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When it comes to dropping bombs on Arabs, American newspapers and TV are usually extraordinarily supportive of whatever the Administration in power wants to do. Witness the pack mentality which led virtually every print journalist and editor in the country to endorse Colin Powell’s bogus UN speech blowing the whistle on Saddam’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.
Thus it is surprising and perhaps encouraging that some of our traditional media outlets greeted Obama’s speech about attacking the Islamic State (IS), aka ISIS or ISIL, with more than a little skepticism. From the AP:”…Barack Obama is taking a huge risk. He is thrusting U.S. fighting forces into a growing military operation with clear dangers, unknown costs, an indefinite length and unpredictable consequences.” And from The New York Times: “Some officials and terrorism experts believe that the actual danger posed by ISIS has been distorted in hours of television punditry and alarmist statements by politicians…”
Certainly the rhetoric of our Solons has been over the top. Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein claimed “The threat ISIS poses cannot be overstated” and that the Islamic State is “the most vicious, well-funded and militant terrorist organization we have ever seen.” Republican James Inhofe warned, “We’re in the most dangerous position we’ve ever been in as a nation” Somehow I thought the US was in greater danger when U-Boats were sinking tankers within sight of the Jersey shore, but perhaps people in Oklahoma, lacking an ocean, have a different perspective.
Add a couple of beheading videos to Congressional hyperbole and the White House quickly succumbed to war fever. Another major military intervention in the Middle East has begun, leading who knows where and at what cost. Forgotten are the Mujaheddin we sponsored in Afghanistan to fight Soviets who morphed into the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Down the memory hole is the destruction of the Libyan state, which Obama himself presided over, and the lawlessness and anarchy which prevail there now.
Obama’s televised speech outlining American “strategy” against the Islamic State was not reassuring in the least and ought to make us wonder whether the President understands the scope of the struggle he is getting us into. For Obama the Islamic State may be “a terrorist group, pure and simple,” but it is clearly much more than that having political as well as religious underpinnings. How else could a few thousand fighters control six or seven million people and vast swaths of Iraq and Syria? Despite what the Administration would have us believe, the Islamic State is an insurgency with popular backing from the Sunni inhabitants of Syria and northern Iraq. The Sunnis there are going to resist the re-imposition of non-Sunni rule from Damascus or Baghdad. Is this a struggle we really want to be involved in?
In Syria the Sunni population supports the Islamic State because they have been excluded from political power since the 1920s. The French colonial administration, installed as the Mandatory power by the League of Nations, fearing the power of the Sunnis, who then as now constituting a majority of Syrians, recruited the Syrian army and police from Alawite and Druze minorities. Since the departure of the French, Alawite military officers have held the supreme power in Syria. In Iraq, the Sunnis were the ruling class until Uncle Sam removed Saddam in 2003 and elections brought a Shia government to power who have been determined to marginalize Iraq’s Sunni population.
It is more than a little ironic, therefore, that by supporting Sunni insurgents fighting the Assad regime in Syria and by bringing Shia rule to Iraq, American intervention has been instrumental in creating the Islamic State and the mess Obama now seeks to remediate.
The President’s strategy for mobilizing political and military support within the region to defeat the Islamic State is wholly unconvincing and completely unrealistic. Although the American trained Iraqi Army vastly outnumbers IS fighters, the army abandoned the Sunni areas in northern and central Iraq without a fight, threw away their arms and legged it south to Baghdad and beyond. Subsequent Iraqi Army attempts to recapture Tikrit, just up the Tigris from Baghdad, ended in complete failure. The record of Kurdish forces versus the Islamic State’s insurgents is little better. Without the insertion of American ground forces, whose deployment to Iraq looks politically unacceptable, at least for the moment, it is hard to imagine how the IS insurgency will be defeated.
Even more unrealistic are US plans to build up the Free Syrian Army (FSA) as a counter weight to the IS. The FSA is Sunni and has the same objective as the Islamic State, ousting the Assad regime in Damascus. Although the Assad government is determinedly secular, its senior officials are Alawites, an off shoot of Shia Islam, making the government in Damascus an important target of the Sunni insurgency. The FSA and the IS are actually allies. American aid to the FSA in the past has unquestionable contributed to the success of the Islamic State and continued aid will likely continue to do so.
The Assad regime is a natural US ally, not an adversary, in the battle with the IS. And of all the forces in the region resisting the IS only the Syrian army has had any success. Another natural American ally is Iran which is overwhelmingly Shia and closely allied with the governments in Baghdad and Damascus. Iran also has significant military capacity and a long border with the Islamic State in northeastern Iraq. Both Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel. As a result, because the United States has chosen to make Israel’s enemies America’s enemies, domestic political considerations make it impossible for the US to ally itself with either Iran or Syria, as useful and sensible as those alliances would be.
Perhaps the most unrealistic and bizarre of all are the Obama Administration’s plans to make Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Turkey allies in the fight against the IS. The Turks have supported the Sunni insurgency against the Assad regime from the beginning. Turkey is a Sunni nation, with a moderate Islamic government. Could the Turkish government be convinced to abandon the Sunni insurgency in Syria? Doubtful. There are reports that the Turkish government has already told Uncle Sam that Turkish airfields will not be available to attack IS forces.
As for the conservatives Sunni Arab states in the Arabian Peninsula, their inhabitants have provided private financial support to the nascent Islamic State, channeled through Kuwait, for years. Their governments, with encouragement from the United States, are hostile to Iran. How could the Obama Administration imagine that these nations, who citizens regard all Shias with distain at best and fear Iran, would suddenly reverse course and help save Iran’s most important ally, the Shia government in Baghdad, from a Sunni insurgency?
Given the US’s wretched track record in the Middle East, including support for Israel’s recent massacre of innocents in Gaza, why would anyone here or abroad imagine yet another American military intervention would succeed when pervious invasions, raids, bombing campaigns, occupations and economic sanctions have utterly failed?
The coming battle with Islamic State insurgents showcases American political immaturity, is emotionally driven and lacks a coherent political and military strategy. It is also unnecessary.
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So what we have here is IS-ISIL-ISIS, which may in fact be CIA-MI6-MOSSAD, versus Free Syrian Army McCain’s Cannibals Brigade versus human decency versus politically obfuscated strategically inane Behind the Beltway mumbo jumbo.
Yeah that sounds exactly like something Dear Leader will champion until death do us part. With the ‘death’ aspect casting it’s cold shadow on the boots.
That’s a rhetorical question, right?
Americans need to know that last year ISIS conducted 50 to as many as 70 suicide bombings per month in Syria and Iraq. They were a ‘junior varsity’ team back then according to Obama and, it is true, they were a much smaller organization then but being able to launch 50 suicide bombings per month shows the commitment and capability of this organization.
It has since changed tactics as it has grown and operates today as a more conventional military force though it still carries out suicide bombing attacks.
They are now adopting the tactics of Hamas in Gaza and our airstrikes will not be able to defeat them as they will use civilians as shields but if their ability to mass together and sally forth as motorized infantry units will be constrained by American airpower, their ability to undertake suicide missions by a handful of men is not. That many of their members are drawn from Europe and other Western nations means they can strike at will in the West. In fact it is easier for them to deploy a recruit on a suicide mission in the United States than bring that recruit to Syria or Iraq and have them do a mission there. He is already in the United States and need only be told to attack. Watch out. These folks are sophisticated and mean what they say.
No president (US) could have figured that out.
When the politics is Byzantine in nature with many conflicting and personal( career driven ) interests ramming into each other ,it is difficult to follow what is good for the crown . It is worst than Byzantine court . There is another city always vetoiing everytime it did not like the consensus reached among the different camps . That country is Israel.
National interests or succeess of the nation is no longer the defining standard . Can he survive the court politics or not ? That drives Obama and would drive the future president.
I thought Hamas used tunnels to ride out the heavy air bombardment (like the NVA during Vietnam and Hezbollah during the 2006 war). The use of civilians as shields has never really stopped the West or Western-affiliated nations from bombing away (the Christmas bombings during the Vietnam War is one prime example).
I mean come on… they sanctioned Iraq for almost a decade denying it some of the most basic medicines killing roughly 500,000 children and Madeleine Albright went right on TV saying it was worth it.
Did we all forget about that leaked Apache video in which the gunner and pilot just massacre a group of civilians, with children, without a care (“that’s what happens when you bring kids to a war zone”)? Clearly civilian shields stopped that Apache crew…. am I right?
Fear not though Iraq is large and open, there are no tunnels, and everything is exposed. If ISIL is really not a CIA-Mossad-MI6 operation then we’ll bomb the living bejeepers out of those forces. Civilian shields or not.
has Juan Cole already finished his next article, the one where he blames Mossad for a Zionist plot to force the Limeys to lie to Scottish voters about the Brave New World the English are planning for the Scots if they will turn down independence?
Suicide bombers in the USA? Wonderful! A welcome wake-up call to all the Islamophiles in the United States! It probably will take a bit of killing to get America to wake up and sent the Muslims packing.
Millions of Jews came to US . They bribed the Truman administration . They created national links placing people of average ntelligence to high places working with Brandeus- Frankfurter chain connecting Law School of Harvard and Supreme Court to various governmental offices across Ameica. They engaged in terrorism against Palestine,British ,and America including against Truman ,and UN. They bribed and corrupted US congress,senate,and even presidency .
We don’t want that happen again.
So the fear of Jihadi is legitimate . But the reason should be cited . So that the picture becomes perfect.
The Israeli lobby is continuing the same drive . They are forcing US to do stuff in Middle East that is not in the interest of US but only good and desirable to Israel . Unfortunately the quisling and 5 th column Lobby is supporting foreign causes hurting and destroying Ameica.
Not only the pressure on Truman administration,the Zionist threatened Libera,Phillipnes.Cyprus,Haiti and France to switch vote to ” yes” in favor of Israel in UN partition plan in Nov 1947.
They even impersonated president Truman who complained of people calling and demanding that the member cpuntry cast votes in certain way .
Indian Speaker has recounted later the story of pressures ,offer of bribes( American money ) and threat to the life of V Pandit head of India’s UN delegation in memoirs and publication .
gregfelton.com
unispal.un.org ( Question of Palestine Legal Aspects -Document 2 ) United Nations N Y 1992
Indo -West Asian Relations -The Nehru Era by N Hepulla ( May 1992)
Do you mean more than 3,000, and send them packing to where?
I see we have our share of hasbarists and trolls at unz.
Do we understand what he is keeping us out of?
Given circumstances and events he is doing the minimum. He does not have the option to do nothing.
AIPAC and congress and the media are screaming for a war that will benefit ONLY Israel.
Love him or hate him – Obama is going against Zionism. Obama needs our help to stay out of another ME war – end of story!
I agree that this is madness.
First of all, this is something that the US can ill afford. It is estimated that the “War on Terror” will cost approximately ~$4.4 trillion (2013 USD), plus another trillion in interest, as it was mostly on borrowed money. Given the scope of operations, it is likely that this war against ISIS will cost several trillion dollars.
Second, it is unlikely that the US will even be able to destroy Islamic fundamentalism, which is the purported objective. Far more likely, they will end up causing many civilian casualties, destroy support for moderates, and push more people towards the radical factions.
Third, there is the moral aspect. The US involvement will cause a lot more damage, deaths, and other psychological scars than anyone in the US government is willing to admit.
Finally, as Taylor notes, this entirely strategy is based on wonderland. There are many forces that want ISIS to succeed. The Turkish government for example does not want a Kurdistan. There are other examples. The point is, the US has no real allies now that it has managed to alienate Assad in Syria, the Iranians, and its traditional Gulf allies.
This is insanity. Perhaps the most damning thing of all is that the US has lost its capacity for self-correction. It has learned nothing from the mistakes of Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Instead, it seems to willfully ignore them.
Madness continues to stick around American foreign policy due to the fact that the policy might damage US but it nurtures and promotes Israel. From2001 September,it has not added anything to US interest whether defined in most narrow or most broad sense . But within that period ,it has enormously helped Israel broaden its reach worldwide,gain recognition,expand business,enlarge settlements,attack Lebanon,Syria,Gaza ,and force monarchs of the Arab countries to get closer to it ‘s orbit, and decimate Somalia,Iraq,fragment Sudan,and enforce most repressive sanctions on Iran. Financially it has received more aids ,gathered more intelligence,forced open secret doors to US national security apparatus ,and has turned the singing of praise for Israel a must for every politician.
Today Israel does no longer have to draw attention to absent and non existent Arab threat as it decades ago against Syria,Libya,Iran,Sudan,and Iraq. That decade old focus on those countries by Israel using US media academy ,Churches, and figures from different files of intelligence or Pentagon now have developed a life of its own . Israel can ignite a fire and expect US to move in and take over . Israel can create some incidents in Libya,Syria, or Iran and expect US to enlarge the threat . It can collude with rogue elements in Egypt and topple a democratic government , it can get France to scuttle an agreement with Iran or ignite war in Libya, it can force media to talk up Darfur and dismember Sudan through the media and celebrities . Israel does not have to fight . The Gentiles would do that among themselves .
Let the insanity begin, we are now bombing in Syria. It’s just a matter of time before we put ground troops in Northern Iraq.
But it’s dangerous. If we screw with Assad, Putin won’t hesitate to screw with us and Europe. Not to mention we have zero friends on the ground. This isn’t the Iraq of 2008. The locals hate us and have openly stated they don’t want us here, not to mention being infiltrated by Al- Nusra and ISIS.
We don’t get this is a age old Sunni vs. Shia fight and we just put ourselves in the middle of it.
Unit 472, have you any idea at all that ISIS is a CIA/MI6/Mossad creation to keep the Middle East destabilized and in chaos? Why hasn’t ISIS even threatened Israel, much less attacked it? Israel backs it, as well as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and other Gulf states. The USSA and UK, as well as these other nations I mentioned supply this organization with both money and weapons; all of this is done to keep the area in chaos and enrich the arms industry at the same time.
ISIS = Israeli Secret Service Syndicate
There is another reason that Obama can’t ally with Syria or Iran – and it has little to do with Israel. Syria and Iran are part of the Russian Axis, and we are currently in a geopolitical death struggle with Russia over control of Europe. Right now, Russia has a monopoly on energy supply (gas) to Europe, and they want to keep it. Qatar wants to build a gas pipeline thru Syria to Europe to break this monopoly and draw on trillions in revenue, and Russia is intent on stopping it at all costs. Qatar, Saudi, and the CIA created ISIS to overthrow Assad, but ISIS has a mind of its own and would rather build a Caliphate. Iran/Syria orchestrated the Benghazi attack to strike back at the US for supplying arms to ISIS/FSA from Libya. Obama and his allies still want to overthrow Assad so they can build the pipeline. The Ukraine coup and subsequent conflict are part of the same death struggle with Russia. The part that has anything to do with Israel is Israel wants to sell its own offshore gas thru this pipeline if it is ever built.
Will you please give us a credible reference which states that ISIS, etc. is CIA?
Did Bush know what he was getting us into in Iraq with his lies, or was he just taking orders from Cheney, et al.? How many US. dead military? How many Iraqis dead and had to leave their country?
“Oil and Gas find offshore Syria motive for US Israeli mercenary uprising and bloodshed in Syria”
http://tinyurl.com/lfzahgp
Send them to Canada, so they can complete the displacement of that effeminate, tired society.
really? – from what source did you get your info? it seems suspiciously like your imagination
He does not have the option to do nothing.
Why not? Care to even attempt an explanation for that nonsense
“Barak Barfi, Sotloff’s close friend and the official spokesman for the Sotloff family following Steven’s brutal murder this month at the hands of ISIS, told The Daily Beast in an interview that the group responsible for Sotloff’s detention and indirectly for his death is not only a part of the Free Syrian Army, but the same exact brigade that met with Sen. John McCain at that same border crossing only three months before.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/22/obama-administration-and-sotloff-family-battle-over-blame-for-journalist-s-kidnapping.html?via=desktop&source=twitter
American stupid will believe anything that they are told ( limited to foreign policy though) . They are told that rebels who embrace our values are fighting against Ghaddafi . They believe that. They are told that the rebels fighting against Assad are seeking democracy,plurality ,civic society modeled on democracy and non violence and toleration. They believe that also. Not that long ago the Saudi and Gulf royals were called radical . Now they are moderate for America said so to its citizen . Citizen duly changed the faith accordingly.
How moderate are these rebels? What percentage ? America said that it had vetted them .
How do you vet? How do you separate the vetted from the non vetted from the common war zone ? Do they wear something different? Do they carry different ammunition and guns? Do they speak different languages? Do they have different faith? Do they get out of different garrison!
Sure it can be tentatively achieved . It has been in Mexican drug war . But there the US enemy was not the government and the mafias were not angling for regime change.
It is interesting that Obama has now adopted non Chenyian view . Cheney did not want to take 1% risk or uncertainty . He did not for 8 long yrs did not see any reason to speak or deal with any moderate . He wanted to attack and kill everybody .
Obama has turned it around . But the effects are same . Language is different . Process is different . Americans duly believed that the effects would be different for America is saying so.
The United States has a very coherent and effective set of foreign policies in the Middle East, that support intended goals flawlessly. Those goals? 1) Spending money on campaign donors / overlords. Endless war and deployment creates a huge demand for oil and weapons — it also creates thousands of intermediary banking activities that generate interest for the banks. 2) Creating enemies. You can’t have endless war without endless enemies. The Cold War’s one flaw is that it really depended on the permanence of the USSR. The war on “terror” is much more ingenious. All you have to do is bomb some poor people and you’ll be sure to have a lot of angry folks with dead relatives. They don’t even have to want to hurt Americans — you just post their rantings and most Americans are onboard with throwing away their rights and spending tax money into bankruptcy in order to “stay safe.” 3) Destroying Democracy. The bipartisan fearmongering about the endless wars we must fight certainly disables any real discussion about public education, campaign finance reform, or any other “silly” issue compared to NATIONAL DEFENSE!! By the time we realize what’s going on, the Constitution will be fully dismantled and there will be no more money left for public services or government by the people, for that matter.
Why do you think Ed Snowden is in Russia? Why are so many soldiers committing suicide? When China and Russia make their move (and they will because the Rothschilds firmly believe that their slaves will willingly fight for the NWO and will eventually attack the nuclear countries), the 99% will be eager to help overthrow their own government and join China and Russia in doing away, permanently with the NWO. At the very least, 60% of every developed country are now aware of false flag operations and know who the real enemies are. When JFK was killed by the NWO, he was unaware of just how sinister their methods were so he left himself too vulnerable. Johnson and all the presidents up to Obama were and are fully aware of their own crimes, and although blackmailed by the so-called Elite, could have used Marshal Law to arrest the cabal within the government but chose not to, making them traitors.
To BarronVonAmericanoRepost:
The US government maybe by the people, but was almost never for the people, or there would not have been
~ 47 million Americans with no health insurance until the so called Affordable care act was signed into law, which is only affordable by name but not in essence. There are so many areas where a government for the people would have made citizens feel more secure and at peace in a society where life is a lot more harmonious, rather than being constantly in a state of tension, like what happened in Missouri, and instead of being told they need just one more war to feel more secure, which obviously will never happen.
If this is not a rhetorical question, the answer is a most emphatic, “no”.
I’ll be curious to see how many real allies the US has in ninety days for our war against Sunni Islam. There are reports that Saudi fighter bomber pilots are already receiving death threats from the their fellow countrymen. If ISIL is such a problem for the region why haven’t the Turks committed their large and competent army to the fight? Well, at least Belgium is on our side. I guess ISIL will soon be on the run, just like the Taliban in Afghanistan. We’re a mire 13 years down the road from the start of that war….