The Iraqi Army will have to destroy Mosul in order to save it ¡ª and it¡¯s not clear whether it can do the job even then. It isn¡¯t so much an army as a vast system of patronage providing employment of a sort for 900,000 people.
When fewer than a thousand ISIS jihadis fought their way into Mosul, Iraq¡¯s second-largest city, over the past few days, most of the government¡¯s soldiers just shed their uniforms and fled.
The government troops never felt comfortable in Mosul anyway, for they are mostly Shiite Muslims and the vast majority of Mosul¡¯s 1.8 million residents are Sunni. (Or maybe it¡¯s only 1.3 million people now, for up to 500,000 of the city¡¯s residents are reported to be fleeing the triumphant jihadis.)
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