The very fact that you think that is possible shows you still don't get it. Don't feel bad, I didn't either until I had to work with Arabs. Nothing on this Earth could make them get their act together. They LITERALLY think it's impious and sinful to try hard. It show a lack of faith.
ISIS looks halfway decent because 1. they are engaging in jihad, which allows more definate purpose and effort, and 2. they haven't met any non-Arab troops yet.
You still have no real grasp of the gulf between our cultures. In varying level's of politeness the folks here with hands on experiance in that gulf are trying to tell you, and you are refusing to grok.
One last time: Arabs are culturally unable to field a disciplined and professional, modern military. Raiders, Light infantry, and pirates yes, but not an Army. Trying to make them do so will waste your time, and annoy them.
So you tried and couldn't make it happen.
"They LITERALLY think it's impious and sinful to try hard. It show(s) a lack of faith." ~~ Did you, or anyone else try to destroy this ethic? Sometimes you have to destroy before you build. If you were unable to, or prevented from doing it because superiors said "no" or politicians said "no" then I can understand that it simply isn't going to happen, but this only enforces my previous point that Washington is to blame, really (leaving aside for a moment any culteral indoctrinations on the part of the arabs) for not allowing it or allocating the time for it.
Destroying a pre-existing ethic is painful, ugly, dirty, sometimes rotten and nasty nasty, but if it is something that is preventing progress (and the ethic you mention does seem to be working that way [!!!!!!]) then it has to be destroyed before anything positive is to be done.
"The very fact that you think that is possible shows you still don't get it."At the point where I wrote the quote you cite I was becoming quite convinced that
never, ever, was it going to happen that we'd be able to "bounce heads together" and create a coherent Iraqi fighting force.
The bottom line is that humans are our own worst enemy at times. Culture can doom a people if it is allowed to....and it's awful damned hard to overcome, and we won't be the ones to do it.
So please don't continue the false meme that I want to continue to try to make things work in Iraq. I didn't before and I don't now.
As for ISIS, I have no doubt should we send in troops we could deal with them. Probably without much difficulty. I just don't think airstrikes alone will be enough. And I also don't trust Obama to ... well, do much of anything, really, except to paint a pretty political picture.