Hillary may be struggling in the polls, but she has an Ace up her sleeve: the commander-in-chief.

You might remember that we are still at (undeclared and illegal) war with the universally hated ISIS, so the C-in-C has the ability to change the tone of the entire political debate on a dime.

The name of this gift is called Mosul.



The liberation of Mosul ahead of the Nov. 8 U.S. election would boost Hillary Clinton’s chances and enhance the legacy of her chief proponent, Barack Obama. As preparations continue to intensify for a major military operation to free Iraq’s second largest city from ISIS’s grip, talk here 55 miles away in Erbil is that the operation could be launched on Oct. 15.

Some 5,262 US troops will be embedded with the Iraqi forces for this massive operation, a few of which are likely to be killed.

Whether it is standing next to Obama in celebration of victory, or standing next to Obama in manufactured sadness over a coffin, Hillary has some extremely powerful photo-ops coming up in the final days before the election.

ISIS is preparing for the fight by building concrete walls, digging trenches and tunnels.



The trenches are also supposedly connected to a network of secret tunnels ISIS is building. This is being done in case the terror group is forced to fight a guerrilla war inside the city; the high population density—still an estimated 1.5 million residents—will also be used in this fighting.

It is unlikely the battle will be over before the election, but it is also unlikely the full-scale of the atrocities committed will be known before the election either. The humanitarian crisis alone will be biblical.



"Space ... we're at 31,000 and that is our capacity. Thirty-one thousand," said Abed, who works for the Barzani Charity Foundation.

It oversees a number of camps, populated by 1.4 million Iraqi displaced people fleeing fighters belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in the Kurdish region.

That number is set to double within a month, with an additional 1.5 million people expected to flee when the operation to take back Mosul from ISIL starts in mid-October....

Rasheed said they expect at least 420,000 people would flee to Erbil and Duhok. About 250,000, she said, will end up in Erbil governorate alone.

Neither Erbil nor Duhok, roughly 155km northwest of the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, are ready for such numbers.

Now some of you might be thinking, "Shouldn't we wait a few more weeks to launch the offensive until we can care for all those refugees, and doom thousands to dying from exposure and thirst?"

The answer is, "No! Look at the election calendar."



AN ASSAULT by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces on Mosul, the largest stronghold of the Islamic State, is expected within weeks — far sooner than seemed likely a few months ago. Unfortunately, the acceleration is not good news. The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is rushing the operation forward even though it lacks a strategy to secure and govern the multiethnic city of roughly 1 million people once the terrorists are driven out. It is recruiting sectarian militia forces that have a record of abusing civilians and seizing territory for themselves. Plans for protecting refugees, who may number in the hundreds of thousands, are sketchy.

In short, the Mosul offensive is setting the stage for a potentially catastrophic Day After problem. Though the United States has painfully experienced what such poor preparation can lead to, in Baghdad in 2003 and Libya a decade later, it is pushing the Abadi government to move still faster.

Military experts are more concerned about the aftermath than the fight itself. Brig. Gen. William F. Mullen, who was deputy commander for U.S. operations in Iraq until June, predicted last week that Islamic State defenses in Mosul could collapse quickly. “And then what?” he asked at a forum at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The Iraqi government’s plan, he said, amounts to “chips will fall and we’ll sort it out when we get to that.”

“That’s not a good plan,” Mr. Mullen said. “This is going to be ugly.”

It may be ugly, but that'll be after the election. So who cares, amirite?

Those Shia militias weren't supposed to take part in the liberation of Fallujah either. At least 700 Sunni men from Fallujah are still missing, and probably tortured to death.



It’s not hard to foresee where the ugliness will come from. Though the Mosul attack is expected to be led by U.S.-trained Iraqi counterterrorism units, Mr. Abadi has said Shiite militia forces also will participate. Iraqi Kurdish units may also move in from the north. Controlled by Iran rather than the Baghdad government, several of the Shiite militias were accused of atrocities during and after operations in the Sunni cities of Ramadi and Fallujah. There is ample reason to fear similar abuses against Sunnis in Mosul.

Once the Islamic State is vanquished, the various forces may turn on one another. Kurdish and Shiite fighters already have sparred in nearby Diyala province. Turkey has threatened to intervene on behalf of ethnic Turks in the city. Though a Sunni police force is being trained, it is a fraction of the size needed to prevent human rights abuses and factional fighting.

This sounds really bad. I mean something straight out of Revelations bad.

What's more important: a) tens of thousands of lives and another round of regional wars, or waiting a few months to do it right, and maybe lose the election?



The liberation of Mosul, especially without a fight, would be trumpeted as a major victory for the legacy of Obama’s beleaguered foreign policy and indirectly a boost for Hillary Clinton. Though she hasn’t been Secretary of State for four years, Clinton is still closely associated with Obama White House.

The expulsion of ISIS from Mosul could undermine Donald Trump’s insistent criticism of the Obama administration’s failure to deliver a knockout punch to the extremists.