PRIME Minister Tony Abbott assured the nation this week that the latest $100-million-a-year deployment of Australian troops to Iraq was not “mission creep”.

“It’s making sure that we do what we reasonably can to protect ourselves as well as to protect Iraq and the wider world from the Daesh death cult,” Mr Abbott said on Tuesday as he stood before no fewer than eight national flags.

“It’s the successful execution of the original mission.”

Some 300 troops, mainly from the Brisbane based 7th Brigade, will deploy by June to a base at Taji about 30km north of Baghdad to work “inside the wire” alongside 143 Kiwi soldiers. They will replace 170 Commandos who have been twiddling their thumbs for the past six months watching in frustration as Islamic State or Daesh fighters slaughtered thousands of unarmed civilians.

History tells us that military trainers who remain inside the relative safety of a base do not achieve anywhere near the results of those who venture into harm’s way alongside their students. Two good examples of this are the Australian Army Training Team in Vietnam and Australian mentors in Afghanistan who put their lives on the line with those they were deployed to assist.

There have been numerous “training” deployments to Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003 and billions of dollars invested. Despite this the nation remains a divided mess under threat not only from the Islamic State terrorists but from corruption and the Sunni-Shiite divide that was only ever contained by the brutal dictatorship of Sunni leader Saddam Hussein.

The US-led “coalition of the willing” that included Australia might have rid the world of Saddam, but it opened a huge can of worms that has given new momentum to ancient tribal and political divisions.

Perhaps the worst decision of the interim US regime in Baghdad was to disband the Iraqi army. Tens of thousands of former soldiers were told by the invaders to take off their uniforms and go home.

That insane move left a power vacuum that remains unfilled to this day.

It also encouraged some of the more fanatical and best trained officers and soldiers to join groups such as al-Qaeda and IS-Daesh. One reason why the insurgents have been so successful on the battlefield is that it is well led by former Iraqi army officers including some from Saddam’s elite Republican Guard.

Now just six years after the last Aussie trainers left we have troops back on Iraqi soil to “advise and assist” the Iraqi Army from “inside the wire”.

Exactly why Australian trainers are required for this work when nearby Arab nations such as Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have large and professional armies available to do it, is not clear.

Australia has become the go-to provider of professional military expertise in a region that is a long way from our shores. Preventing terrorism from striking us at home is one thing but becoming the cheap force of choice for oil rich Arab states is another altogether.

Australian National University academic and former army officer John Blaxland believes that the new deployment is a mistake because nothing had changed in Iraq except for the growth of the Daesh.

He said the fundamentals were not in place for the mission to succeed and the leadership in Baghdad had changed in name only.

“Shiites are still killing Sunnis and Iranians are still killing Sunnis,” Dr Blaxland said.

“The Australian military commitment does little to address the fundamental schism in Iraqi society between the Sunni and Shia communities. In fact, this is not something Australian soldiers are equipped to deal with at all. Only the Iraqis can do anything about that and there is little evidence of determination to make up for past mistakes.”

The timing of the fresh Australian commitment coincides with a renewed push by Iraqi forces to drive Islamic State fighters out of Tikrit not far north of Taji. Tikrit is also the ancestral home of Saddam Hussein.

National security expert and former army officer Clive Williams said it would take considerably more than training to make the Iraqi security forces capable of displacing IS.

“Local Sunni populations in Iraq are in the main opposed to reoccupation by the corrupt forces of the Shiite-dominated Baghdad government. In many areas they are not too keen on IS either, but they see IS as the lesser of two evils,” Professor Williams said.

“Tens of billions of dollars have already been spent on training and equipping the Iraqi security forces but their main problems are corruption and a lack of motivation to fight outside Shiite controlled areas.”

Defence Chief Mark Binskin said the Daesh had not made any significant territorial gains since October thanks largely to thousands of coalition air strikes.

“They’ve lost the ability to amass their forces in the open, they don’t fly their flags, their leaders aren’t wearing uniforms,” he said.

“Now more than ever it is important for us to focus on the development of the Iraqi security forces to be able to take and hold their own ground, secure their borders and allow the restoration of governance in their own country.”

So far the Shiite dominated Iraqi Army has been reluctant to shed blood in defence of the Sunni homelands in the north and here is the rub for the Australian trainers.

All the skills in the world count for nought if troops are unwilling to fight.

Only time will tell if the newly upskilled Iraqi Army will take the fight up to IS to drive the brutal Islamic fanatics from their borders.

Air Chief Marshal Binskin assured Australians that the divide could be overcome and the Iraqi Army trained to a workable level.

“If I didn’t think they were trainable I wouldn’t make a recommendation to Government that we could go in and do this, but it’s going to take a concerted effort to do it.”