Yes, they might. Certainly it was air power which turned the tide in Syria. On the other hand, Assad had a loyal and effective army to take and hold the ground. I am not sure the same can be said for Maliki.
But don’t you think they will really be flown by trained Iranian air force pilots? That would certainly be my expectation. If Iran’s armed forces are going to be fighting to keep the puppet Maliki in place, there’s not much reason for us to donate our own materiel for it.
Possibly so, since the Iranian pilots would be familiar with various models of Sukhoi jets. If so, I think Iran would try to obscure their nationality. I read at another forum that when Russia sent jets to Assad, they included both parts and mechanics. If the same thing is done for Iraq, that would probably solve the maintenance issue.
I don’t understand why the USA is supporting the current government of Iraq, whose forces are murdering people in cold blood? If the USA is really for human rights, it would be opposed to this. It seems to me that it would be better for Americans to spend money to promote peace instead of spending trillions of dollars on these wars which create so much harm and sorrow to so many people. BTW, how much longer are the Americans going to stay in Iraq? How much longer in Afghanistan? I see that now Mr. Obama wants to give $500 million dollars to rebels in Syria who are trying to overthrow Assad? Why not give this money to poor students in the USA who are struggling to find ways to pay for their college education. Catholic college tuition runs from $30K and much higher these days. How are Catholic families supposed to be able to cope with these prices? Billions of dollars spent for weapons in the middle east, and now we hear that many of these weapons, paid for by the USA, are in the hands of those who are not friendly to the USA?
The news media says that ISIS is extremist. But are they really? What about the Sunnis in Iraq who are not represented in the present government. Where would they turn to for help?
ISIS isn’t extremist? Please provide your supporting evidence for this, in my opinion, rather uninformed position.
ISIS may have extremists in charge, but there are moderate Sunnis joining the group as they protest the current Shiite leadership of Iraq.
That is true
That is true as well.
Oh, well with that logic we would have to conclude that no the US wasn’t actually occupying Iraq. We did, after all, have Sunni and Shiite Iraqis and near the end whole Sunni tribes fighting along side us against sectarianism and terrorist groups (which included ISIS).
The Sunni tribal leaders were allied with the U.S. Ayatollah Sistani did, at least tacitly, approve of the U.S. presence. The Kurds were with us. None wanted us to leave. But Obama did, so that was that.
-Yes, but no one seriously used the idea that some Sunni and Shiite tribes and leaders worked with us/approved of some of the stuff we did as support for the argument that the US really wasn’t occupying Iraq. The argument that ISIS isn’t an extremist organization because some Sunni tribes are working along side/approve of some of the stuff ISIS does/demands is as about as valid as the argument that the US didn’t actually occupy Iraq.