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Filling the Vacuum in Syria

May 28, 2015

Filling the Vacuum in Syria, The Gatestone Institute, Yaakov Lappin, May 28,2015

  • The idea that, because Sunni and Shi’ite elements are locked in battle with one another today, they will not pose a threat to international security tomorrow, is little more than wishful thinking.
  • The increased Iranian-Hezbollah presence needs to be closely watched.
  • A policy of turning a blind eye to the Iran-led axis, including Syria’s Assad regime, appears to be doing more harm than good.

As the regime of Bashar Assad continues steadily to lose ground in Syria; and as Assad’s allies, Iran and Hezbollah, deploy in growing numbers to Syrian battlegrounds to try to stop the Assad regime’s collapse, the future of this war-torn, chaotic land looks set to be dominated by radical Sunni and Shi’ite forces.

The presence of fundamentalist Shi’ite and Sunni forces fighting a sectarian-religious war to the death is a sign of things to come for the region: when states break down, militant entities enter to seize control. The idea that, because Sunni and Shi’ite elements are locked in battle with one another today, they will not pose a threat to international security tomorrow, is little more than wishful thinking.

The increased presence of the radicals in Syria will have a direct impact on international security, even though the West seems more fixated on looking only at threats posed by the Islamic State (ISIS), and disregards the possibly greater threat posed by the Iranian-led axis. It is Iran that is at the center of the same axis, so prominent in entangling Syria.

The threat from ISIS in Syria and Iraq to the West is obvious: Its successful campaigns and expanding transnational territory is set to become an enormous base of jihadist international terrorist activity, a launching pad for overseas attacks, and the basis for a propaganda recruitment campaign.

It has already become a magnet for European Muslim volunteers. Their return to their homes as battle-hardened jihadists poses a clear danger to those states’ national security.

Yet the threat from the Iranian-led axis, highly active in Syria, is more severe. With Iran, a threshold nuclear regional power, as its sponsor, this axis plans to subvert and topple stable Sunni governments in the Middle East and attack Israel. Iran’s axis also has its sights set on eventually sabotaging the international order, to promote Iran’s “Islamic revolution.”

This is the axis upon which the Assad regime has become utterly dependent for its continued survival.

Today, the radical, caliphate-seeking Sunni organization, ISIS, controls half of Syria, while hardline Lebanese Shi’ite Hezbollah units can be found everywhere in Syria, together with their sponsors, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) personnel, fighting together with the Assad regime’s beleaguered and worn-out military forces.

The increased Iranian-Hezbollah presence needs to be closely watched. According to international media reports, an IRGC-Hezbollah convoy in southern Syria, made up of senior operatives involved in the setting up of a base designed to launch attacks on the Golan Heights, was struck and destroyed by Israel earlier this year. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan too hasreason to be concerned.

1088Lebanese Shi’ite Hezbollah fighters are deeply involved in Syria’s civil war. (Image source: Hezbollah propaganda video)

Syria has become a region into which weapons, some highly advanced, flow in ever greater numbers, allowing Hezbollah to acquire guided missiles, and allowing ISIS and the Al-Nusra Front to add to their growing stockpile of weaponry.

Other rebel organizations, some sponsored by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar, are also wielding influence in Syria. These groups represent an effort by Sunni states to exert their own influence there.

Despite all the efforts to support it, the Assad regime suffered another recent setback when ISIS seized the ancient city Palmyra in recent days, making an ISIS advance on Damascus more feasible. To the west, near the Lebanese border, Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, the Al-Nursa Front, also made gains. It threatened to enter Lebanon, prompting Hezbollah to launch a counter-offensive to take back those areas.

These developments provide a blueprint for the future of Syria: A permanently divided territory, where conquests and counter-offensives continue to rage, and the scene of an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, producing waves of millions of refugees that could destabilize Syria’s neighbors. Syria is set to remain a land controlled by warring sectarian factions, some of whom plan to spread their destructive influence far beyond Syria.

Events in Syria have shown that the notion that air power can somehow stop ISIS’s advance is a fantasy. More importantly, they have also illustrated that Washington’s policy of cooperation with Iran in a possible “grand bargain” to stabilize the region, while failing to take a firmer stance against the civilian-slaughtering Assad regime, is equally fruitless.

A policy of turning a blind eye to the Iran-led axis, including Syria’s Assad regime, appears to be doing more harm than good.

Categories: Assad, Foreign policy, Hezbollah, Ideology, Iran military, Iranian proxies, Iraq war, Islamic State, Israel, Jordan, Middle East, Nasrallah, Palmyra, Rocket attack, Shiite, Sunni
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Obama’s Islamic State strategy sparks doubt, resentment among Pentagon officials

May 27, 2015

Obama’s Islamic State strategy sparks doubt, resentment among Pentagon officials, Washington Times, Rowan Scarborough, May 26, 2015

Beneath the glowing battle reports about Iraq from U.S. military spokesmen in recent months, there remains a strong undercurrent of dissatisfaction among the Pentagon rank and file with the Obama administration’s Islamic State strategy.

“What strategy?” asked a Pentagon official involved in counterterrorism analysis. “We are now floating along, reacting to ISIS,” using a common acronym for the Islamic State.

This source said the military has a plan for introducing ground troops and defeating the Islamist group, but the belief is that President Obama will never activate it.

Whether this unhappiness has reached the inner sanctum of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is unclear. In public, the military leadership says it is squarely behind the strategy of limited U.S.-led airstrikes coinciding with the rebuilding of the Iraq army for all the ground fighting.

But a Washington Times spot check of department officials and people who interact with the Pentagon reveals deep-seated doubts.

5_262015_iraq8201_s220x143Photo by: © STRINGER Iraq / Reuters  Iraq’s Shiite paramilitaries claimed to have taken charge of driving the Islamic State out from the western province of Anbar. However, Pentagon officials decry what they see as an unfocused White House plan to rout the terror group. (Reuters)

The Islamic State’s rout of Ramadi on May 18 exposed more than the Iraqi army’s lack of will to fight, as Defense Secretary Ashton Carter bluntly put it over the weekend.

After months of U.S. and coalition airstrikes on hundreds of Islamic State targets, after U.S. surveillance and intelligence collection, and with senior American officers advising Iraqis at a joint command center, the battlefield outcome still was no better than the rout of Mosul 11 months ago.

A former official who is frequently in the Pentagon said, “The building is very guarded about what they say, but clearly the White House is running the campaign, which has them furious.”

This source said combat pilots can loiter over a target for hours before approval comes to strike it. Sometimes approval never comes.

“The targeting requires immaculate rules of engagement, which means they cannot drop if there is a possibility of collateral damage [civilian deaths],” the former official said.

U.S. Central Command’s list of airstrikes around Ramadi showed a smattering of tactical strikes, not concentrated air power.

On May 18, the day Ramadi fell, Central Command listed three targets as being struck around Ramadi — two tactical units and an Islamic State staging area. Destroyed there were an armored vehicle, an excavator and a resupply vehicle.

On the previous day, as Islamic State fighters were taking control of Ramadi, eight airstrikes hit targets near the city. They were three tactical units, eight buildings, two armored vehicles, two mortars, an ammunition storage area and a command center.

“This is worse than pathetic,” the former official said.

Another annoying development, the source said, is the lack of American arms making their way from the Shiite-led national government in Baghdad to Iraqi Kurdish forces in the north. They have proven to be one of the few Iraqi units willing to take on the Islamic State.

The former official said a commitment of U.S. special operations forces and some infantry “could defeat the Islamic State in weeks.”

“But then what?” the source asked, noting that the Shiite-dominated government has badly mismanaged the post-U.S. environment.

“I have never seen such disgruntlement before,” the source said of the mood in the Pentagon.

Another official said a constant theme inside the Pentagon is that the White House does not seem committed to winning. The frequent public relations spin is that this will be a long process to take down the Islamic State when, in fact, officers say, it does not have to be.

“They question whether the U.S. has any interests at stake in Iraq,” this official said. “If we do, they expect Obama to make the case.”

The Iraqi government announced Monday that it has launched a new counteroffensive aimed at retaking Ramadi, the capital of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province. U.S. Marines in the mid-2000s, in an alliance with Sunni tribal leaders, fought a protracted counterinsurgency to rid the western region of al Qaeda terrorists.

So far, the Sunni role in trying to expel the Islamic State, a Sunni extremist army, does not seem as robust. That is why Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is now relying on Iran-directed Shiite militias to fight in Anbar, as he did in the assault on the Sunni-majority city of Tikrit.

The former defense official said that if one wants to get a sense of the unhappiness inside the Pentagon, they should listen to the few retired senior generals who are speaking out.

One is retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency under Mr. Obama. Mr. Flynn is urging a much more aggressive approach to the Islamic State and jihadis worldwide.

“Unless the United States takes dramatically more action than we have done so far in Iraq, the fractious, largely Shiite-composed units that make up the Iraqi army are not likely to be able, by themselves, to overwhelm a Sunni stronghold like Mosul, even though they outnumber the enemy by ten to one,” he wrote in Politico. “The United States must be prepared to provide far more combat capabilities and enablers such as command and control, intelligence, logistics and fire support, to name just a few things.”

Globally, he said, “We must engage the violent Islamists wherever they are, drive them from their safe havens and kill them. There can be no quarter and no accommodation.”

Another is retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, who was Mr. Obama’s Central Command chief until May 2013, a time when the Islamic State had not yet established itself in Iraqi territory.

“The bottom line is we do not have a global strategy,” Mr. Mattis said May 13 at the Heritage Foundation. “Right now we have an America that is starting to reduce its role in the world. That’s not good.”

He noted that Mr. Obama last August said “we don’t have a strategy yet” for defeating the Islamic State. Mr. Mattis said that statement still holds true today. “We don’t really have a good strategy right now,” he said.

He added, “This is what would be called a poor grade at the National War College, to say the least. They would have flunked you.”

Robert Gates, Mr. Obama’s first defense secretary, told MSNBC, referring to the U.S. in Middle East, “We’re basically sort of playing this day to day.”

Mr. Carter took a big step over the weekend in beginning to bluntly blame the Iraqis for failing to hold Ramadi.

“What apparently happened was that the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight,” the defense secretary told CNN. “They were not outnumbered. In fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force, and yet they failed to fight.”

The White House immediately launched damage control so as not to offend Mr. Abadi’s government.

“The recent universal statement by the [secretary of defense] that the Iraqis don’t have the will to fight is unhelpful,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. James Dubik, who led the training of Iraqi troops during the war. “‘Will to fight’ is a complex phenomenon. Why do they fight like hell in some circumstances and not others? That is the real issue.”

Mr. Dubik has been playing close attention to starts and stops of the campaign against the Islamic State as an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.

“The fall of Ramadi is a blow to the Iraqi counteroffensive, and it complicates resupply and reinforcements to Al Asad [air base],” he said. “It shows how resilient ISIS is, and how difficult the counteroffensive to re-establish the Iraq-Syria border and re-establish Iraq’s political sovereignty will be. There is no guarantee that Iraq will be successful. And if they’re not, U.S. security interests in the region, and beyond, will suffer.”

U.S. Central Command remains upbeat. On Tuesday, Marine Brig. Gen. Thomas Weidley, the war command’s chief of staff, issued a statement referring to recent setbacks as temporary.

“Positive steps and effects are occurring throughout the battle space, which, in combination, are encouraging signs of the operational-level progress to date within the campaign,” he said.

 

 

Categories: Department of Defense, Foreign policy, Ideology, Iraq war, Iraqi military, Islamic State, Middle East, Obama, Obama administration, Shiite, Sunni
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Seeking to Spark Sectarian War, ISIS Bombs Saudi Arabia

May 26, 2015

Seeking to Spark Sectarian War, ISIS Bombs Saudi Arabia, The Clarion Project, Ryan Mauro, May 25, 2015

Saudi-Arabia-ISIS-Mosque-Bombing-IPA family member of a slain victim mourns after arriving at the shiite Imam Ali mosque, the site of a suicide bomb attack, in the village of al-Qadeeh in the eastern province of Gatif, Saudi Arabia where an ISIS suicide bomber blew himself during Friday prayers. Twenty people were killed and more than 50 were wounded.

The Islamic State (ISIS) suicide bombing in Saudi Arabia on May 23 is significant in that it’s the group’s first claimed suicide bombing in the country, but it’s also a strategic move to spark sectarian upheaval in the Shiite-majority province that holds 90% of royal family’s oil reserves.

The Islamic State is trying to spark a cycle of sectarian violence that will destabilize Saudi Arabia and heighten the Royal Family’s tension with Iran. The terror group thrives in environments where Shiitesfeel they need Iranian protection and where Sunnis feel threatened by real or imagined Iranian influence. The Saudi Eastern Province has the added benefit of endangering the Royal Family’s most critical resource.

The bombing’s objective is to spur Islamic State supporters in Saudi Arabia into action against the Shiites and the royal family. AnOctober 2014 poll found that 5% of the Saudi population of 29 million has a positive opinion of the Islamic State (2% very positive and 3% somewhat positive).

The Saudi population includes about 8.5 million foreign residents, and it is unclear if they are included in the poll. This means that the Islamic State has a pool of somewhere between 1 million and 1.45 million supporters in Saudi Arabia that could be inspired to act.

The prospects for the Islamic State are much brighter if an atmosphere of sectarian warfare is instigated; a scenario that can be easily envisioned.

The sensitivity of the Saudi royal family to the bombing’s impact on sectarianism was evident in the immediate booking of the grand mufti on state television to condemn the attack on “sons of the homeland.” The language was deliberately chosen to assure the Shiite minority that the Saudi government cares about their well-being and to distance itself from any Salafists who may cheer the bombing.

The New York Times reported on how Saudis were declining to donate blood in the wake of the Islamic State bombing, deriding them as infidels and one saying that a Shiite “does not deserve even my spit.” Although there are Saudi Sunnis who stand up for Shiites —like one prominent human rights activist who is a leader in the Shammar tribe — their rarity is apparent in the very fact that their activism makes news headlines.

The Saudi government may deploy Salafist-dominated security forces to the Eastern Province to prevent attacks and to stop the Shiites from holding large demonstrations of grief that could easily turn political and demand better treatment.

The Eastern Province is known for its protests against the Saudi government and subsequent arrests of activists and clerics demanding an end to discrimination and democratic reform. The leader of the Municipal Council in Qatif, where the bombing took place, has already blamed the Saudi government for promoting anti-Shiite sentiment.

Through the bombing, the Islamic State has created a catch-22: Any move by the Saudi government to enhance security in the province risks inflaming the passions of the Shiites, resulting in clashes and oppression that further the cycle.

The popularity of Sunni terrorist groups known for oppressing Shiites is a strong indication of how quickly sectarian fervor could sweep across Saudi Arabia, particularly if there are mass Shiite protests and Iran rallies to their side.

The aforementioned poll found that 52% of Saudis support Hamas and 33% support the Muslim Brotherhood. A November 2014 poll by Zogby showed that Saudi Arabia is the only Middle Eastern besides Turkey where a majority (53%) feel that the Muslim Brotherhood played a positive role in Egypt and Tunisia.

A frightening 15% of Saudis most favor Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, among all the forces fighting the Syrian regime. About 9% support the Islamic Front, a Saudi-backed Salafist group and 3% preferred the Islamic State.

The Iranian regime and its radical Shiite proxies like Hezbollah and the Houthis are looking for an opportunity to strike back at the Saudis for their military intervention in Yemen and ongoing support for Syrian rebels. There is no better opportunity than upheaval in the Eastern Province, especially at this time when Iran’s economy is suffering from low oil prices.

The objective of the bombing in Qatif is to make Saudi Arabia an extension of the Shiite-Sunni battlefield seen in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. And the Islamic State isn’t crazy for thinking it could happen.

Categories: Islamic jihad, Islamic State, Oil, Saudi Arabia, Shiite, Sunni
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Why Obama has come to regret underestimating the Islamic State

May 24, 2015

Why Obama has come to regret underestimating the Islamic State, The Telegraph, , May 23, 2015


Displaced Sunni people, who fled the violence in the city of Ramadi, arrive at the outskirts of Baghdad Photo: STRINGER/IRAQ

Its strategy is essentially Maoist – the comparison has not been enough made, but now that Isil has declared itself an agent of Cultural Revolution, with its destruction of history, perhaps it will be more. Like Mao’s revolutionaries, it conquers the countryside before storming the towns.

Even now, the fact that much of its territory is rural or even desert is seen as a weakness. But it is beginning to “pick off” major towns and cities with impunity. In fact, where society is fractured, like Syria and Iraq, the “sea of revolution” panics the citizenry, making it feel “surrounded” by unseen and incomprehensible agents of doom.

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Have any words come back to haunt President Obama so much as his description of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant last team as a “JV” – junior varsity – team of terrorists?

This wasn’t al-Qaeda in its 9/11 pomp, he said; just because a university second team wore Manchester United jerseys didn’t make them David Beckham.

How times change. As of this weekend, the JV team is doing a lot better than Manchester United. With its capture of Palmyra, it controls half of Syria.

Its defeat in Kobane – a town of which few non-Kurds had heard – was cheered by the world; its victory in Ramadi last Sunday gives it control of virtually all of Iraq’s largest province, one which reaches to the edge of Baghdad.

Calling itself a state, one analyst wrote, no longer looks like an exaggeration.

Senior US officials seem to agree. “Isil as an organization is better in every respect than its predecessor of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. It’s better manned, it’s better resourced, they have better fighters, they’re more experienced,” one said at a briefing to explain the loss of Ramadi. “We’ve never seen something like this.”

How did Isil manage to inflict such a humiliation on the world’s most powerful country? As with many great shock-and-awe military advances over the years, it is easier to explain in hindsight than it apparently was to prevent.

Ever since Isil emerged in its current form in 2013, military and and political analysts have been saying that its success is due to its grasp of both tactics and strategy.

Its strategy is essentially Maoist – the comparison has not been enough made, but now that Isil has declared itself an agent of Cultural Revolution, with its destruction of history, perhaps it will be more. Like Mao’s revolutionaries, it conquers the countryside before storming the towns.

Even now, the fact that much of its territory is rural or even desert is seen as a weakness. But it is beginning to “pick off” major towns and cities with impunity. In fact, where society is fractured, like Syria and Iraq, the “sea of revolution” panics the citizenry, making it feel “surrounded” by unseen and incomprehensible agents of doom.

Like Mao, Isil uses propaganda – its famed dominance of social media – to terrorise its targets mentally. Senior Iraqi policemen have recounted being sent images via their mobile phones of their decapitated fellow officers. This has a chastening effect on the fight-or-flight reflex.

It then uses actual terror to further instil chaos. Isil’s main targets have been ground down by years of car bombs and “random” attacks. It seems extraordinary, but one of the reasons given by Mosul residents for preferring Isil rule is that there are no longer so many terrorist attacks: not surprising, since the “terrorists” are in control.

Only once your enemy is weak, divided, and demoralised, do you strike.

You then do so with an awesome show of force – one which can mislead as to the actual numbers involved.

The final assault on central Ramadi, which had been fought over for almost 18 months, began with an estimated 30 car bombs. Ten were said to be individually of an equivalent size to the 1995 Oklahoma bombing, which killed 168 people.

There is nothing new in saying that both Syrian and Iraqi governments have contributed greatly to the rise of Isil by failing to offer the Sunni populations of their countries a reason to support them.

Some say that focusing on the failings and injustices of these regimes ignores the fact that militant Islamism, like Maoism, is a superficially attractive, even romantic idea to many, whether oppressed or not, and that its notions must be fought and defeated intellectually and emotionally.

That is true. But relying on Islamic extremism to burn itself out, or for its followers to be eventually persuaded of the errors of their ways, is no answer. Like financial markets, the world can stay irrational for longer than the rest of us can stay politically and militarily solvent.

Rather, the West and those it supports have to show they can exert force against force, and then create a better world, one which all Iraqis and Syrians, especially Sunnis, are prepared to fight for.

In March, an uneasy coalition of Shia militias, Iraqi soldiers, and US jets took back the town of Tikrit from Isil. It remains a wasteland, whose inhabitants have yet to return, ruled over by gunmen rather than by the rule of law.

That is not an attractive symbol, for Iraqi Sunnis, of what victory against Isil looks like. If the war against Isil is to be won, the first step is to make clear to Iraqis and Syrians alike what victory looks like, and why it will be better for them.

Categories: Airstrikes, Foreign policy, Human rights, Ideology, Iraq war, Islamic State, Kurds, Middle East, Mosul, Obama, Ramadi, Shiite, Sunni, Syrian war, Tikrit, U.S. Military, Urban areas
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Relying on the U.S. for security is a mistake

May 21, 2015

Relying on the U.S. for security is a mistake, Al Arabiya News, Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor, May 21, 2015

(Al Arabiya is based in the United Arab Emirates and is majority-owned by Saudi broadcaster Middle East Broadcasting Center.– DM)

Obama says Iran’s newfound wealth will be used to improve lives rather than end up in the treasure chests of Hezbollah, the Shiite Yemeni Houthis, or other troublemakers under the Iranian wing. Sorry, but to me that smacks of naivety at best, snake oil at worst.

According to a Daily Telegraph investigation, Iran’s Supreme Leader controls “a financial empire” estimated to be worth $95 billion, more than even the grandiose Shah had managed to accumulate. That alone should tell Mr Obama that Iran has no intention of prioritising the needs of its people over its regional mischief makers.

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At a passing glance, President Barack Obama’s meetings with the leaders of the Arab Gulf States have borne fruit in terms of furthering mutual respect and as a building block to closer cooperation. But when one digs beneath the flimflam and the verbal pledges – with the exception of a joint missile defense system and a promise that deliveries of U.S. weapons would be fast-tracked – the recent Camp David Summit delivered few tangible benefits.

Indeed, more than a few commentators have described the meeting as a U.S.-hosted arms bazaar, one that will fill the coffers of American weapons manufacturers with billions of dollars. Plus the P5+1 – Iranian nuclear deal is set to enrich and empower Tehran once economic sanctions are lifted.

Obama says Iran’s newfound wealth will be used to improve lives rather than end up in the treasure chests of Hezbollah, the Shiite Yemeni Houthis, or other troublemakers under the Iranian wing. Sorry, but to me that smacks of naivety at best, snake oil at worst.

According to a Daily Telegraph investigation, Iran’s Supreme Leader controls “a financial empire” estimated to be worth $95 billion, more than even the grandiose Shah had managed to accumulate. That alone should tell Mr Obama that Iran has no intention of prioritising the needs of its people over its regional mischief makers.

Eradicating terrorism

The question is whether the leaders of the GCC countries should rightly feel secure from Iranian aggression now that the U.S. President has promised to come to their defense, militarily if deemed necessary. Naturally, that assessment would be made by the White House, not by the threatened states.

Without a signed and sealed security pact and in light of Obama’s track record of hesitancy in ending regional conflicts or eradicating terrorism, I don’t think so. Are we seriously to believe that the U.S. would declare war on Iran were we to be menaced?

Obama’s rhetoric speaks otherwise when he told the New York Times that internal threats to Gulf States are “bigger than Iran” and, at Camp David, he warned his guests not to “marginalise” Tehran. And even if Obama’s undertaking was rock solid, his term expires in just over 18 months. What happens then?

In any case, while there is nothing wrong with cementing better relations with the U.S., we must not on any account rely on its protection or that of any other world power. Yemen proves that we are able and willing to protect ourselves and our allies and when the proposed Joint Arab Force comes into play, our capabilities will be strengthened. We have no need of guardians or bosses in foreign capitals. We have strong, well equipped armies and air forces. We are not helpless, underage youths pleading to be defended, as characterised by sectors of the media.

Merely a public relations exercise

I would urge GCC heads of state to put Camp David under a microscope to ascertain whether it was a genuine attempt on Obama’s behalf to induce closer ties or merely a public relations exercise to bring Gulf States on board a bad deal rewarding Iran for its hostility, regional interference and its backing of terrorists.

In my opinion, trusting the Obama administration to rein in Iran would be a huge mistake. U.S. engagement with Iran was exactly the legacy Obama was after even before he moved into the Oval Office. And to that end he surrounded himself with pro-Iranian officials, such as Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and Deputy Secretary-of-State Bill Burns, who have all been championing détente with Iran for many years.

Obama’s personal adviser and family friend, Valerie Jarrett grew up in Iran, speaks Farsi, and was a main player along with Bill Burns in U.S.-Iranian secret talks to pave the way for official negotiations. The President’s National Security Council Director for Iran, Sahar Nowrouzzadeh is a former employee of the National-Iranian American Council, a pro-Iranian lobbying organisation.

The President’s own behaviour with regards to America’s long-time sworn enemy was suspect since the beginning. He has been sending the Iranians video Nawrus (New Year) messages and letters to Iran’s Supreme Leader. This year, Obama actually celebrated the Persian New Year at home with his wife and daughters.

Just as strange was Obama’s silence concerning Iran’s crackdown on street protests following elections. And if he condemns Tehran for its human rights abuses and lack of civil liberties, he must be whispering. Because all we hear from him is condemnation of predominately Sunni Arab states on those issues.

“The greatest supporter and plotter of terrorism”

Stranger still, while Obama comes across as the ayatollahs’ new best friend, just days ago, the Ayatollah Khamenei attacked the U.S. as “the greatest supporter and plotter of terrorism” and accuses Washington of pursuing its own interests making the region insecure, while branding America as the enemy of both Shiite and Sunni Muslims. Far from committing to stay out of Arab affairs, Khamenei stressed that his country would continue supporting “the oppressed people of Yemen, Bahrain and Palestine in every way possible.”

Are we really going to place our trust in America’s Commander-in-Chief when he claims backing the Free Syrian Army against the Syrian regime partnered with Iran and Hezbollah, even as his Air Force provides air cover to Iran’s Quds Force and pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq’s Anbar province? This rabble with blood-stained hands – officially known as Popular Mobilisation Forces (Al-Shaabi) – has been deployed by Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi and is directed by the commander of Iran’s Quds Force Qassem Soleimani. What is worse is that Iran is poised to send in ground troops as soon as it receives the go ahead from the government.

And what does Mr Obama say about the shocking news revealed by the Times and other papers to the effect that the government in Baghdad is turning away tens of thousands of desperate Sunni refugees fleeing the city of Ramadi, recaptured by ISIS? Nothing much as far as I can tell! Iraq families with nowhere to go are being treated worse than foreign foes, barred entrance into their own capital city unless they happen to have a local “guarantor.” This is a plan to reduce the Sunni population by sending them into the fray to die; there is no other explanation.

In reality, Saudi Arabia’s towns bordering northern Yemen are under direct threat from Houthis, while Iran, close to being literally under the Iranian boot, constitutes a grave threat to Gulf States. Does the Obama administration plan to wait until the horse has bolted before acting? The Iranian plot to dominate the region is taking shape before our eyes. We are being surrounded. Yet the U.S. president asks us to play nice with the plotters.

Qualitative military edge

The bottom line is we did not get what we asked for. Obama’s commitment to intervene in Syria to stop the regime’s killing spree was off the table along with a joint defense pact on the lines of those the U.S. has with Israel, Japan and South Korea. Moreover, he has turned down the Saudi request to purchase state-of-the-art F-35 Joint Strike Fighters to maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge over its neighbors.

And we certainly did not get what we need. Most importantly, any final agreement with Iran should be negotiated with the participation of Gulf states and co-signed by our leaders. Such agreement should not be limited to nuclear issues, but should be conditional upon Tehran’s commitment to quit meddling in the affairs of Arab countries, notably Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Bahrain whether directly (in the case of Iraq and Syria) or via its armed proxies (Lebanon and Yemen).

We should not trust any other countries but our own. We must not await instructions from the White House on how to pursue our own interests, as it is well-known that U.S. friendship is not proffered without strings. We must proceed with our mission to free Yemen of Houthi rabble, continue with our efforts to destroy ISIS and lend every support to that sector of the Syrian opposition fighting for a democratic, inclusive state – as opposed to terrorist groups that seek to drag Syria back to the Middle Ages.

Lastly, we should insist upon the stringent terms outlined above. And if those terms are not put in writing, the GCC should work to weaken the Iranian regime once and for all, beginning with material support for the oppressed Ahwazi Arab citizens of Iranian-occupied Arabistan – a region Iran now calls Khuzestan, which supplies the country with most of its oil and gas.

I fear that Camp David was a well-timed bluff and its weapons bounty no more than candies to sweeten the pill. I trust and believe that our leaders understand the score and will maintain independent strategies to counteract threats to our very existence. We cannot gamble with tomorrow on the words of one man, even if that man is the U.S. president.

Our region has been burned many times before. If the past is a good predictor of the future, we should recognise that ultimately we must become the masters of our own destiny, which is far too precious to be handed to the safekeeping of fair-weather friends.

Categories: Arab nations, Foreign policy, Gulf states, Iran, Iranian proxies, Iraq, Islamic State, Middle East, Nukes, Obama, Saudi Arabia, Shia, Sunni, Support for terrorism, Yemen
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Strategic Failures, the US and the Fall of Ramadi

May 21, 2015

Strategic Failures, the US and the Fall of Ramadi, Clarion Project, Ryan Mauro, May 21, 2015

Islamic-State-Victory-Parade-HPIslamic State fighters celebrate their take over of Ramadi with a victory ‘parade.’ (Photo: Islamic State social media)

The U.S. must correct its strategy by sidelining Iranian-backed militias and terrorists, leveraging influence with the Iraqi government and significantly increasing assistance to the Anbar tribes, Kurds, Iraqi government and to the persecuted Christian minority that is forming its own self-defense force.

Recent history has shown that the Iraqi government will choose the U.S. over Iran if compelled.

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The Islamic State (ISIS) has captured Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s Anbar Province, reportedly “terrifying” Iraqi officials who now foresee a “tsunami of international terror.” It is an important achievement for the terrorist group aimed at pre-empting a potential Sunni tribal uprising.

The Sunni tribes in Anbar Province were critical to the success of the 2007 “surge” that ousted the Islamic State’s predecessor, Al-Qaeda in Iraq. The deterioration in the relationship between these tribes and the central Iraqi government was likewise critical to the terrorists’ comeback in Iraq.

The Islamic State remembered these lessons and acted quickly as the Iraqi government began training tribal fighters and the U.S. defense budget allotted $179 million to Kurdish and Sunni tribal forces. The U.S. forgot these lessons and has long rejected Sunni and Kurdish pleas for direct aid to fight the Islamic State.

The Obama Administration is now planning to change course and directly arm and train the Iraqi Sunni tribes after the fall of Ramadi. The White House previously chose to work only through the central Iraqi government that has given the Kurds and Sunnis inadequate support.

A delegation of 11 Sunni tribal leaders, including Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, the President of the Anbar Awakening Council, flew to the U.S. on January 18 to plead for direct assistance. Former President George W. Bush called Abu Risha and listened to his complaints for 20 minutes and offered to help. Administration officials were less willing. One tribal official said, “I wouldn’t call it the ‘cold shoulder,’ but it certainly was a cool one.”

The Obama Administration told them that it would only work through the elected central government. Its viewpoint was that working with forces outside the government’s authority undermines the Iraqi leadership and threatens the country’s unity.

That standpoint ignores what was learned after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Nothing threatens Iraq’s unity and the government’s authority more than instability. Direct U.S. aid to the Sunni tribes helped save Iraq from disintegration into sectarian enclaves ruled by terrorists and militias.

The Islamic State struck Ramadi during a sandstorm that delayed American air support. Former U.S. Central Command advisor Ali Khedery says that a Kurdish member of parliament informed him that 6,000 Iraqi Security Forces fled when faced with a mere 150 Islamic State fighters. About 500 Iraqi security personnel and civilians died in two days. The Iraqi officials spoke straight forwardly and  admitted that the current strategy is failing.

The Pentagon says it has finished training about 7,000 Iraqi Security Forces and another 3-4,000 are in the process of training, but training won’t solve the problem of collapsing Iraqi forces. The U.S. trained the Iraqis from 2003 until the withdrawal in 2011. The strategy of waiting for the Iraqi security forces to become strong enough to stabilize the country is the same strategy that failed before the surge.

Iraqi personnel flee because they don’t want to die for a lost cause or to fight for a replacement worse than the Islamic State.

The Iraqi Security Forces face a fundamental disadvantage when battling the Islamic State: They want to live and their enemies want to die. This disadvantage is further compounded by a lack of confidence. If given the choice to die fighting in a losing battle or to flee and perhaps regroup later with better chances of victory, they will choose the latter.

An Anbar official placed the blame on the Iraqi government, telling CNN, “If 10% of the government’s promises had been implemented, Ramadi would still in our hands and the Islamic State wouldn’t dare to be anywhere near the city.”

Iraqi Sunnis are faced with a terrible choice. The Iranian-backed Shiite militias are often nicknamed “Shiite ISIS” because their crimes are comparable to ISIS but are less known by the West because they aren’t broadcasted. However, the Anbar Provincial Council is officially welcoming them now out of desperation and perhaps an awareness that their opposition will be ignored anyway.

The Shiite militias should be expected to mistreat the local Sunnis the second after the Islamic State is expelled or even during the fighting. Tribal support is far from unanimous. The son of the largest tribe’s leader is in the U.S. asking for support right now and bluntly warned that sending the Shiite militias into Anbar Province “will cause a civil war.”

The New York Times has noticed the change in American attitude towards the Shiite militias. Pentagon spokesperson Col. Steve Warren said, “As long as they’re controlled by the central Iraqi government, there’s a place for them.” Yet, only two months ago, Central Command Commander General Austin said, “I will not—and I hope we will never—coordinate or cooperate with Shiite militias.”

The U.S. must correct its strategy by sidelining Iranian-backed militias and terrorists, leveraging influence with the Iraqi government and significantly increasing assistance to the Anbar tribes, Kurds, Iraqi government and to the persecuted Christian minority that is forming its own self-defense force.

Recent history has shown that the Iraqi government will choose the U.S. over Iran if compelled.

In March, the U.S. withheld support to Iraqi forces fighting the Islamic State in Tikrit because of the involvement of Iranian-backed militias and the Revolutionary Guards Corps. The Iranian proxies stalled and could move no further, displaying the value of U.S. air support. The Iraqis chose America and the Iranians were removed from the battle. U.S. aid delivered the victory that the Iranians could not.

The Iraqis had been asking for U.S. for more help including possibly advisors on the ground since October 2013. By March 2014, the Iraqis were asking for airstrikes on the Islamic State. The Islamic State blitz into Iraq began in June.

The Iraqi ambassador complained that the U.S. had denied requests for help including Apache helicopter sales, thereby putting Iraq “in an uncomfortable position in seeking support from whoever is available on the ground.” He emphasized that the “U.S. is our strategic partner of choice.”

Iran opposed the return of U.S. soldiers on the ground in Iraq as advisors. The Iranian-backed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatened to attack the advisors and two other Iranian-backed militias alsoforcefully opposed U.S. involvement. The Iraqi government went ahead anyway.

Even now, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is in Russia and talking to China and Iran about delivering arms that the U.S. refuses to provide.

The U.S. needs to give the Iraqi government a clear choice: Iran or us.

The Iraqi government should be put on notice. If it is willing to restrain the Shiite militias and work with us to disband them, then we will provide all necessary aid. We will help negotiate with the Sunni tribes so their local forces operate within a national framework.

If the Iraqi government chooses Iran, then we will cut our aid and redirect it towards our Sunni, Kurdish and Christian partners while maintaining contact with friendly Shiites. We will not act as the air force for Iranian proxies. If necessary, we will talk about a role for the forthcoming Arab force led by Egypt to replace yours.

It is positive news that the Obama Administration is reversing its stance and will directly help the Sunni tribes, but the anti- Islamic State strategy requires an anti-Iran strategy.

Categories: Airstrikes, Baghdad, Department of Defense, Egypt, Foreign policy, Human rights, Iran, Iranian proxies, Islamic State, Kurdish fighters, Kurds, Obama, Peshmerga, Ramadi, Shiite, Sunni
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President Strangelove or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb

May 14, 2015

President Strangelove or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, Jerusalem Post, David Turner, May 14,2015

Concerned about Soviet intentions in the region the Truman administration entered into the U. S.-Saudi Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement (MDA) in 1951. The Agreement provided the foundation for what would emerge as an American commitment to provide a defense umbrella for the region to protect American interests in the Middle East. American assurances to states in the region seemed intact until the GW Bush Administration invasion of Iraq. Trapped in a war it completely misjudged and soon realized it could not win the administration sought an accommodation with Iran to control Shi’ite militias battling the Americans.

The Bush policy of “accommodation” with Iran became the Obama policy of “appeasement” towards the Islamic Republic. Thus began a six-year-long quest to intended to encourage that country’s recalcitrant and hegemony ambitious leaders to abandon its nuclear weapons program. With the imminent 30 June deadline for signing an Agreement quickly approaching the president invited the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states headed by Saudi Arabia to Camp David promising a mutual defense agreement assuring the Arab states of American protection in the event Iran proved a threat to the region. In addition to “assurances, the Saudis insisted on a signed and “formal alliance structure with the United States guaranteeingU.S. support against potential Iranian aggression.”

In advance of the conference the White House announced that President Obama would meet with the Saudi king the day beforeCamp David. But at the last minute, “[d]ispleased with Washington’s dealings with Iran, with an emerging deal over its nuclear program and with US security proposals to Gulf Arab nations,” King Salman announced he would not meet with President Obama and would not attend the Camp Davidconference. In the end only two of six Gulf nations decided to attend with heads of state.

The king’s last-minute cancellation, his turn-down of a meeting with the leader of the Free World was described as “a calculated snub for the president’s policies on Iran and the Middle East.” It was revealed that Kerry, in his meeting with the Saudis the week earlier, told the king that Obama was not prepared to finalize according to the king’s timetable any agreement that might result at Camp David.

And then there was the fact that a mutual defense agreement with the Saudis, the 1951 MDA, already existed already assuring the Saudis protection under America’s nuclear umbrella. Mistrust of American intentions and assurances by America’s “allies” built up over the previous twelve years was palpable.

Bush and the Region

“Even before the inauguration [and, of course, the pretext of 9/11], Cheney asked outgoing Secretary of Defense William Cohen to provide Bush with a briefing focused on Iraq… [Bush appointee] Defense Secretary Rumsfeld saw, “September 11, 2001, as a potential “opportunity.””

Symptomatic of hubris resulting from power minus coherent policy President Bush ignored both Arab and Israeli warnings of Foreseen Consequences certain to follow should the administration follow through with its threat to invade Iraq.

“With his latest remarks, [Saudi, later king] Prince Abdullah joined the chorus of Arab complaints about the Bush administration’s talk of taking military action to oust Saddam Hussein and put an end to his programs to develop weapons of mass destruction. At virtually every stop in the Arab world, Mr. Cheney has been told that an American military strike would destabilize the region.”

And, according to Lawrence Wilkerson, a member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, “[t]he Israelis were telling usIraq is not the enemy – Iran is the enemy.” Wilkerson said that the Israeli reaction to invading Iraq in early 2002 was, “If you are going to destabilize the balance of power, do it against the main enemy.”

Bush and the Bomb

“Cut off the head of the snake,” the Saudi ambassador toWashington, Adel al-Jubeir, quotes the king as saying during a meeting with General David Petraeus in April 2008.

In a speech to the Knesset in 2008 to observe Israel’s 60thanniversary Bush told the Knesset, “America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions. Permitting the world’s leading sponsor of terror to possess the world’s deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations.” Nowhere in his speech did Bush hint at his long held view that America was not prepared to enter another Middle East war, that there never was a military option with which to threaten Iran’s nuclear weapons program. No accident then that Bush chose war-averse Robert Gates as his defense secretary; and that Gates in turn chose war-averse Admiral “Mike” Mullen as head the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The dovish defense pair would for years be the president’s PR mouthpiece warning against even the threat of force to halt Iran’s nuclear program. The Gates/Mullen oft-repeated warning of “unforeseen consequences” became, over the years a common, almost mantra-like warning against any action against Iran.

No surprise then that the openly dovish, newly-elected President Obama invited Gates to remain on as his defense department head, “a show of bipartisan continuity in a time of war that will be the first time a Pentagon chief has been carried over from a president of a different party.”

Obama and the Region

By way of destabilizing the region Obama has not yet equaled the fallout of Bush’s invasion of Iraq. If Bush gifted Iraq to Iran, set the stage for the “Arab Spring,” Obama did not come in second for lack of trying. The new president followed Bush by targeting his own tyrant, Muamar Qadafi and transformingLibya, as did Bush in Iraq, a political wreck bordering on a failed state.  Libya today is ruled al-Queda, Islamic State and other terror organizations with two governments powerless to assert control. Bordering Egypt Libya today supplies both the Sinai Salafist insurgency and the terror enclave of Gaza with weapons. And as Bush ignored Israeli and Arab warnings regarding the impact of invading Iraq, Obama chose to those same Arab-Israeli warnings regarding his intention to depose America’s principal Arab ally, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. In a single mindless move the U.S. followed up its Iraq disaster with Egypt. And followed the collapse of Egypt’s secular regime, insult to injury Obama endorsed as “democratic government” the same Muslim Brotherhood with a decades-long terror campaign against the government; the group behind the assassination of Anwar Sadat for having sought peace with Israel: the Muslim Brotherhood whose child, al-Quaeda, had flown airliners into New York’s World Trade Center! The list of Bush and Obama Administration policy failures seems to know no limits: Iraq redo, Bahrain,Yemen and the bloodbath of Syria. Lacking capacity to learn from ideology-based failures, it continually repeats its “unintended consequences.”

Obama and the Bomb

If Bush set the pattern for accommodation then the tactic at least had some “justification” as Iran’s IRGC was funding, arming and even leading the Shi’ite insurgency against Iraq’s American invaders. Not provoking Iran might have the result of limiting American casualties. But for Obama, recipient in advance of the Nobel Peace Prize for promising regarding “world peace”; for Obama to provide Iran, a state sponsor of Islamist terrorism a world forum to show up American weakness and enhance Iranian prestige; for Obama whose commitment on entering office was to promote nuclear non-proliferation: for Obama to provide Iran all the time necessary to achieve threshold nuclear armament status and, failing to contain Iran the consequence would be a nuclear arms race in the lands of the Arab Spring… Saudi Arabia,Turkey and Egypt are already moving to parity with Iran whileJordan and several Gulf states are at varying stages of planning.   

Obama, who promised nuclear non-proliferation, has turned out to be godfather to a nuclear arms race in the least stable, most militant region of the world!

Categories: Arab nations, Bush doctrine, Department of Defense, Egypt, Foreign policy, Freedom, Gulf states, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Iraq, Islamism, Israel, Khamenei, Libya, Middle East, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Shiite, Sunni, Syria, Terrorism
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Schrödinger’s Jihad

May 14, 2015

Schrödinger’s Jihad, Sultan Knish Blog, Daniel Greenfield, May 13, 2015

( A MUST read…  Thank you, Dan. –  JW )

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Obama insists that talking about Islamic terrorism ‘summons’ them into being. By admitting the existence of Islamic terrorists, we ‘radicalize’ Muslims. Even the words ‘Islamic terrorism’ creates Islamic terrorists who otherwise wouldn’t exist.

The real threat is not from the terrorists, it’s from the truth.

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The great paradox of the War on Terror is that we are fighting an enemy that doesn’t exist. We are told incessantly that there is no such thing as a Muslim terrorist.

There may be a tiny minority of violent extremists, but they are only a tiny minority of no importance whatsoever. And yet we’ve been at war with this same infinitesimally tiny minority for decades.

This tiny minority has killed thousands of Americans. It has the support of entire governments in tiny countries like Pakistan (182 million), Iran (77 million) and Syria (22 million). We are told that this tiny minority is no way representative of the world’s billion Muslims, and yet it’s hard to find a Muslim country that doesn’t support or harbor a terrorist group.

We were told that the problems was their governments, but the Arab Spring showed us that democratic elections lead to governments that are even more supportive of tiny minority of extremists who are somehow taking over entire countries.

Everything we’ve been told is obviously a lie. And the best evidence comes from the liars themselves.

The media is howling that a bunch of cartoonists in Texas were irresponsible for sketching Islam’s dead warlord because they should have known that Muslim terrorists would come to kill them for it. But if the media is right and Islam is a religion of peace, then why should they have anticipated a terrorist attack?

And if Islam isn’t a religion of peace, then the media has been irresponsibly lying to us and the cartoonists have been risking their lives to warn us of that lie.

The talking heads on the television insist that the cartoon contest was irresponsible because there were bound to be “some crazies” who would “take the bait”. But if Islam is no more violent than any other religion, shouldn’t it be just as statistically likely that some Christian or Jewish crazies would attack one of the art exhibits, plays or musicals ridiculing and blaspheming against their religions?

Weren’t museums and galleries exhibiting “works of art” like Piss Christ or Shekhina provoking and baiting those Jewish and Christian crazies? And since there are more Christians than Muslims in America, isn’t it statistically far more likely that there should have been far more Christian terror attacks targeting blasphemous exhibits?

We can only conclude that there is a much higher proportion of “crazies” among Muslims than among Christians. How much higher? 78 percent of Americans identify as Christians. 0.6 percent claim to be Muslims. Only 0.3 percent appear to be Sunnis, who are responsible for ISIS and Al Qaeda attacks.

There is indeed a tiny minority of extremists in America. It’s known as Islam.

What keeps the lie alive is another paradox. Call it Schrödinger’s Jihad. The more famous Schrödinger’s Cat is a paradox in which a cat in a sealed box with poison that has a 50 percent chance of being released is in an indeterminate state. It is neither dead nor alive until someone opens the box.

In Schrödinger’s Jihad, the Muslim terrorist is in an indeterminate state until some Western observer opens the box, collapses his wave function and radicalizes him. The two Muslim Jihadists were in an indeterminate state until Pamela Geller and Bosch Fawstin and the other “provocateurs” suddenly turned them into terrorists in a matter of days or weeks. It didn’t matter that Elton Simpson, one of the Garland terrorists, had already been dragged into court for trying to link up with Jihadists in Africa.

Every Muslim is and isn’t a terrorist. He is both a peaceful spiritual person who is eager to embrace our way of life and a violent killer who can be set off by the slightest offense. Like the cat in the box that is neither dead nor alive, he is both violent and peaceful, moderate and extremist, a solid citizen and a terrorist. He does not choose which of these to be or to become; we decide what he will be.

The Jihadist paradox is that the Muslim terrorist is always defined by what we do, not by what he does.

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Islamic terrorism does not exist independently of the Western observer. It is not a Jihad with deep historical and theological roots within Islam, but a reaction to our interactions with Muslims.

Obama insists that talking about Islamic terrorism ‘summons’ them into being. By admitting the existence of Islamic terrorists, we ‘radicalize’ Muslims. Even the words ‘Islamic terrorism’ creates Islamic terrorists who otherwise wouldn’t exist.

The real threat is not from the terrorists, it’s from the truth.

When we tell the truth, people die. The truth turns Muslims into terrorists while the lies soothe them back into non-existence. Underneath all the academic terminology is the dream logic of wishful thinking. If we believe that Islam is a religion of peace, it will be a peaceful religion, and if we accept the reality that it’s violent, then it will become violent. Islam does not define itself. We define it however we want. Our entire counterterrorism policy is based around the perverse ostrich belief that Islamic terrorism is a problem that we create by recognizing its existence. If we ignore it, it will go away.

The lies about Islam are sustained by a deep conviction among liberals that the “Other” minorities are not real people with real beliefs and cultures, but victims in a game of power played out in the West. Islamic terrorism, like gay marriage or Global Warming, is just another step in the progressive pilgrim’s progress. It’s a problem that we caused and need to atone for in our cosmic karmic journey.

Westerners are privileged observers who have power while those minorities they observe do not. The duel between the Western left and right is taking place outside the box to determine what will be in the box once it’s forced open, while the oppressed minorities are in a state of indeterminacy in the box.

The Schrödinger’s Jihad paradox has many other adjoining boxes. Some are filled with dictators and criminals. If the progressive observer can open the box and find the root cause, out comes a good person; if the right opens the box, then out will march the terrorists, drug dealers and warlords.

The other side of the rhetoric about oppression and colonization, of punching up and punching down is the conviction that those at the bottom do not have free will or agency. If the mugger chooses to mug, rather than being driven to it by poverty, if Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union gleefully chose conquest instead of being forced to it by Western imperialism, and if the Muslim terrorist is not a helpless victim, but an abuser, then the moral imperative of the left’s worldview collapses in a heap.

If Muslims are real people who are at least as capable of imperialism, racism, slavery and destroying the planet as any Westerner, and who have been doing all of these things a lot longer, then leftists would have to accept that they are tearing down the most progressive civilization on the planet on behalf of ridiculously reactionary civilizations. Not only would they no longer be the privileged observers in control of the future, but they would have to see themselves as destroyers of what is left of the future.

The left refuses to blame Islam or Muslims because that would mean admitting that they are people.

Schrödinger’s Jihad is a child’s toy box for overgrown children who view Muslims as social justice dolls and terrorist action figures instead of people as flawed and complicated as they are. The left refuses to take Islamic theology seriously because it is incapable of understanding different points of view.

It approaches Islam as a race, rather than a religion, because it refuses to delve into what its beliefs are. Instead it chooses to see Muslims as blank slates to be filled with its ideology, as indeterminate patterns that can be reshaped into whatever they want them to be. It does not want to know what it says in the Koran, because that ruins its wonderful fantasy of Muslims as an oppressed race, rather than a creed.

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Lies that are based on what we want to be true are the hardest to disprove. A lie that is tied into identity cannot be touched without destroying the entire identity of an individual or a movement.

The lies about Islam run into the heart of what the left is. To the left, everything is indeterminate and everything can be reshaped. Existence flows from power and power is pitted against progress. By destroying that which exists, they can bring their dreams to life. The dream is stronger than reality.

The left doesn’t really believe that Muslim terrorists exist except when we bring them to life. The real animating force behind Al Qaeda was George W. Bush or Dick Cheney. The true power behind ISIS is Pamela Geller or the Pentagon. The Westerner opens the box and the Muslim terrorist comes out. When Western civilization as we know it is destroyed, then the left believes Muslim terrorism will end. Kill the observer and the cat never existed. Destroy the dreamer and the nightmare dies with him.

The truth is more dangerous than the terrorists. Terrorists can kill the body, but truth can kill the dream.

Categories: Diversity, Foreign policy, Freedom, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Islamophobia, Multiculturalism, Obama, Shiite, Sunni, Terrorism
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Shia Militia Leader Explodes Over Possibility of U.S. Support for Kurdish Forces

April 30, 2015

Shia Militia Leader Explodes Over Possibility of U.S. Support for Kurdish Forces, Center for Security Policy, Kyle Shideler, April 30, 2015

In the United States, the Obama Administration finds itself on the same side of the argument as Moqtada Al-Sadr, opposing the bill to permit arms for Kurdish forces.

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Shia leader Moqtada Al-Sadr, head of the Jaish al-Mahdi (JAM), issued a stark denunciation of the U.S. Defense Bill currently in front of the U.S. House of Representatives this week, threatening to fight U.S. interests both in Iraq and overseas, in the event that the bill passed.

Al Sadr opposes the bill, because it would authorize the direct transfer of military aid to Kurdish Peshmerga and Sunni tribal forces in order to fight the Islamic State, outside of the direct control of the central government in Baghdad.

“The U.S. House of Representatives intends to pass a draft law on Iraq making each sect independent from the other, and this will be the beginning of Iraq’s division,” Sadr said in a statement. If the U.S. passes such law, “then we will be obliged to lift the freeze on the military wing which is tasked with (fighting) the American side, to start hit the U.S. interests in Iraq and even abroad possibly,” Sadr warned.

Al Sadr’s JAM was one of the primary Shia militia forces used by Iran during Operation Iraqi Freedom, and responsible the deaths of numerous American fighting men and women. Iraq has primarily leaned on the use of Shia militias, operating under the rubric of the Popular Moblization Forces, but many of the 30,000+ militia fighters operate under direct command and control from the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

The Baghdad government, which is heavily supported by Iran, has also vocally opposedthe measure:

We will reject the arming of the Peshmerga directly by the US,” Iraq’s Defense Minister Khalid Al-Obeidi, told Rudaw on Thursday.

Kurdish forces have repeatedly complained that aid designated for use by their forces has repeatedly been redirected by the Baghdad government to Shia militias, some of whom are responsible for sectarian war crimes. Kurdish forces have also expressed concern over the entry of Shia forces into areas viewed by the Kurds as traditionally Kurdish, such as Kirkuk.

Supporters of the Peshmerga took to twitter to complain about the double standard:

garmiyani-tweet

In the United States, the Obama Administration finds itself on the same side of the argument as Moqtada Al-Sadr, opposing the bill to permit arms for Kurdish forces. As State Department Spokeswoman Marie Harf confirmed yesterday:

QUESTION: Yes. Do you have any comment about this draft resolution at the Armed Services Committee that calls for the recognition of the Sunni fighters and the Kurdish Peshmerga forces as a country, and so they can be – directly receive aid and weapons from the U.S., not through the central government?

MS HARF: I saw that. I saw that. And to be very clear: The policy of this Administration is clear and consistent in support of a unified Iraq, and that we’ve always said a unified Iraq is stronger, and it’s important to the stability of the region as well. Our military assistance and equipment deliveries, our policy remains the same there as well, that all arms transfers must be coordinated via the sovereign central government of Iraq. We believe this policy is the most effective way to support the coalition’s efforts.

So we look forward to working with congress on language that we could support on this important issue, but the draft bill, as you noted, in the House – this is very early in the process here for the NDAA – as currently written on this issue, of course, does not reflect Administration policy.

By opposing the direct arming of Sunni and Kurdish forces (and the Kurdish forces in particular), the administration is continuing a policy arc in the region that continues to serve the interests of the Iranians because it creates a dynamic where the only viable players are either Sunni jihadists (whether Islamic State, or in the case of Syria, Al Qaeda-linked groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra), or Iranian-backed forces, such as Assad and the Shia militias operating in Iraq, who are no less committed enemies of the United States.  Bringing supplies directly to Kurdish forces will give the United States a third option to positively affect the outcome of events in Iraq without requiring the modus vivendi with the Iranians.

Categories: Foreign policy, Iran military, Kurdish fighters, Middle East, Obama, Shiite, State Department, Sunni, U.S. Congress
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How Iran Saved Obama’s “Blame America” Foreign Policy

April 29, 2015

How Iran Saved Obama’s “Blame America” Foreign Policy, Front Page Magazine, , April 28, 2015

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Obama’s public rejection of every ally, from Israel to Egypt to Saudi Arabia, has finally created the Post-American Middle East that his “Blame America” doctrine sought. The Post-American Middle East is a hive of terrorist groups and a region of nuclear arms races where murderous despots with vast armies dream of resurrecting the Ottoman Empire, the Persian Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate.

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Obama’s Middle East policy was doomed to fail because it was based on the myth that everything wrong with the region was America’s fault.

Senator Obama had argued that Iraq would fix itself once we pulled out. Without America, the Iraqis would create a “political solution”. Instead the Shiites used the withdrawal to take over the government and Al Qaeda rebounded to dominate the Sunnis. After years of denying what was going on, he was forced back into Iraq after genocide and beheadings filled every television screen.

From the White House, he deployed the “Iraq Solution” across the Middle East by withdrawing support from American allies and backing terrorist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. The chaos tore apart the region and turned over entire cities and countries to terrorists.

Egypt went through multiple coups. Street violence in Tunisia wrecked the country and supplied thousands of fighters to ISIS. His regime change war in Libya led to terrorist takeovers of its capital. Al Qaeda nearly took over Mali. Houthi Jihadists backed by Iran took over Yemen’s capital. The Saudis are bombing Yemen. The Egyptians are bombing Libya. The French are still fighting in Mali.

Iran and Al Qaeda have divided up Iraq, Syria and Yemen between themselves.

Withdrawing American power and influence didn’t work because we were never the problem. American soldiers weren’t causing the Sunnis and Shiites to fight each other. They were the only thing preventing it. American power and influence across the Middle East wasn’t holding back freedom and human rights, it was the only thing keeping a modicum of freedom alive in places like Egypt and Tunisia that quickly fell to Islamist rule in the Arab Spring, resulting in street violence, torture, terrorism and military coups.

The left had been fundamentally wrong about the cause of the problems in the Middle East. Obama trashed the region by following its wrongheaded doctrines.

Once the “Blame America” foreign policy has been implemented and the region went to hell, he had no idea what to do next. Intervening in Libya made sense according to the “Blame America” doctrine because Gaddafi had recently cut a deal with the United States and was obstructing the Jihadists who were implementing the local version of the Arab Spring in coordination with the Muslim Brotherhood.

But intervening in Syria didn’t. Assad wasn’t an American ally. Therefore the “Blame America” doctrine said that he should be left alone. But he was obstructing the Arab Spring. Overthrowing him would let the Muslim Brotherhood claim another country, but would alienate Iran and spoil any reconciliation.

Unable to make a final decision, Obama veered back and forth between Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. Some days he seemed on the verge of bombing Syria and other days he was against even providing the promised weapons to the Sunni rebels. Even his supporters accused him of having no plan.

Syria’s real red line was the one that it had drawn through his foreign policy. Instead of making the Middle East better, his withdrawals had made it worse. And the beneficiaries of his foreign policy, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, were clamoring for more American military intervention.

Even Iraq’s Shiite government, backed by Iran, wanted American intervention.

Obama’s foreign policy had created a new set of untrustworthy client states which had to be kept alive by American intervention. The great joke of his foreign policy was that his new terrorist states acted just like the old dictators they were supposed to replace. They wanted American weapons and soldiers. Their own people hated them and hated America by extension. The climax of the Arab Spring came with crowds in Tahrir Square denouncing Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood for acting as his client state.

The “Blame America” foreign policy had led to even more blame of America. The new “democratic” Islamist governments that he helped bring to power to appease the Arab Street and atone for the sins of supporting the old secular-ish dictators backfired by making the Arab Street hate us more than ever.

Iran saved Obama’s foreign policy. Just as he was stumbling around Syria and weeping at being stuck back in Iraq, the agents of the Iran Lobby suggested that the whole mess could be put back together again. Iran and the US would fight on the same side against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. And this cooperation could be used to hammer out a nuclear accord that would retroactively justify Obama’s Nobel Prize.

The only problem was that everyone else in the region was completely against the idea.

The Iran Lobby threw Obama’s failed foreign policy a lifeline and he grabbed it. The bombing of Syria was off. Assad turned over some WMDs, but went on using others. The US began acting as the air force for Iran’s Shiite militias in Iraq while the Kurds and the Sunni Sheikhs of the Awakening were shut out.

When the Houthis took over Yemen, Obama shrugged. When the Saudis began bombing Yemen, they didn’t tell him because they were afraid the news would leak to Iran. And the administration covertly began pressuring them to stop, confirming that it now took its marching orders from Tehran, not Riyadh.

Obama ignored the vocal opposition, particularly from Israel’s Netanyahu, because the Iran deal was the only thing holding his foreign policy together. It made it seem as if he knew what he was doing. Take away the Iran deal and there was no longer a strategy, just a series of incoherent panicked responses.

That is why he continues to cling to the Iran deal. Without it, the Emperor’s foreign policy is naked.

The Iran deal salvaged the “Blame America” foreign policy by reorienting it away from the Muslim Brotherhood to deal with our great enemy in the region. By acceding to Iran’s nuclear program, Obama could finally fix everything by atoning for America’s biggest foreign policy sin in the region.

Despite his Muslim family background, Obama never understood the Middle East. Instead he looked at the region through a left-wing lens and saw only America’s crimes.

The Sunnis and Shiites, the Arabs, Kurds, Persians and Turkmen, weren’t fighting because of America. They were fighting over differences in religion, ethnicity and clan. The left has always thought that the way to fix the Middle East was to withdraw American influence. Instead doing that destabilized the region and created a power vacuum that Russia and Iran have been more than happy to fill.

Obama’s final foreign policy act was to fall directly into Iran and Al Qaeda’s trap.

Iran and the various Al Qaeda groups had effectively split parts of the region among themselves. By embracing Iran, Obama alienated the Sunni Middle East and shoved entire populations into Al Qaeda’s waiting embrace. He completed the polarizing process that he began with the Arab Spring by selling out the moderates to the extremists and waiting for everyone in the region to love America again.

But the Muslim Brotherhood lost out to its edgier Al Qaeda children. Egypt and the Saudis are scrambling to hold together some sort of Sunni center without the United States and against its wishes. Obama’s alignment with Iran, his rejection of Egypt’s new government and his failure to back the Saudis in Yemen has sent the message that the only legitimate alternative to Al Qaeda is Iran.

That’s not an alternative that most Sunnis can accept. Many would rather stand with Al Qaeda than Iran.

Obama’s public rejection of every ally, from Israel to Egypt to Saudi Arabia, has finally created the Post-American Middle East that his “Blame America” doctrine sought. The Post-American Middle East is a hive of terrorist groups and a region of nuclear arms races where murderous despots with vast armies dream of resurrecting the Ottoman Empire, the Persian Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate.

While genocide goes on, sex slaves are raped under the rule of a Caliph and black flags are unfurled and nuclear weapons are developed to fulfill apocalyptic Islamic prophecies, Obama smiles for the camera and waits for his second Nobel Prize.

It had been America’s fault all along. Now that Iran and Al Qaeda are in charge, everything will be okay.

Categories: Al Qaeda, Arab nations, Egypt, Foreign policy, Hamas, Human rights, Iran, Iran military, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Iraq, Israel, Khamenei, Kurds, Libya, Middle East, Muslims, Obama, P5+1, Rouhani, Shiite, Sunni, Terrorism, Theocracy
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