In any other election year, a massive battle involving US force to seize a city of hundreds of thousands from the Islamic State might affect how voters choose their next president. But 2016, defense analysts and political advisers observing the mid-October campaign for Mosul point out, is no normal election year.  Two years after senior US officers described the fight for Mosul as “decisive” – something experts have become wary of predicting in Iraq – the frequently delayed battle for Iraq’s second city is under way. Should Iraqi ground forces and US warplanes prove successful, Isis will lose its final stronghold in the country.  The fight is expected to be the toughest in Iraq since Isis conquered the city in June 2014. Isis is estimated to have 6,000 fighters prepared for close urban combat. The US military’s spokesman for the war called Mosul “by far the largest challenge the [Iraqis] have undertaken to date”, far outstripping the battles to retake Ramadi and Fallujah in 2015 and 2016. Already civilians are fleeing the northern Iraqi city, and the United Nations is bracing for as many as 1 million refugees.  The American public is expected to pay minimal attention.  “Compared to domestic issues, the electorate doesn’t really care very much about this and probably is not following what’s going on in Mosul in particular,” said Steven Simon, who was mideast director for Barack Obama’s National Security Council from 2011 to 2012.  The election calendar has been a factor in previous wars, even previous wars in Iraq. Only after George W Bush secured reelection in 2004 did the second battle of Fallujah unfold. But this time, according to a former Iraq adviser to both George W Bush and Obama, the differences between the second and third US wars in Iraq overwhelm their similarities, as do their electoral implications.  While the US is providing a significant advisory presence for the Iraqi military, as well as a special-operations presence in the shadows, its primary combat contribution is aerial. With Iraqi forces on the ground doing the bleeding and dying, the American public does not consider the Iraq issue urgent, despite anxieties about the group known as Isis, Isil or Daesh featuring significantly in the 2016 election.  “This time, it’s not a divisive issue. There’s not a huge lobby in the US for not having the Iraqis fight Isil in Iraq,” said Doug Ollivant, a former NSC staffer and army veteran of the second Iraq war, who discloses that he has business interests in southern Iraq.  “While the two candidates would tell you they probably approach the battle of Mosul differently, I don’t think anyone takes this seriously. There are not going to be, at least, many publicly acknowledged Americans directly involved, so it’s difficult for me to see this taking a turn that has a significant impact on the presidential election.”  If Trump were arguing to do nothing, then a protracted campaign would help him. But he’s just arguing [to] kill bad guys  Whatever terrain the 2016 election will be decided upon, there is little evidence to suggest Isis or Iraq – or, perhaps, any substantive issue – will be it. A Gallup poll from September ranking the issues voters consider important registered the “situation in Iraq/Isis” at 1%, far below the 14% primarily concerned with the economy and the 11% dissatisfied with the government.  “More likely, we’ll be focused on [Donald Trump’s] groping,” said Tommy Vietor, a former Obama campaign aide and NSC spokesman. While Vietor said Obama wanted to bequeath “as little of this challenge as he can to his successor”, he did not consider the election a factor in the planning of the Mosul assault.  Even a grueling, prolonged battle is unlikely to redound to Trump’s benefit, said Kori Schake, a former defense adviser to John McCain and Mitt Romney.  “If Trump were arguing to do nothing, then a protracted campaign would help him,” Schake said. “But he’s just arguing [to] kill bad guys, don’t do anything to help anyone, so I don’t think a protracted campaign advantages him.  “I don’t see how it helps Trump in any direction, but a protracted campaign might make voters think, ‘Why do we want to do more?’ So it may require [Hillary] Clinton to explain more of the engagement part of it.”  Peter Feaver, a former Bush NSC adviser and a preeminent scholar of military-civilian relations, said military planners were “acutely aware of the electoral clock” but doubted Obama – who has had to reconcile US efforts with Baghdad’s political will and military preparation – had timed the attack for the eve of the election.  “I don’t think there is any real electoral payoff for doing Mosul before or after the election. Success is not likely to help Clinton much,” he said.  The history of US conflict in Iraq suggests that a battle beginning on the threshold of a presidential election, even a successful one, provides no guarantee of a resolution once a new president comes to office. With refugee flows predicted to be massive and widespread reconstruction requirements a certainty even in the unexpected event of a quick US-Iraqi success, the next president may soon face substantial and difficult decisions about Mosul in the battle’s aftermath.  Anthony Cordesman of the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies cautioned: “Tactical gains, before the election and the new administration taking over don’t mean you’re going to have stability once the new administration comes to office.”
As fighting begins in Iraq, experts expect little impact on US election, with the lack of boots on ground meeting the domestic concerns of a divided electorate