U.S. airstrikes in Tikrit begin as Iranian backed militias withdraw from the battle. Yahoo/AFP

Badr militia men heading to Tikrit. Yahoo/AFP.

U.S. airstrikes begin as Iranian backed militias withdraw from the battle of Tikrit. Yahoo/AFP. With the Shia militia units withdrawing from the front lines the Iraqi government forces, made up of 4000 Iraqi Army and Federal Police, will take the lead in the battle. The withdrawal of the militia was a condition for U.S. and collation airstrikes. The militias were the lead force in the battle for Tikrit and have been accused of committing atrocities against Sunni Muslims on multiple occasions. They were lead by an Iranian General named Qassam Soleimani. Soleimani is now out of the picture. With the Shia militias out of the way both the United States and France attacked ISIS positions in the city of Tikrit. 

My Comment:

This is a large development in the battle for Tikrit. Is it positive or negative? My guess is that the Iraqi forces are much less likely to commit atrocities against the Sunni population of Tikrit. But with only 4,000 forces they will have a lot of problems defeating ISIS. Before the withdrawal of the Shia militias the Iraqi forces had a numerical advantage over ISIS but now the numbers are more equal. Airstrikes will help but the battle will still be mostly between light infantry in house to house combat. 

The battle will still be brutal. It is a house to house fight where explosives and booby traps will be everywhere. The enemy will use suicide bombers as well. ISIS fighters are outnumbered but they are fanatics willing to die for their cause. They are also trapped which means they will fight harder. The casualties on both sides will be terrible and both sides will lose a lot of troops. 

So who will win? I still think that ISIS will probably will lose. They are still outnumbered. Airstrikes will reduce morale and destroy supplies. They are cut off from the rest of their forces. The real question isn't if they will win or lose but how much damage they will do. My guess is that the battle will be a Pyrrhic victory for Iraq. Those 4,000 troops will be decimated and Iraq will end up even more reliant on the Shia militias.

 When the next offensive happens, which will probably be the battle for Mosul, they will have to have support from the Shia militias. If the long term choice is between the fighters those militias can combine and U.S. airstrikes, I am guessing that they will go for the fighters. You can't win a battle with air power alone. You need troops on the ground to take and hold territory. Airstrikes help of course, and can have a major impact on battles, but you must have ground troops too. With the state of the Iraqi Army what it is, they will have to lean heavily on the Shia militias and the Kurds, which puts the United States in a difficult position. 

The real question is whether or not U.S. airstrikes will support these Iranian backed militias directly. There have been limited strikes in support of them before but those were never common and were always coordinated with Iraqi government forces on the ground. Given their poor human rights record and the fact that they aren't much better then ISIS, it would make the United States look very hypocritical to do so. More importantly, with the proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia in Yemen looking like it has a real possibility to heat up into an actual shooting war, outside events could overtake the situation in Iraq.