“If they don’t take Mosul by the middle of the year, that is definitely a failure,” said Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an expert on counterterrorism.
Irregular fighters have assumed the largest burden in the fight against Islamic State—a role expected to continue well into 2015. When the Mosul counteroffensive comes, Shiite militias, Sunni tribesmen and Kurdish forces are expected to coordinate with the Iraqi and American militaries.
But the Iraqi government has made little progress in rebuilding its army since its units collapsed in the face of Islamic State’s blitz.
“The Mosul siege won’t happen for at least two or three months from now,” Abdul Kareem Khalaf, a former spokesman for Iraq’s Ministry of Interior, said in late December. “The security forces aren’t ready yet. They still need more support, especially air support, and they need more troops.”
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