Guns Not Soldiers
Today, the German government announced that it will send a
shipment of arms to the Peshmerga, the fighting forces of Iraq’s Kurdish minority, marking the effective end of a long-standing
ban on the shipment of arms to combat zones. That ban has become increasingly
symbolic in recent years, as “exceptions” have unfortunately started to become
the norm. Germany is one of the world’s largest arms exporters – and its buyers
include countries with well-documented human rights abuses.
A majority of Germans oppose the decision to send weapons.
What’s on the List?
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| Peshmerga Humvee on the Mosul Dam, August 21. Photo:Reuters/Youssef Boudlal |
The shipment includes 16,000 rifles, 10,000 grenades, 500
MILAN anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) with 30 launchers, 40 machine guns, and
5 Dingo armored vehicles (equivalent to lightly-armored Humvees). All are to be
delivered over the course of this month.
Some of these weapons are actively counterproductive. The
rifles are an equal mix of new G36 assault rifles, which fire 5.56x45mm
bullets, and Cold-War-era G3s, which fire 7.62x51mm bullets. This will
dramatically increase the logistical burden on the Peshmerga, which has so far
only used weapons that fire the widespread 7.62x39mm and 7.62x54mm bullets. Absent
a substantial, steady supply of the correct bullets, forward units will be at
risk of running out of ammunition during long engagements – even if resupply is
prompt, they will risk being supplied the wrong bullets. All four bullets are
unusable in guns designed for any of the others.
Not all of the weapons are useless. The MILAN missiles will
be effective in dealing with ISIS-captured tanks – though ISIS’
tanks are unlikely to be decisive anyway. There are risks that the ATGMs
could be used against Turkey or Iraq. MILANs captured from Syrian arsenals have
already proliferated in the region, and increasing the volume won’t exactly
resolve that problem.
The Dingoes, on the other hand, don’t really threaten
anyone. They do provide the Peshmerga with mobility that is protected against small
arms fire (like the U.S.-supplied Humvees the Kurds already have) – but there
are only five of them. That’s not even enough to transport fifty armed
soldiers. The Dingoes will also be vulnerable to RPG-7s, the most widely used
antitank weapon in the region, and the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that
ISIS has begun to use.
Why the Kurds?
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| Peshmerga fighters fire a US-made M40 recoilless rifle towards ISIS positions. The 105mm shell fired by the weapon probably cannot penetrate the frontal armor of the handful of T-72s in ISIS use, but should easily defeat the T-55 used in larger numbers. Photo: JM Lopez/EPA |
The decision to support the Kurds specifically plays into a
recent western tendency to treat the Kurds as a silver bullet to Iraq’s
problems. The Kurds, so the thinking goes, succeeding in resisting ISIS where
the Iraqi military failed, and haven’t been implicated in sectarian violence –
so why not make them the proxy of choice?
It’s certainly true that the Peshmerga are an inclusive
organization. The problem is twofold: they haven’t actually been more effective
than the Iraqi military, and support to them puts Iraq’s fragile unity at risk.
Observers have been inclined to forget that when ISIS turned
against the Kurds, the Kurds retreated too. Just like the Iraqi military, they
struggled to counter ISIS’ infiltration tactics, and blamed their losses on
insufficient weapons. Like the Iraqi military, they only succeeded in stopping
ISIS’ advance when supported by U.S. airstrikes – and they’ve only succeeded in
advancing while working together with the Iraqi government.
The other issue is that a well-armed Peshmerga could be used
to support a bid for Kurdish independence. That could be disastrous – Iraq is
not without sectarian problems, and an attempt to create a Kurdish state by
violent means would do absolutely nothing to improve the situation. I can’t
emphasize too much that the recent successes against ISIS have been the product
of cooperation between the Kurds and the Iraqi government. Iraq has a chance to
come out of this war as a more stable, more inclusive state – a chance that
could easily be dashed by either side. Supporting one group of Iraqis at the
expense of others is not and has never been the solution – it didn’t work in
2004, and it won’t work now.
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