Iraqi forces liberate the last major ISIS controlled town, Rawah.

A file photo of the ISIS flag flying in Rawah. LA Times/AP

Iraqi forces have liberated Rawah, the last major ISIS controlled town in Iraq. LA Times. The pre-dawn assault only lasted five hours. Rawah was the last major town under control of ISIS after the border town of al-Qaim was liberated earlier this month. US forces assisted in both battles and will continue to help the Iraqis with clean up operations, with ISIS still controlling a few towns and villages in the vast western desert of Iraq. ISIS has largely been pushed out of Syria as well, but they were able to recapture the border town of Abu Kamal after Hezbollah briefly liberated the town. 

My Comment:

This was the last major holding ISIS had in Iraq and it fell in five hours. The once formidable army that raped and pillaged its way across Iraq is now nothing more than a few disorganized survivors hiding out in the desert. ISIS has largely been defeated and I am guessing that the remaining clean up operations will move quickly. Rawah was their last stand, but instead of a glorious battle, they went out with a whimper.

Indeed, the fight against ISIS in Iraq has gone much quicker than I thought it would. This is due in large part because of the massive increase in competence by the Iraqi military. This is not the army that broke and fled in Mosul back in 2014. They are now a professional, battle hardened, fighting force that is more than a match for the few remaining ISIS fighters. 

And it's not just Iraq either. Across the border in Syria, ISIS has almost been defeated. Though the declaration of victory there was obviously premature, they really only have a few patches of territory left, with Abu Kamal being the most important. Abu Kamal already fell once and it will happen again. Though the Syrian military, and their Hezbollah allies, lost it once already, it's not like ISIS has the men to win a war of attrition with them. Almost all of their soldiers have died on the battlefield and they are completely cut off from any reinforcements. 

The war in Iraqi will now move into a new phase of more traditional insurgency. ISIS as a state is gone. But as a terrorist group, it is far from defeated. They will move underground and operate like their former organization, al-Qaeda in Iraq, did. Expect more terror attacks and raids as opposed to operations where ISIS takes and holds territory. 

As for Iraq, they have to make sure that they don't fall into the same traps they did last time. After the defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the rest of the insurgency, Iraq let its military fall apart and they pushed away their US ally, with a large amount of help from the militarily incompetent Barack Obama. Corruption set in to the point where they had fake soldiers drawing salaries and few of the real ones felt like fighting. They have to make sure that their military stays as professional and corruption free as it is now. That's a lot harder to do in semi-peacetime than it is during war. 

They also have to do something about the potential for Sunni and Shiite conflict. One of the reasons that ISIS was able to advance as much as they did, remember just a year or two ago it was feared that Baghdad itself could fall, is because sectarian tensions were so high. The Sunni cities and towns of the west did not trust the Shiite led government of Nuri al-Maliki and many of them greeted ISIS with open arms. Given how appalling ISIS had behaved to that point, even back then they were a pack of murdering monsters, that is really saying something about how bad things were between Sunni and Shia. And, as always, you can't expect the Saudis and Iranians to keep out of that potential tinderbox. 

We are also seeing a potential conflict erupting between the Kurds and the Iraqi government. Though the brief skirmishes have settled down, we also have to recognize that the Kurds have tasted quite a bit of freedom. Their desire for an independent homeland could cause the region to further spiral out of control.

All of these things could give ISIS an opportunity to rise from the ashes yet again. They have survived such defeats before and to give them any opening to do so again is foolish. The Iraqi government must make sure that they are ready for any regrouping of ISIS and keep their various sectarian and administrative problems under control. Because if they give ISIS a chance, you better believe that they could come back. 

And ISIS is still not defeated globally. Though ISIS is a spent force in both Iraq and Syria, they are still active in many other countries. Even though they lost their main bases in Libya, they have been regrouping their. And they have yet to be defeated in Egypt, Afghanistan, Yemen and The Philippines. Though the biggest battles may be behind us, the fight against ISIS is far from over.