The Governor of Iraq’s Anbar province, Ahmed Khalaf Al Dulaimi, is committed to rolling back ISIS and his message does provide some measure of encouragement at a very discouraging time.
Anbar has been fighting terrorism for a long time. This fight has taken it on a journey of searching and contemplation. People of Anbar have come to realise that, for them to defeat terrorists, they must first overcome the conflicts and fears within themselves and open their hearts and minds to others…
…Iraqis have the right to live in peace. The young people have the right to enjoy all the wonderful things that life has to offer. And they have a responsibility to give them hope that will empower them to live life to the fullest, to reach out to their counterparts in other nations and to turn away from death and extremism.
We Iraqis have lost so many of our brothers, sisters, sons, daughters and friends, of all ages, while fighting this battle. We are proud and we are fighting because we want to live in freedom, because we want to rid the world of this cancer that has hijacked our religion, because we are concerned that a generation will be brainwashed to glorify death, suicide bombings, beheadings. History will not forgive the people of Iraq if they allow this cancer to spread. It must be stopped. And the Iraqis cannot stop it alone.
Last week, Obama declared that this group, the Isil, “has no place in the 21st century”. Mr President, we agree with you.
So, that’s good. That gives us something to work with. But our country’s national security apparatus still has no answers for what to do about ISIS’s presence in Syria. The intelligence assessment apparently recommends against working with the so-called moderate Free Syria Army, except in certain limited and highly-vetted circumstances.
The president has been wise to keep us out of that civil war and not to take sides in a sectarian fight. But the situation there has grown dangerous. I think everyone basically realizes that now. It makes sense to stop for a moment and really think about how to destroy ISIS and leave something worthwhile in its place, and that requires some degree of regional consensus. It probably involves sensitive talks and tough negotiations. There’s urgency here, but not so much urgency that we need to act immediately without a carefully thought out plan.
For starters, anyone who was thinking that ISIS could be used to topple the regimes in either Damascus or Baghdad needs to give up on that dream. All governments in the region have to work collectively to tamp down sectarian ambitions and ill-will. Iran and the Shia factions have to do what is necessary to ease the Sunnis’ minds. Things got out of hand and everyone needs to simmer down.
Let’s all relax for a bit and think these things through.
Well, fine words from the Anbar guv, but it will take a lot more than sentiment to deal with this little problem. It appears that IS is the (unintended?) creation of the Family Oil businesses, er, Gulf nations and Turkey, our supposed allies. One assumes they are aware of what they are doing with these monsters. Hell, we probably had some hand in it, what with all the promiscuous arms supplying that passes for our foreign policy (Of course, most of the Iraqi equipment captured by IS in the recent past is US issue).
Anyway, it sure doesn’t seem like there are too many gub’mints in the region who are willing to put any troops into the line against this latest terrorist operation. Anyone? Without ground forces no one is stopping these guys anywhere, no one. So much for the “Iran as Nazi Germany” analogies so beloved by the American Right, with its dimwit Field Marshals McStooge and Lindseypoo. Some Iranian Wehrmacht—can’t even field an armored brigade!
IS isn’t going away anytime soon, that’s my prediction. For the “conservative” movement, the IS bandits are gonna be turned into the new existential threat to America, and we’ll be soon hearing that only our Imperial Sturmtruppen can handle this matter adequately and to fail to intervene will be appalling “weakness!” and shame-filled “dishonor!” I’d even wager this is going to morph into an issue for the 2016 prez campaign, so get ready for some more (bi-partisan) war fever and tub thumping, Jeebus.
It seems the US national security experts are already dying to get into this war right now, all that’s needed is the necessary bamboozling of the (somewhat more dubious) “people”. But as Reichsmarshal Goering wisely observed, “Naturally the common people don’t want war, but it is always an easy matter to drag the people along…”
For starters, Obama should get rid of persons in his National Securtiy Team giving faulty intelligence and/or are wholly incompetent. Too many persons affiliatied with the neocon doctrine in the White House and amongst his cabinet as advisors.
One can’t “get rid of ISIS”, it’s the same group of insurgents founded in March 2003. Where the US didn’t succeed in 11 years, won’t happen in the next two years of the Obama administration.
Cameron in the UK has seen the terror threat level increased today, but he fails to admit where the cause lies. He won’t accept it’s blow-back from years of failed policy. Repression by itself will always fail, the British have sent 500 young men into the claws of AQ extremists in the Levant. Cameron needs to get rid of incitement of hate by the Islamophobes in his country, there should be a dialogue within the multi-cultural society, especially in the UK it’s quite diverse.
Obama would do well by understanding what perpetuates anger with Muslims: Israel, Palestine and the US invasion, occupation and crimes against humanity committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Stop the violence, stop the interventions, stop the murders by drones across the globe. Obama needs to find an answer to the question put forward by Helen Thomas.
I hope that his words: “I don’t have a strategy to combat ISIL in Syria and Iraq yet” will lead to understanding of the wasteland created during the last three years in the region. Obama and the US were part of it and don’t deny it. Obama’s failure on the I/P issue is detrimental to get an alliance of Arab states to combat ISIL. Secretary Clinton wasted 2.5 years trying to get a cohesion between Muslim Brotherhood states and the Salafist nations to get a partner for dialogue in Syria. It was not possible.
First, we might arrive at better conclusions if we had intelligence that was worth a damn. After more than a decade of having American boots on the ground in the ME our vaunted CIA still doesn’t have anything like a reliable network of informers in the region. ISIS’ capabilities were just as much of a surprise to the CIA as they were to the rest of the world.
Second, how about consulting people who actually know the history, politics and culture of the region? We destroyed the Saddam regime and we have ISIS. We helped to destroy the Gaddafi regime and we have chaos in Libya. Knowing who’s waiting in the wings should ISIS be defanged would be an excellent start. For all we know, or don’t know, there may well be a worse bunch of fanatical jihadis who consider ISIS to be too restrained.
Well, I’ve read that the IS boyz were booted from the al Qaeda umbrella of certified Islamic terror groups, so IS may be the pick of the litter….
What’s worse than daily community beheadings?
I’m confident that human ingenuity combined with religious fanaticism will provide something worse than ISIS.
That’s easy — US imperialism.
Can you think of anything worse than that.
over the last 40 years it is pretty clear we haven’t really had a clue about what to do in the Middle East.
As I have written before, we react, we don’t think.
There is no US Solution in the Middle East. The Arabs are going to figure that out.
We have to learn to let go the outcome – we can’t control it.
Nah All of the Neocons are jumping at the bit wanting to attack,attack attack. As long as somebody else does the actual fighting that is.
You know if there is going to be many more of these little military excursions maybe just maybe someone better be mention to the neocons that a DRAFT will be needed to provide the needed manpower. Just mentioning our troops are being pushed pretty hard. As well as our military equipment.
Oh by the way these little items are going to cost lots of $$$$ anyone care to guess how it is going to be paid for?
And while we are relaxing, keep picking off those MRAP’s seized in Mosul and those convoys of white Toyotas that ISIS was using before then. And artillery pieces and mortars.
And get some oversized socks for John McCain’s and Lindsey Graham’s mouths.
So let’s recap:
Doing nothing is terrible, because it’s at least passive complicity in the extinction of the Shia, and Alawites, and Yazidi, and Christians, and other heterodox minorities in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.
And doing something is terrible, because that’s just hypocritical, imperialistic, hegemonic US dick-waving in the name of freedom, and democracy, and oil on a good day, and the return of the Crusades on a bad day.
And having no policy is worse than either of those. Because we can’t accept a president saying out loud ‘We don’t have a strategy’.
This is why I refuse to run for president… who wants to be the skipper of the Kobayashi Maru?
Personally I am very glad that Obama did not listen to the Republican hawks and start arming the insurgents against Assad in Syria. Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey did, and that got the ISIS strengthened. al Maliki in Iraq kept the Sunni’s repressed so many of them joined what is today ISIS.
The U.S. has no effective allies in Syria and no clear and winnable goals there. Protecting the Kurds may be a valuable goal, but it won’t defeat ISIS. We won’t do that for long. We have already abandoned them at least once, just as we abandoned the highland Vietnamese who fought with America throughout the Vietnam War when we pulled out.
When the Iraqi’s, the Iranians, the Saudi’s the Turks and the Qataris decide what to do with ISIL then there might be a reasonable solution, but until then we in fact have very little effective role to play.
Our impatience at the disarray of those ISIS is targeting is not a reason to step in and try to Bigfoot the situation. It will just blow back and bite us again.
Yes we did! We had a “vetting” process of terror groups. The US allowed tons of arms to be transported from Libya to Syria with complicity of our Arab allies. So did our NATO allies UK, France and Turkey. Following the PNAC agenda with too may neocons in Washington DC. We were even willing to bomb the Assad regime to oblivion so the AQ jihadists had a corridor to march on Damascus. Remember Afghanistan … Kosovo … Iraq … Libya … Syria …
The US is duplicitous on Iran too! Saving someone’s @ss through DOJ, it stinks a mile in the wind.
○ ‘New York Times’ profile of group bent on sanctioning Iran fails to mention Israel connections
The whole “But we gotta’ do SOMETHING” gang is driving me fucking insane. We still have this whole contingent that thinks if we just “man up” and go in ready to “kick some ass” everything will just fall into place because we’re the good guys!!! Carpet bombing! Drones! Special Forces! The fact is, we fucking blew up the whole region when the worst President in history stuck his dick in the middle of it all and taunted every radical in the world to “Bring ’em on!!”
I’m sure Mr. No Regrets sleeps just fine at night. Fucking sociopaths seem to have that ability, don’t they?
And, while the US is futilely dicking around in the Middle East (Again) there’s this from China File:
This nation’s foreign policy establishment seems unable to walk and chew gum at the same time.
that’s a very very interesting story. of course the largest of the “myriad uncertainties” is whether the project is ever even started let alone finished. That’s the kind of idea that will demonstrate quickly that a billion doesn’t go as far as it used to.
>>This nation’s foreign policy establishment seems unable to walk and chew gum at the same time.
i think some of them need to be reminded to breathe. Obama’s appointees have been generally abysmal.
Wikipedia – Nicaragua Canal.
It’s not specifically mentioned there, but I remember someone in the US Congress or Senate pushing for it during the Carter Administration so that “we” would have control after Jimmy “gave away” the Panama Canal. Of course, that was during the Somoza Dictatorship…
Cheers,
Scott.
Marcy Wheeler has a take on an NYT article that is worth reading.
Whatever Happened to Muhammed Khudayr al-Dulaymi?