The operation had been talked about in earnest for nearly a year now, but its onset at the tail end of the presidential campaign and at a time when Russian and Syrian forces are once more succeeding in their fight against Daesh raises questions about whether the organizers might have ulterior strategic motives.
As of now, Iraqi fighters are making incremental progress around the city, but Iraqi Kurdish general Sirwan Barzani said that it might take up to two months to complete the campaign.
Just as important as the battle itself, however, is the political aftermath of what follows, as there’s a chance that the Arabs and Kurds might duke it out for control of this strategic city.
We discuss the battle for Mosul with Gleb Ivaschentsov, member of the Russian Council For International Relations (studio guest); Elias Farhat, general retired from the Lebanese Army and strategic researcher (from Beirut); Justin Dargin, geopolitics expert at the University of Oxford; and Navid Nasr, independent geopolitical expert (based out of Zagreb).
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