KRAUTHAMMER: A real Syria strategy – Odessa American: Opinion Columnist.

Charles Krauthammer | Posted: Friday, September 26, 2014 5:00 am

WASHINGTON Late, hesitant and reluctant as he is, President Obama has begun effecting a workable strategy against the Islamic State. True, he’s been driven there by public opinion. Does anyone imagine that without the broadcast beheadings we’d be doing anything more than pinprick strikes within Iraq? If Obama can remain steady through future fluctuations in public opinion, his strategy might succeed.

But success will not be what he’s articulating publicly. The strategy will not destroy the Islamic State. It’s more containment-plus: Expel the Islamic State from Iraq, contain it in Syria. Because you can’t win from the air. In Iraq, we have potential ground allies. In Syria, we don’t.

 The order of battle in Iraq is straightforward. The Kurds will fight, but not far beyond their own territory.

 A vigorous air campaign could help them recover territory lost to the Islamic State and perhaps a bit beyond. But they won’t be anyone’s expeditionary force.

From the Shi’ites in Iraq we should expect little. U.S. advisers embedded with a few highly trained Iraqi special forces could make some progress. But we cannot count on the corrupt and demoralized regular Shi’ite-dominated military.

 Our key potential allies are the Sunni tribes. We will have to induce them to change allegiances a second time, joining us again, as they did during the 2007-2008 surge, against the jihadists.

Having abandoned them in 2011, this won’t be easy. But it is necessary. One good sign is the creation of a Sunni national guard, a descendant of the Sons of Iraq who, fighting with us, expelled al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) during the Anbar Awakening. Only they could push the Islamic State out of Iraq. And surely only they could hold the territory regained.

Syria is another matter. Under the current strategy, the cancer will remain. The air power there is unsupported by ground troops. Nor is anyone in Obama’s “broad coalition” going to contribute any.

Perhaps Turkey will one day. But Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not just refusing to join the air campaign. He has denied us use of his air bases.

As for what’s left of the Free Syrian Army, Obama has finally come around to training and arming it. But very late and very little. The administration admits it won’t be able to field any trained forces for a year. And even then only about 5,000. The Islamic State is already approximately 30,000 strong and growing.

Not that air power is useless. It can degrade and disrupt. If applied systematically enough it can damage the entrenched, expanding, secure and self-financing Islamic State, turning it back to more of a fugitive guerrilla force constantly on the run.

What kind of strategy is that? A compressed and more aggressive form of the George Kennan strategy of Soviet containment. Stop them, squeeze them and ultimately they will be defeated by their own contradictions.

As historian David Motadel points out, jihadist regimes stretching back two centuries have been undone by their own primitivism, barbarism, brutality — and the intense hostility thus engendered among those they rule.

That’s what just eight years ago created the Anbar Awakening that expelled AQI. Mahdi rule in Sudan in the 1880s and ’90s was no more successful. As Motadel notes, half the population died of disease, starvation or violence — and that was before the British annihilation of the Mahdi forces at Omdurman.

 Or to put it in a contemporary Middle East context, this kind of long-term combination of rollback and containment is what has carried the Israelis successfully through seven decades of terrorism arising at different times from different places proclaiming different ideologies. There is no one final stroke that ends it all. The Israelis engage, enjoy a respite, then re-engage.

With a bitter irony born of ceaseless attacks, the Israelis call it “mowing the lawn.”

They know a finality may come, but alas not in their time. They accept it, and go on living.

Obama was right and candid to say this war he’s renewed will take years.

This struggle is generational. This is not Sudan 1898. There is no Omdurman that defeats jihadism for much of a century.

Today jihadism is global, its religious and financial institutions ubiquitous and its roots deeply sunk in a world religion of more than a billion people. We are on a path — long, difficult, sober, undoubtedly painful — of long-term, low intensity rollback/containment.

Containment-plus. It’s the best of our available strategies. Obama must now demonstrate the steel to carry it through.

ISIS Fight: Mariam Al Mansouri Is First Woman Fighter Pilot for U.A.E.
BY ERIN MCCLAM September 25, 2014 Via NBC

(Silly me…and I thought women were not allowed to drive cars-LS)

The first female fighter pilot for the United Arab Emirates led the mission when that country joined the United States and other allies in airstrikes against ISIS over Syria earlier this week.

Maj. Mariam Al Mansouri graduated flight school in 2007 and was one of the first three to join the Emirati air force when it admitted women. She flew an F-16 Desert Falcon on Monday night.

“She is a fully qualified, highly trained, combat-ready pilot, and she led the mission,” Yousef Al Otaiba, the Emirati ambassador to the United States, said Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“Actually, funny story is, the U.S. tanker pilots called in for air refueling and asked for the UAE mission, and when they heard a female voice on the other side, they actually paused for about 20 seconds, radio silence,” he said.

Mansouri, 35, was born in Abu Dhabi and graduated college with a degree in English literature. She told the magazine Deraa Al Watan earlier this year that her love of country and a passion for challenge and competition drew her to aviation.

But she said that she never focused on competing with male pilots: “Competing with oneself,” she told the magazine, “is conducive to continued learning.”

Mansouri served in the Army before enrolling in flight training. She told The National, an English-language Emirati news outlet, in 2008: “A woman’s passion about something will lead her to achieving what she aspires, and that’s why she should pursue her interests.”

“Being in the air force is a responsibility,” she said. “I feel proud, especially that I am part of the first batch. And that encourages me to continue in this field.”

Earlier this year, the Emirati government presented Mansouri the Pride of the Emirates medal for excellence in her field.

The Emirates were among five Arab allies that joined the United States in the first round of airstrikes in Syria to beat back ISIS forces. They were the first to confirm their participation.

Otaiba, the ambassador, told MSNBC that it was imperative for moderate Arab and Muslim countries to step up and say: “This is a threat against us.”

He said the fight comes down to: “Do you want a model or a society that allows women to become ministers in government, female fighter pilots, business executives, artists — or do you want a society where, if a woman doesn’t cover up in public, she’s beaten or she’s lashed or she’s raped. I mean this is ultimately what this breaks down to.”

General Assembly 2014: Obama U.N. Speech [FULL] Today | The New York Times – YouTube.

I say we give his change of attitude, as evinced by his UN speech the benefit of the doubt.

We all know he allowed this situation to develop.

It would appear he now recognizes that himself.

WHO ARE KHORASAN? THE AL-QAEDA LEADERS WHO MAY TIE IRAN TO 9/11
by JORDAN SCHACHTEL 24 Sep 2014 Via Breitbart

(Iran…the snake in the woodpile.-LS)

Is Muhsin al-Fadhli, the Khorasan leader with a $7 million dollar price tag on his head, ultimately responsible for successfully soliciting Iran’s alleged cooperation in the al-Qaeda attacks against the United States on 9/11/01?

Prior to the United States’ Tuesday strike on al-Qaeda sub group Khorasan, American officials warned that the terror outfit, which has been given safe haven in Syria by the AQ-affiliated Nusra Front, has become as severe a threat to U.S. interests as the Islamic State.

Last week, U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said bluntly, “In terms of threat to the homeland, Khorasan may pose as much of a danger as the Islamic State.”

In 2012, the U.S. State Department announced a reward of $7 million dollars for information leading to the location of Muhsin al-Fadhli, who is recognized as the leader of the al-Qaeda sub group Khorasan. At the time, Fadhli was believed to be a chief operative of al-Qaeda in Iran, a terror entity largely given a free pass by Tehran to operate in their country.

Khorasan, however, is a relatively unconventional Sunni terror group because they have reportedly sought cooperation with the Iranian regime. The Islamic State, on the other hand, describes Shia Muslims as Rafida, or apostates, who reject true Islam.

In 2013, an intelligence assessment stated that Khorasan leader al-Fadhli “now plays a key role in advancing plans for attacks by al-Qaeda from Syria, in accordance with Iran’s interests.” Fadhli, who was once a trusted associate of deceased AQ leader Osama bin Laden, and is now reportedly a close confidant of AQ leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, was one of the few AQ members who was given advance notice of the 9/11 attacks, according to the State Department.

Many, including former U.S. President George W. Bush have noted the substantial ties between AQ and the Ayatollah’s regime in Tehran. Additionally, multiple members of President Bush’s 9/11 Commission filed affidavits determining that Iran’s direct cooperation with the AQ hijackers “constituted … direct support for al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks.”

Middle East expert Kenneth Timmerman documented the substantial connections between al-Qaeda’s 9/11 jihadis and the government of Iran. He wrote, “Secret intelligence reports detailed the travels of about 10 of the hijackers into Iran and back and forth into Afghanistan from October 2000 through February 2001, where they were whisked through border controls without ever getting their passports stamped.”

In May, The Long War Journal’s Thomas Joscelyn described al-Fadhli as a member of al-Qaeda’s “core,” the group directly responsible for the September 11 attacks. Additionally, in January, Joscelyn documented how Iran continues to let senior AQ operatives, including al-Fadhli, roam their country free of worry.

Will Khorasan and Muhsin al-Fadhli, as al-Qaeda’s premier bridge to Iran, end up refocusing the international spotlight on the atrocities committed by the Ayatollah’s regime in Tehran?