Comment: Meet 'Pig Iron' - The Man Who Knows How To Kill Islamic State

A man called Pig Iron sat in the House of Commons gallery and listened to the Prime Minister. Every few words he would nod slowly in agreement. Yes, Islamic State is bad news. Yes, what goes down in Syria is bad news. Yes, it is bad news letting others fight our battles.  

 

But when the suited man on the floor of the chamber got to the bit about letting us go bomb, then Pig Iron sat taller and shook his bearded chin in defiance. No. No. No.

 

In the bar across the road Pig Iron looked more like what he had once been. Special. Special Forces: Sturdy with untrusting eyes and thick hands with whittled down nails. He had spent much of his Service life in those parts as he called them.

 

The early 1970's spent under the command of Salusbury-Trelawny, fighting rebels in Oman as part of the Sultan's Dhofar Brigade. The Special Forces man stuck in 'Waddhi Something or Other' with Firquat irregulars he did not quite trust and just a couple of sandbags on the floor for protection in their Land Rover. Then into Iraq in 1991. Once again 'cleaning up' the mess in 2003, before time spent as an instructor in Jordan attached to the Little King.  

 

 

 

So why the head shaking? Chipping in with a few RAF sorties would, he says "make David Cameron feel good" but "would have no result". And anyway, the record shows 60% of Iraq RAF sorties are aborted.

 

Pig Iron knows the Middle East as well as any. He knows what is happening, and who it is happening to. The rest he hears. He says with the wisdom of a man who drinks lager with a whisky chaser (or maybe it is the other way round), that we should sector Iraq and Syria. Then put French, US, British and maybe Australian Special Forces, backed up by Kurds, in each of the seven sectors. All sitting under (reluctantly) a US commander with a British second in command driving the whole thing.

 

The US Marine Corps, RAF and French should provide close air support. The US, French and Royal Navy should use air-launched, drone-launched and sea-launched (including submarine-launched) assets to ground-soften IS.

 

The seven sectors would be separated so no Islamic State command, control and force movement could overlap. British and American ISTAR (information, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance) should feed the lot through a distributing Joint Command HQ. At such an HQ, with all the fancy titles they could handle, would be commanders-in-chief of the major Gulf States. 

 

And then? And then, you go in and clean out ISIL inside six months.  

 

 

Much of IS will not be killed, unless they are looking for early blood baths and mythical virgins. They will instead disperse. And then? And then, it is a hot pursuit job. You continue operations not as an army sitting on its bum, but as a fast moving opportunity force harassing stragglers, acting on ISTAR follow up.  

 

Is that it? No, you hand back the Middle East to the Middle East, with Western guys on the military advisory top table and on two year tours. We are there for the duration. Job done? No. But a good place to start from.