Who will Obama choose to run the caliphate in Syria and Iraq, ISIS or al-Qaeda?
There has been a lot of talk amongst the chattering classes lately about Obama looking the other way as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar have been supporting the local al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria against the Assad government. For a long period of time American arms "accidentally" flowed freely into the hands of the radical Islamist jihadis of al-Qaeda and ISIS. Then the "journalism" outlets started to get on board with the program.
It comes out now that Obama has specifically encouraged his "vetted moderates" to cooperate more closely with the Islamists:
Reporting on al Nusra’s recent victories in Idlib, Charles Lister at Brookings reported:“Several commanders involved in leading recent Idlib operations confirmed to this author that the U.S.-led operations room in southern Turkey, which coordinates the provision of lethal and non-lethal support to vetted opposition groups, was instrumental in facilitating their involvement in the operation from early April onwards. That operations room — along with another in Jordan, which covers Syria’s south — also appears to have dramatically increased its level of assistance and provision of intelligence to vetted groups in recent weeks.
Whereas these multinational operations rooms have previously demanded that recipients of military assistance cease direct coordination with groups like Jabhat al-Nusra, recent dynamics in Idlib appear to have demonstrated something different. Not only were weapons shipments increased to the so-called “vetted groups,” but the operations room specifically encouraged a closer cooperation with Islamists commanding frontline operations.”
The article concludes:
These developments are truly breathtaking. What does it say about the clarity of the strategic thinking behind the current “war on terror” that the perpetrators of 9-11 may morph from enemies into allies? One would think that after decades of blowback from supporting the Mujahidin forefathers of al Qaeda in Afghanistan in the eighties, that our allies and the U.S. foreign policy elite would learn their lesson. Unfortunately, the willingness to advance goals through a short-sighted military support of unsavory characters still holds firm in Washington.
These sorts of actions indicate a divide between Obama's stated policy in the region and his actual policy.
Sadly, it has just gotten worse. Patrick Cockburn kindly assumes that Obama has blundered in his recent article, titled, Was approving air strikes against the PKK America's worst error in the Middle East since the Iraq War?
The US's great NATO ally, Turkey (which has been at best been turning a blind eye to ISIS smuggling men and materiel into Syria across its borders) has decided that this would be a great time to liquidate the Kurds and rekindle the war with the Kurdish PKK ending a 2 year ceasefire.
Turkey's urge to liquidate Kurds isn't limited to the revolutionary group in its own territory. Turkey's Erdogan has started bombing Syrian Kurds as well.
At the same time, it appears that Erdogan would like to draw NATO into the mess that he's been making as well, calling an Article 4 conference of NATO to ask for assistance fighting terrorists on its border.
Erdogan vs. #ISIS
(BY Marian KEMENSKY)
#Turkey #TurkeyAttackKurdsNotISIS pic.twitter.com/MXuzCKNs33
— Scimonium (@scimonium) July 26, 2015
Unfortunately, Erdogan's ideas about bombing terrorists seem to have more to do with the domestic threat that he's been whipping up, rather than the threat of foreign jihadis on his border that he's also been whipping up.
Even more unfortunately, for Obama and NATO, the Kurds that Erdogan is bombing are the only force on the ground in Syria or Iraq that has a prayer of defeating ISIS.
Since Obama has a significant aversion to putting boots on the ground in Syria or Iraq to directly engage ISIS, the cooperation with the Kurds has been the only promising strategy.
Sadly, as Patrick Cockburn points out, Obama may have just traded that away for the use of a Turkish airbase and the promise of Turkish assistance of clearing a 60 mile long "safe zone."
The US was accused by Kurds of tolerating a renewed Turkish government assault on its Kurdish minority as the price for permission for US aircraft to use Turkey’s Incirlik air base against Isis jihadists for the first time.
“The Americans are not very clever in calculating this sort of thing,” said Kamran Karadaghi, an Iraqi Kurdish commentator and former chief of staff to the Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani. “Maybe they calculate that with Turkey involved on their side, they don’t need the Kurds.”
Or maybe Obama has an 11th dimensional chess move based on allowing Erdogan to eliminate the Kurds and turn Syria and Iraq into a jihadi wasteland, like that swell international effort that Obama led in Libya. After all, that was a great humanitarian triumph!
The result is that the US may find it has helped to destabilise Turkey by involving it in the war in both Iraq and Syria, yet without coming much closer to defeating Isis in either country. If so, America will have committed its biggest mistake in the Middle East since it invaded Iraq in 2003, believing it could overthrow Saddam Hussein and replace him with a pro-American government.
Comments
The Kurds get it from everyone
Their punishment for originating in the area carved up by the British from the Ottoman Empire. The Kurds straddled those artificial lines on the map so they've been punished for it.
The Kurds are the only ones capable of holding off ISIS so why would they be targeted now? oh, I think the answer is in my question.
To thine own self be true.
It's so complicated - all I am waiting for is that
Sanders has to "show his cards" with regards to US foreign policies. I think I make a lot dependent on that in my support for him. I want radical change.
What questions should we ask him and how to make sure he doesn't hike around the points to answer them.
i have been noticing that "radical" doesn't mean what it used to
nor does left, socialist or revolution.
all of these words have been eviscerated by their common usage.
people voted for ron paul's "revolution." lots of people will vote for bernie sanders who is a "socialist" (for lesser values of "socialism" where it equals middle-of-the-road democratic politics from a generation ago minus the racism) and who also claims to want a "revolution."
in greece, the people voted for a "marxist," "leftist," "radical" government which has in the space of a few months turned into a lapdog party for neoliberal austerians.
in america we voted in 2008 for a "no doubt progressive" president who has turned into a neoliberal, warmongering war criminal.
these days liberals aren't very liberal. leftists, radicals, socialists and marxists don't seem to want to seize the means of production and turn them over to the workers. even "revolutionaries" these days seem rather moderate and wimpy.
what's an idealist to do?
/rant
I'm sure that's part of the overall gameplan, to dilute the
opposition by diluting the message. Personally I've had to evolve from a liberal to a flaming, crazy fucking
radical partly because of what I've learned and concluded but also because the goalposts keep getting moved.
If Bernie Sanders starts getting called a radical, I'll need a new word.
What's an idealist to do? It's more than that, it's who's right and who's wrong, what's right and what's wrong.
It gets to a point where one has to decide to compromise those ideals or not. That's what the leaders of Syriza
did. Maybe when one compromises, one is no longer an idealist.
That's an excellent point! Diluting the message,
and/or "muddying the waters," are two of the Dem Party tactics that have kept so many Dems in the fold, in spite of all the broken promises.
Think I'll see if I can find Al From bragging about adopting the word "progressive." Since the DLC crowd coined the term, I usually try to avoid the term.
Mollie
"Every time I lose a dog, he takes a piece of my heart. Every new dog gifts me with a piece of his. Someday, my heart will be total dog, and maybe then I will be just as generous, loving, and forgiving."--Author Unknown
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
I'm sure both you and Big Al are right
I've read many articles about Bernie's roll in the election is 'sheep dogging' voters. This means that he's muddling the waters as you wrote to keep the Dems in the fold.
After Bush, Americans were tired of wars and the crap the banks and corporations committed.
So they ran an electric, charming candidate that promised us so many things. End of stupid wars, getting jobs back on track and stopping the banks from screwing us.
His HAMP program was riddled with fraud, yet did anyone go to jail? Nope. Most of the HAMP money was never spent.
Did anyone from the fraudulent bankers or the war criminals go to jail? Nope.
In fact, he selected Holder who came from a firm that represented the banks and even tho he fined a few with piddly assed fines, no one went to jail. Now that Holder did what he was selected to do, he's back at his firm protecting the banks. Nice con game, eh?
Obama's job was to shut down the war protests and he did. While he droned 7 more countries, extended the war in Afghanistan and tried to keep troops in Iraq after the SOFA kicked us out.
He destroyed Libya while most of the people on KOS cheered him on.
He's destroying Syria and no one at KOS is saying a word.
He and his bff Hillary over threw hondorus and Ukraine and people on KOS blamed Putin.
He continued the illegal spying on us, while many on KOS said that it was legal because a secret grpup passes secret laws.
Now, here comes Bernie saying a lot of the same things Obama promised. But after Bernie, who states he's against everything Hillary stands for, loses the election to her, he's going to be supporting her.
Which means that he doesn't really oppose what she's saying.
So, that means he will be agreeing with more wars, more protecting the banks, more wars and more of the same old ways to that Obama is doing.
If Bernie really believes in different things the Hillary, then why would he ask us to support her?
It's another great con game like this one Obama played on us.
Here's an article that says much of what I just wrote. We're being conned again and many people are giving Bernie their hard earned money
I'm sure that if I wrote this on KOS, I'd get slammed six ways to Sunday
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/29/the-wheels-are-off-the-bernie-san...
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
all those words have no meaning anymore, but how to describe
then what one is looking for? I was a little amazed that Bernie Sanders took over the word revolution. If that is to be taken literally by its word then he is going to show for it and I can't imagine he can or will. When he stands behind people like Hedges, it would make me believe, he means it more seriously.
One needs to have some new words. To make clear what kind of actions one wants.
Sigh, it's very discouraging. And that's the last thing we need, to be discouraged and disillusioned and apathetic.
I think best is to be just stubborn.
Sanders has made clear his views on foreign policy.
Which is why he's ignoring it now the best he can. He probably doesn't want that to come up
until the debates when he can at least generally sound less imperialist than Clinton.
The point of all this
is not to win these wars or to defeat ISIS or whatever current boogy man that the US hegemony can conjure up. The point is to keep the entire region in a constant state of destabilization which benefits the MIC.
As for the politicians in Washington DC, I personally do not think any one of them or even any group can stop the insanity that is US foreign policy in the Middle East. The entire MIC, including the NSA, is too big and has more influence than our elected officials. Many of our elected officials do promote the hawkishness of our foreign policy, while others can only provide a small amount of braking to the runaway train that is the MIC. Complete collapse of the US economically is probably the only thing that will curb our military aggression.
So do I think Bernie Sanders can stop this? No, but I do think that he is not nearly as hawkish as Clinton who would love nothing more than to bloody her hands further. JMO. Your opinion and mileage may vary.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy