats whenever anything goes wrong. In 1948, factions of the corrupt Chinese government were fighting among themselves over how to divide their loot while Mao Tse-tung's Red Army focused on actually taking over the country. When the American backed crooks, led by Chiang Kai-shek, escaped to Taiwan Republicans, led by Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon, started a State Department witch hunt asking the question, "Who Lost China?" After Vietnam fell, the debate over "Who Lost Vietnam?" started. That time blame fell on the American generals when the perpetually corrupt South Vietnamese government had created a state that no one in their right minds was willing to fight and die for.

If Republicans were having fun with the Benghazi inquiries they will go absolutely orgasmic with charges of jihadist traitors in the State Department betraying Iraq. There weren't any, of course, but facts never stopped a good lynching.