Hope

Iraq is looking to buy 36 F-16s, probably “C/D Block 50/52+ models requested or bought by recent customers like Chile, Greece, Morocco, Poland, Pakistan, Romania, Turkey et. al.” according to Defense Industry Daily.   It will mark the return of the Iraqi Air Force to the regional skies.

Neither the aircraft numbers nor the new Iraqi army are large enough to constitute a threat to other countries in the Gulf, but they are enough to worry to Iran in the near future. If things continue to go well, the situation in the Gulf will have changed from one in which Iraq had to be contained to one in which it will become a major element in the containment of Iran. Compare this prospective situation not only to that obtaining in the late 1990s, when the US had to maintain a “no fly zone” and maintain a carrier force in the Gulf, but to the situation that would have occurred if Barack Obama’s strategy not to attempt the Surge had been followed, and any fair-minded person would concede that it is an improvement.