Posted tagged ‘War’

The Missiles of October, 2015 Edition

October 8, 2015

The Missiles of October, 2015 Edition

Author By Doug Hagmann —

Bio and Archives October 8, 2015

Source: The Missiles of October, 2015 Edition

When the farmer in Iowa plowing his field suddenly and unexpectedly hears a noise and feels the ground shake from missiles being fired from a hidden underground silo in retaliation against Russia, perhaps then Americans will wake up to the litany of lies we’ve been fed by our leaders and a complicit media. Even then, I suspect that most Americans will continue to believe the lies of the U.S. leaders and succumb to revisionist history that has little-to-nothing to do with the truth.

We are at the precipice of World War III, yet the average American has no idea. The average American is oblivious to the fact that America has been captured from within, its leadership is traitorous, and the media complicit in all aspects of seditious criminality. Many of those who might have a level of understanding however, don’t know the real story about how we arrived at this point in time. For both, we have our elected officials in Washington to thank…or to blame… or perhaps congratulate, depending upon which agenda you’re pushing.

In the event you missed the news, twenty-six cruise missiles were fired into Syria by Russian warships yesterday as Syrian ground troops launch an offensive against ISIS and U.S., NATO and Saudi-backed anti-Assad terrorists. Who didn’t see this coming?

Three years ago to the day – October 8, 2012, I wrote Lemmings…On the precipice of World War III, explaining that Barack Hussein Obama, in his capacity as the man selected for the Oval Office, was overseeing a private war in the Middle East at the direction of the Saudis. What was taking place in Syria at that time was the result of the Obama-Clinton parallel CIA/State Department’s “Fast & Furious, Libyan Edition.” To Hillary Clinton’s cackling delight, Gaddafi was deposed and killed, and Libya was being used as a supply depot for weapons funneled to Syria via Turkey and other areas in close proximity. The primary staging area in Libya was Benghazi, and specifically, the CIA complex that was attacked on September 11, 2012.

The actions by this rogue element within the U.S. government, many who are still in power and continue to hold positions of influence, led to the attack on the CIA compound that caused the murder of a U.S. Ambassador and three others. Although the attack was conducted by proxy groups, those groups were acting on behalf of Russia. Accordingly, the United States did not respond, as doing so would have certainly widened the conflict and exposed the largest weapons running operation in the Middle East. Stevens, having a rolodex full of unsavory contacts including those he met while on assignment in Syria, reportedly oversaw a portion of this operation, according to my contacts in the intelligence venue.

To fully understand the perilous situation the Renegade-in-Chief has created for us as a nation, it is critical to understand the truth regarding how we arrived here. That, of course is something that Obama, Clinton and their facilitators cannot have exposed at any cost. To understand Russia’s response in Syria, the current situation must be viewed through the larger lens of past events for accurate historical context, and those events include Benghazi. It is for this reason that the American people will never get the truth about Benghazi or the mysterious Clinton e-mails, as any truthful revelation would expose the criminally traitorous activities of this unlawful administration.

How deep the lies

The lies, however, go much deeper than most reasonable people can comprehend, as we are not dealing with reasonable or rational people. We do not have truth in the media, as all media outlets are controlled by only six corporations that act as chokepoints for truth. The large media conglomerates dutifully report only what they are told to report and nothing more. Included in this pattern of control are those media pundits, including most who are identified as conservative, and most who host talk shows and television panels.

The above, therefore, explains why the background of Barry Soetoro, a/k/a Barack Hussein Obama II, the Renegade-in-Chief was declared “off-limits” to discussion by even those “conservative” pundits. Anyone out of compliance was (and still is) publicly ridiculed. This complete takeover is overtly obvious even in Hollywood, where many night-time talk show hosts often mock and ridicule anyone daring to question the bona-fides and allegiance of the Communist Muslim occupant of the White House.

I stress the above in this report as it is relevant even today, for the events we are watching unfold could have been prevented with a true conservative effort and media pundits who could have chosen to place the fate of their nation over their careers. They chose their paycheck over the truth, and bowed to their corporate handlers as deeply as Obama bowed to his handler, the king of Saudi Arabia.

We have grown to expect as much from the toxic liberal “progressive” Marxists, but find it difficult to accept such from the self-proclaimed conservative media and pundits. Depicted as intellectual talking heads, they never seem to break through the thin veneer of lies that covers the truth. They entertain rather than inform, which appeals to the average, non-thinking American. They offer just enough “us versus them,” play-by-play action of the long-dead partisan paradigm to satisfy those addicted to mainstream news.

What every thinking American needs to understand is that the lies that have been and continue to be perpetuated by those in elected positions emanate from members of both political parties, for most members of both parties have chosen to take their assigned seats at the globalists’ table. It is easy to see how others may have been blackmailed into taking their assigned seats, especially after drinking from the fountain of power and wealth within the beltway. That assertion also applies to certain members of the Supreme Court, a body that has become an activist arm of the globalists.

We did not, however, arrive here overnight. The subjugation of America’s sovereignty was an incremental process. It seems that the tactics of the Fabian Socialists won out over those of the Communists. Their goals are the same, only their approach is different. The ultimate objective is nearly complete, and each of us has a front seat to the next act of this Orwellian play. From Woodrow Wilson to the Clinton cabal to the globalists currently in power, Americans have been led into servitude. Sadly, many Americans are enjoying their servitude, or have no idea that they are being held captive. Feel free to call it Stockholm syndrome, but dare not call it “battered wife syndrome,” for this phrase has been deemed off limits by the thought police.

For those reasons and many more, don’t expect to learn the truth about Benghazi, for the next act of this Orwellian play has already been written. While most Americans could not find Benghazi on a globe, those who could seem to have long forgotten about the attack and its implications. A dutiful and complicit press has made sure of that.

While many quickly dismiss ludicrous explanations concerning the Benghazi attack, including the embarrassingly laughable narrative relating to the anti-Muslim video The Innocence of Muslims, they will often stop there, purposely neglecting the evidence that is highly suggestive of a rogue CIA, Clinton, Obama and Brennan cover-up.  As I detailed in my report of that video, its creation appears to trace back to people and groups close to the CIA. Additionally, the same people and entities whose fingerprints appear on the video also appear to be involved in the breach of the passport office files in 2008. It was that breach that prompted the admission by Obama that he traveled to Pakistan in 1981, and also appears to have played a role in the murder of one of those involved at the periphery of that incident.

Although seemingly tedious and arguably off-topic, it is vital to understand that everything we are presently seeing taking place has been carefully orchestrated. We are not living in a world of coincidence, but one of conspiracy. Laugh if you must, but do so only after you’ve investigated all of the facts. And then, laugh at your own peril.

Three years ago, I wrote that World War III would begin in Syria, not Iran. Admittedly, Iran would play a role, but the flashpoint, Putin’s red line in the sand runs directly through Damascus. It still does, and now over two-dozen sophisticated Russian cruise missiles have served to emphasize and validate my assertions.

Obama’s deliberately destabilizing actions across the Middle East, known as the “Arab Spring,” was planned long ago in the bowels of a Saudi mansion. With the approval of Washington leadership of both parties, including the “gang of eight,” Obama was selected to oversee the operation. Obama is acting on orders from his Saudi and globalist handlers. John Boehner and other Republican leaders provided the necessary cover for Obama to complete his task. He was assisted by the Clinton criminal cabal, and given a pass by a complicit media.

If you look long enough and close enough, the evidence is there. Sadly, there are too few with the intellectual and moral integrity to report it. Or, they have already submitted their reservations for their seats at the globalists’ table.

For those with the temerity to report the truth, there is a solution to deal with you. If you’re not silenced by the restrictions of the soon-to-be-passed Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty or its Atlantic counterpart, there’s always room for you at one of your local non-existent re-education centers. They’ll even leave the light on for you.

From there, you’ll have a front row seat to the series of final acts of the screenplay of the globalists. The “Missiles of October 2015 edition,” produced and written by the Globalista’s studios, although a bit behind schedule, has been “launched.” Pun intended.

Prepare. Pray.

The Iran Deal: Making War More Likely?

July 16, 2015

The Iran Deal: Making War More Likely? American ThinkerStephen Bryen and Shoshana Bryen, July 16, 2015

The deal is done. Iran has sort-of promised it won’t build nuclear weapons, but even the promise has serious caveats: Iran can continue to build weapons platforms to deliver the non-existent weapons; it can cooperate with friendly countries to acquire enhancements to weapons delivery technology; and it can prevent entry to requested facilities by international inspectors for 24 days per request; it need not account for prior military activity. And Iran will be vastly richer.

Based on the world’s experience with the efficacy of multinational inspection regimes and with Iran specifically, it would be wise to assume that the Islamic Republic will move (continue?) covertly to build nuclear warheads, perhaps just leaving out the nuclear fuel. Iran will likely begin testing rockets so that they will be able to release a future nuclear weapon securely at the right moment to get the right blast effect.

The rocket is as important as the nuclear weapon it carries.

Nuclear weapons don’t go off if they plow into the ground, because as they disintegrate they can’t achieve the necessary chain reaction; they must explode above ground at a fixed altitude

Allowing Iran to openly acquire ballistic missile technology can shorten the time from weapons acquisition to weapons use, increasing the relative nervousness of the neighbors — not a recipe for stability. Israel will have to try to interdict and disrupt Iranian ballistic missile testing on an active and overt basis. Because Israeli is not a signatory to the Iran deal, it can expect to be censured by its allies and everyone else. But Israel will have no choice.

If a nuclear weapon were to be fired at Israel, in the few minutes from launch to impact Israel could, in theory, launch its own nuclear weapons from diverse platforms including land-based intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs), from F-4’s and F-15’s, and from the newer Israeli submarines. Iran would face annihilation. It potentially could mean the same for Israel, although Israel’s anti-missile system may be sufficient to block the Iranian strike. A lot will depend on how good the Iranian technology is, how well tested it is, and what Israel’s countermeasures are.

The above scenario suggests this might be the time for Israel to place whatever nuclear cards it holds on the table. Israel has long been a presumed nuclear power, including by the CIA since the 1970s, and Secretary Robert Gates said so explicitly in his confirmation hearings. But Israel’s official posture remains “nuclear ambiguity” and a vague statement that Israel would not be the first to use nuclear weapons in the region, hinting that the program was designed as a deterrent. But given that Iran is likely on its way to being a nuclear power as well, and has threatened Israel specifically and directly with annihilation, Israel’s deterrence may well be enhanced by a less ambiguous posture.

While the first of the deal’s unintended consequences is that it forces Israel to officially become a nuclear power, there are others.

The deal increases the chances of direct conventional warfare between Israel and an emboldened and wealthier Iran. It may come as a consequence of Israel’s “interdict and defeat” effort in Syria; too many Iranian missiles in the hands of Hizb’allah; the deployment of Iranian troops in Syria threatening Israel; a firefight in the Golan or southern Lebanon; or conflict on the high seas. The list is a long one.

And Israel is not the only country that views Iran with alarm. Egypt and Saudi Arabia will urgently step up their search for nuclear capability. Egypt has gone down this road before and the Saudis have been leaning on Pakistan for a bomb.  Neither Egypt nor Saudi Arabia is inherently stable, and instability runs different scenarios. Saudi Arabia has IRBM delivery systems and F-15s that can be used to deliver a nuclear weapon. Egypt does not presently have the rockets, but it has a good nuclear science base that it gained in cooperation with different international partners. How viable its nuclear science pool is today is unclear; but in the 1980s Egypt was working with Iraq on the creation of plutonium fuel for weapons (at the Osirak reactor, among other locales) and was partnered with Argentina and perhaps others in building a version of the American Pershing II mobile nuclear missile. It is not unreasonable to think these programs or variants of them will in some way be revived.

The U.S. administration may think the Sunni Arab states have nowhere to turn for technology, but that would be wrong. Russia, for example, and China are more than capable under the right circumstances of cynically supporting both sides in the region — greatly enhancing the chances of war.

In the short term, the Saudis and Egyptians will need to rely on under-the-table relationships with Israel to resist pressure from Iran, which will grow apace thanks to the Washington-led deal; whether this can be concretized and turned into a workable and useful collective security pact is an important consideration. At a minimum, given the substantial barriers to overt cooperation, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf States will be heavily exposed and at risk for some time.

The security consequences do not only accrue to the regional countries, but to the United States and our European allies as well.

The U.S.-led deal leaves the Islamic Republic on the road to nuclear weapons capability, now or in five years or in ten — we don’t actually know because the administration gave up its demand for information on Iran’s previous military activities. The cost of this, which we already are seeing, is further diminution of American power and influence in the Middle East as neither our Arab allies nor Israel believe we can protect them. This fuels Russian as well as Iranian ambitions. Europe, which needs oil from the Middle East, can consequently be expected to back away from NATO, encouraging Russian nibbling on the margins of Europe — Estonia is already panicked. The Atlantic Alliance system andPax Americana that emerged from the ashes of WWII will collapse.

In the face of that possibility, the U.S. — whether in this administration or the next — will find that it cannot stand aside. In some manner, however halting, the United States will have to agree to do what Israel by circumstance is being forced to do, namely move militarily to truncate Iran’s nuclear program.

That being the case, it would be wise for the U.S. to pick up the leadership gauntlet earlier rather than later, and to do so in the company of as many friends and allies as it can muster.

‘No big deal’: Senior Iranian commander says Tehran ready for war with US

May 8, 2015

No big deal’: Senior Iranian commander says Tehran ready for war with US

via ‘No big deal’: Senior Iranian commander says Tehran ready for war with US — RT News.

 

Lieutenant Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Hossein Salami (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl)

Lieutenant Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Hossein Salami (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl)

 A top commander warned that Iran is ready for an all-out war with US, alleging that aggression against Tehran “will mobilize the Muslim world” against it. The remarks follow Secretary of State John Kerry’s claims that military force was still an option.

Brigadier General Hossein Salami, lieutenant commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), spoke Wednesday to a state-run TV channel as Western powers readied for a new round of talks on getting the Islamic Republic to curb its nuclear ambitions ahead of a June 30 deadline.

He also stated, “War against Iran will mobilize the Muslim world against the US, an issue which is very well known by the enemy.”

Iran recently agreed on a framework deal concerning its nuclear interests with the P5+1 group in Switzerland, which would pave the way for it to be finalized. However, Israel was highly critical of the move. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that it “would not block Iran’s path to the bomb. It would pave it.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry (L), meets with Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in New York April 27, 2015. (Reuters/Jason DeCrow)

US Secretary of State John Kerry (L), meets with Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in New York April 27, 2015. (Reuters/Jason DeCrow)

Kerry has recently appeared to try to ease tensions with the Jewish state by assuring it that war was still on the table. This and possible other similar remarks don’t sit well with Salami.

“We have prepared ourselves for the most dangerous scenarios and this is no big deal and is simple to digest for us; we welcome war with the US as we do believe that it will be the scene for our success to display the real potentials of our power,” Salami said, as cited by Iran’s FARS news agency.

The general’s rationale is that past US military victories owe themselves to their enemies’ “rotten” armies – not the case with Iran, he warned.

Addressing the officials currently at the negotiating table, Salami urged them to halt negotiations if any threat of force is issued again by a US official.

Salami echoed the words of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, who in a separate speech remarked that making simultaneous military threats while at the negotiating table will not fly.

READ MORE: Destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities would take ‘several days’ – US Senator Tom Cotton

“This is not acceptable that the opposite side continues making threats simultaneous with the talks,” he said at a public meeting with teachers in Tehran on Wednesday.

The Supreme Leader also referenced remarks from two US officials whom he did not name, but whom also said action wasn’t completely off the table, saying that: “Negotiation under the ghost of a threat is meaningless and the Iranian nation does not tolerate negotiation under the shadow of threat.”

As for any tangible possibility, Khamenei claimed: “First of all, you can’t do a damn thing.”

“Secondly, as I had already stated during the term of the former US president, the era of hit-and-run attacks is gone and the Iranian nation will not let go of anyone” with aggressive plans on it.

According to the religious leader, this is for the simple reason that the US needs the negotiations as much as Iran does, as it wishes to be seen as the country that put Iran in its place at the negotiating table.

But he added that while it would be best that the crippling economic sanctions by Western powers were lifted, it is “our own planning, will and ability, no matter the sanctions are in place or not,” that is crucial here.

He sent a message to the Iranian negotiators, asking that they “never allow the other side to impose its will, exercise force, humiliate or threaten you.”

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl)

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl)

Kerry is not alone in appearing to keep the threat of force alive. Last month Republican Senator Tom Cotton (Arkansas) claimed that it would take Washington just several days to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Cotton was the author of the letter signed by 47 Republican senators and sent to the Iranian leaders, saying that a nuclear agreement made without congressional approval might not last beyond the Obama administration.

On Thursday, the US Senate passed a bipartisan bill that would give Congress review rights over the White House’s Iran nuclear deal.

A faction led by Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio (R-FL) attempted to insert a number of amendments into the bill during the floor debate, including a provision requiring Iran to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

It echoes the demand of PM Benjamin Netanyahu who wants any final deal with Iran to include a “clear and unambiguous Iranian recognition of Israel’s right to exist.”

READ MORE: Senate passes bill giving Congress right to review Iran nuke deal

Meanwhile, on Monday the Iranian foreign minister addressed Israel on behalf of the 120-nation Non-Aligned Movement, calling that it gives up the bomb, as well as renewing calls for a nuclear-free Middle East.

Israel has not signed up to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), though it has sent an observer to the month long conference for the first time in 20 years.

CURL: Obama’s breathtaking naivete at the United Nations

September 25, 2014

CURL: Obama’s breathtaking naivete at the United Nations, Washington TimesJoe Curl, September 24, 2014

Obama's ToastPhoto by: Pablo Martinez Monsivais. President Barack Obama raises his glass to toast during a luncheon hosted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2014, at the United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Simply believing something doesn’t make it so. The president’s desire for a world in which nations talk openly about their true feelings, perhaps share a good cry together, and sing kumbaya around the campfire, is the height of naivete.

So is this passage of his speech: “… the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. Islam teaches peace. Muslims the world over aspire to live with dignity and a sense of justice. And when it comes to America and Islam, there is no us and them, there is only us.”

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ANALYSIS/OPINION:

President Obama on Wednesday delivered a speech at the United Nations filled with his usual soaring rhetoric of global collectivism and the importance of “international norms.” But the president also displayed a shocking naivete about global affairs, religion, Islam — a Pollyannaish interpretation on the state of the world and America’s role in it.

Although Mr. Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize just eight months into office, the president made his annual trip to the ineffectual world council to deliver a call to war. “Ladies and gentlemen, we come together at a crossroads between war and peace, between disorder and integration, between fear and hope.”

Of course he waxed poetic about “climate change” and the promise of “the children,” but the president was forced to devote the bulk of his speech to what he called the “heart of darkness” and the “cancer of violent extremism.”

He said upon opening his remarks that “the shadow of world war that existed at the founding of this institution has been lifted.” He couldn’t be more wrong. A true man of peace worthy of the Nobel Prize, Pope Francis, said just the opposite this month in remarkably astute comments to commemorate the anniversary of World War I.

“Even today, after the second failure of another world war, perhaps one can speak of a third war, one fought piecemeal, with crimes, massacres, destruction,” the pope said, summing up the conflicts in Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Israel, Gaza and much of northern Africa, including Libya and Tunisia, not to mention Somalia.

To Mr. Obama, there’s no global conflict of ideology, just “pervasive unease in our world.” To him, the strife is merely the “failure of our international system to keep pace with an interconnected world.” And to him, “it is one of the tasks of all great religions to accommodate devout faith with a modern, multicultural world.”

He asked delegates from nations across the world to mull this “central question of our global age: Whether we will solve our problems together, in a spirit of mutual interest and mutual respect, or whether we descend into the destructive rivalries of the past.”

His answer? “It’s time for a broader negotiation in the region in which major powers address their differences directly, honestly, and peacefully across the table from one another, rather than through gun-wielding proxies.”

Simply believing something doesn’t make it so. The president’s desire for a world in which nations talk openly about their true feelings, perhaps share a good cry together, and sing kumbaya around the campfire, is the height of naivete.

So is this passage of his speech: ” … the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. Islam teaches peace. Muslims the world over aspire to live with dignity and a sense of justice. And when it comes to America and Islam, there is no us and them, there is only us.”

But Islam and the holy Koran on which Muslim militant groups like al Qaeda and the Islamic State base their actions do call for the extermination of all who do not follow Islam, do demand that followers kill anyone who leaves the religion, do subjugate women. For the record, the Koran contains more than 100 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers.

Mr. Obama said in his speech that “all people of faith have a responsibility to lift up the value at the heart of all great religions: Do unto thy neighbor as you would do — you would have done unto yourself.” But that is not a cornerstone of Islam. Militant Muslims have a very different belief: “Fight in the name of your religion with those who disagree with you.” And that edict comes straight from their holiest book.

To the president, that ideology “will wilt and die if it is consistently exposed and confronted and refuted in the light of day.” Again, the callowness is astounding. While he urged the world, “especially Muslim communities,” to reject the ideology that underlies al Qaeda and the Islamic State, nothing will change the fact that cold-blooded killers are determined to destroy the West, wipe all infidels from the face of the earth and build a new caliphate based on strict adherence to Shariah law (which leans heavily toward beheadings, lashings, stonings).

The president let loose some passing platitudes — “right makes might,” “the only language understood by killers like this is the language of force” — but in the end Mr. Obama still labors under the delusion that the Islamic State group and its ilk have “perverted one of the world’s great religions.” He still rejects “any suggestion of a clash of civilizations” — despite al Qaeda’s and Islamic State’s express declaration of war against western civilization (and anyone who is not Muslim).

In the end, Mr. Obama said: “No external power can bring about a transformation of hearts and minds,” which means America is powerless. The only solution in this multicultural world is sharing our true feelings honestly with those who not only fundamentally disagree with us, but vow to do us harm.

Exactly a year ago, Mr. Obama said this at the U.N.: “Together, we’ve also worked to end a decade of war.” But the worldwide war on terrorism does not end when the U.S. president decides it is so, it ends when the enemy is defeated.

While he says “peace is not merely the absence of war, but the presence of a better life,” he really should say only this: “We didn’t start this war, but we will end it.”

Coalition of the Unwilling

September 13, 2014

Coalition of the Unwilling, Steyn on line, Mark Steyn, September 12, 2014

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I was overseas when Obama gave his momentous Isis address, but figured I could pretty much guess how things would go. Despite being the greatest orator of the last thousand years, he’s a complete bust at selling anything but himself, as comprehensively demonstrated in his first couple of years: see his rhetorical efforts on behalf of ObamaCare, or Massachusetts Senate candidate Martha Coakley, or Chicago’s Olympics bid. When it comes to war, he suffers from an additional burden: before he can persuade anybody else, he first has to persuade himself. And he can’t do it. So he gave the usual listless performance of a surly actor who resents the part he’s been given. It’s not just the accumulation of equivocations and qualifications – the “Islamic State” is not Islamic, our war with them is not a war, there’ll be no boots on the ground except the exotic footwear of a vast unspecified coalition – but something more basic: What he mainly communicates is that he doesn’t mean it.

That’s what the jihadist militias now in control of Tripoli understood about his “leading from behind”. That’s what Putin grasped about Obama’s “red line” in Syria. And that’s what any Isis member who took time out of his beheading schedule to watch the President on CNN International will have taken away from this week’s speech.

As for the “coalition”, they seem to intuit that, with a leader leading from this far behind, you want to stand even further back. From the mellifluously named Jacaranda FM:

Turkey will refuse to allow a US-led coalition to attack jihadists in neighbouring Iraq and Syria from its air bases, nor will it take part in combat operations against militants, a government official told AFP Thursday.

So much for the only Nato member to border Isis. What of the other Atlantic allies?

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told journalists on Friday that Germany will not take part in US-led air strikes against Islamic extremists Isis in Syria.

The United Kingdom’s position is more, ah, nuanced. First, the Foreign Secretary:

Asked about plans for an open-ended bombing campaign, Mr Hammond said: ‘Let me be clear – Britain will not be taking part in any air strikes in Syria. We have already had that discussion in our parliament last year and we won’t be revisiting that position.’

On the other hand, the Queen’s first minister:

Hours after Mr Hammond’s appearance in Germany, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman insisted Mr Cameron was ‘not ruling anything out’.

What about American allies closer to the action?

There is a disinclination to believe his promises, said Mustafa Alani of the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.

“We have reached a low point of trust in this administration,” he said. “We think in a time of crisis Mr. Obama will walk away from everyone if it means saving his own skin.”

Different countries are suspicious of the United States for different reasons, but all feel betrayed in some way by recent U.S. policies, said Salman Shaikh of the Brookings Doha Institute in Qatar.

They, too, take “the leader of the free world” at face value: If he can’t sell it to himself, why should they buy it? The good news is that there is one nation state interested in signing on in a big way:

US Opposes Iran Role in Coalition Against Islamic State

One sympathizes with Obama at having to pretend to be interested in tedious briefings about which set of unlovely ingrate natives we should back against the other. He was elected to be the post-war president – Clement Attlee to Bush’s Winston Churchill, an analogy that’s almost perfect except for the minor detail that in this case the enemy did not acceot that the war was over. Still, it takes two to tango, and Obama’s principal dance move is to stand at the side of the floor looking cool. The Obama Doctrine – “Don’t do stupid sh*t” – has been rendered in non-PG version as “Don’t do stupid stuff”. But it should be more pithily streamlined yet: Don’t do. The Obama “Doctrine” attempts to dignify inertia as strategy. As Noemie Emery writes:

It implies in effect that wisdom is measured in negative energy, that by declining to act one can stay out of trouble, that passivity is the key to a guilt-free existence and a serene and an untroubled world.

Never use force, don’t threaten force, and no one will blame you for anything. Pull out of wars and your foes will stop fighting. Don’t send men to war and your hands will be clean.

And so the President assures us that his determination to “destroy” Isis won’t be anything like Iraq and Afghanistan, but more on the lines of Yemen and Somalia – that’s to say, one more failed state we’ll drone now and again. Can you really treat one of the world’s deepest pools of oil as just another piffling fringe-of-the-map basket-case? Don’t worry about it. For the modern progressive, the entire planet is fringe-of-the-map. Real politics is about free contraceptives for thirtysomething college students, and transgender bathrooms for grade-schoolers. “Foreign policy” is something old bitter white men do.

And so it was that Barack Obama observed the anniversary of 9/11 by visiting something called Ka-BOOM!, a non-profit that helps build playgrounds for children. Neither the President nor the First Lady nor anyone else in the 40-car motorcade appears to have thought it odd that, on the day the Twin Towers went Ka-BOOM!, America’s Commander-in-Chief should behelping put children’s toys in backpacks marked Ka-BOOM! From Kabul to Madrid, Bali to London, a lot of backpacks have gone Ka-BOOM! over the past 13 years, but evidently the thought did not discombobulate those who manage what the President calls his “optics”. And so a day in which Islamic imperialists killed thousands of Americans by flying planes into skyscrapers has somehow devolved into a day for raising awareness of the need for better play facilities for children. Did he also visit Habitat for Humanity and help hang a new window treatment? Did he plant a tree?

In the land of micro-aggressions, macro-aggressions are so last century.

(Here’s the micro-aggression video — DM)

US Gen. John Allen named to lead coalition war on ISIS, but allies deterred by Obama’s ambiguities

September 13, 2014

US Gen. John Allen named to lead coalition war on ISIS, but allies deterred by Obama’s ambiguities, DEBKAfile, September 13, 2014

Gen._John_R._Allen-ISIS_12.9.14US Gen. John Allen to lead war on ISIS

All this leaves President Obama and Gen. Allen on the threshold of a war on Islamist terrorists, which everyone agrees needs to fought without delay, but without enough political leverage for going forward or much chance of mustering the right troops to lead – even into the first battle.

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“We’re going to build the kind of coalition that allows us to lead, but also isn’t entirely dependent on what we do,” said US President Barack Obama at a fundraiser at the home of former AIPAC head Howard Friedman in Baltimore Friday, Sept. 12. One wag translated this as meaning that the Middle East could go its own way so long as it retained a “US flavor.”

That was one way of defining the turbulent cross-currents set off in the Middle East by the US president’s launch last Wednesday of his strategy for defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant with a broad coalition.

That was also exactly the kind of ambiguous comment, which the governments America is wooing to join the coalition, find so off-putting. The response of 10 Arab and Muslim leaders to Secretary of State John Kerry’s recruitment bid in Jeddah last Thursday, Sept.11, was therefore just as equivocal.

The “participating states agreed to do their share in the comprehensive fight against ISIL, including… as appropriate joining in the many aspects of a coordinated military campaign against ISIL,” they said.

Obama spoke of a “silver lining” in describing how Arab neighbors were focused for the first time on the “need to completely distance from and effectively snuff out this particular brand of Islamic extremism.” But the lining is not all that bright.

Iraq has no army left to speak of after ISIS’s rampage, and its small air force can hardly make a difference in the battle against the Islamists’ territorial sweep.

Turkey has opted out – and not just out of military operations against jihadists. Ankara has closed its territory and air bases to the transit of US and coalition forces for striking the Islamists in northern Iraq.

Jordan has renounced any part in the military operations against the Islamic State – and so has Egypt, as Kerry learned before he landed in Cairo Saturday, Sept. 13.

Germany, while sending arms to the Kurdish army fighting in the front line against the Islamists, refuses to take part in combat action in Iraq or Syria.

Britain, which sent a shipment of heavy machine guns and half a ton of ammunition to Irbil for the Kurdish Peshmerga, refuses to join the US in air strikes over IS targets in Syria.

French President Francois Hollande, who flew to Baghdad Friday with four arms shipments and 60 metric tons of humanitarian equipment, will host the founding of the coalition in Paris next Monday, Sept. 15 – in competition to the American initiative. He has crossed Washington by inviting Iran.

Kerry said publicly that it would be “inappropriate” for Iranian officials to be invited to the Paris conference, since Iran is “a state sponsor of terror” and “backs Syria’s brutal regime.”

Friday, Obama appointed Gen. John R. Allen, former commander in Afghanistan and western Iraq, to lead the coalition forces in the war on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levan.

It is hard to see what combat forces he will lead, in view of the mixed international responses so far to Washington’s appeals for a global coalition to combat terror.

In the years 2006-2008, Gen. Allen commanded the US II Marine Expeditionary Force, which successfully fought Al Qaeda under Musab Zarqawi’s leadership in western Iraq’s Anbar province. He led what was then dubbed the “Awakening” project, which rallied the region’s Sunni tribes to the fight.

President Obama appears to be hinging his campaign against the new Islamist scourge on Gen. Allen repeating that success.

DEBKAfile’s military experts find the prospects of this happening in 2014 fairly slim, because the circumstances are so different:

1. To support the Sunni Awakening venture, President George W. Bush authorized the famous “surge” which placed an additional 70,000 US troops on the Iraqi battlefield. However, Obama has vowed not to send US combat troops back to Iraq in significant numbers, and has approved no more than a few hundred American military personnel.

2.  In 2006, Iraqi Sunnis trusted American pledges. They agreed to turn around and fight fellow Sunni Al Qaeda after being assured by Washington that they would not lose their status and rights in Baghdad, and that the US would give them weapons and salaries.

In 2009, they realized that the Obama administration would not stand by the Bush administration’s assurances. Their disillusion with America and the rise of a Shiite-dominated regime in Baghdad pushed them into the arms of ISIS.

3. Since then Iraq’s Sunni leaders have learned not to trust anyone.

Today, they are hedging their bets, their tribal leaders split into two opposing camps between Saudi Arabia, on the one hand, and the Islamic State, on the other. For the first time since the US invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein 11 years ago, Iraq’s Sunni leaders feel they are in the saddle and in a position to set a high price for their support.

All this leaves President Obama and Gen. Allen on the threshold of a war on Islamist terrorists, which everyone agrees needs to fought without delay, but without enough political leverage for going forward or much chance of mustering the right troops to lead – even into the first battle.