Category: Regional Analysis

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Iranian Made Drone Downed By American Forces, Does the US Have a Coherent Policy in Syria?

Late yesterday, US Coalition forces shot down an Iranian made UAV comandeered by the Syrian military.

“The armed pro-regime Shaheed-129 [unmanned aerial vehicle] was shot down by a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle at approximately 12:30 a.m. after it displayed hostile intent and advanced on Coalition forces,” the coalition command said in a press release.

“The Coalition has made it clear to all parties publically [sic] and through the de-confliction line with Russian forces that the demonstrated hostile intent and actions of pro-regime forces toward Coalition and partner forces in Syria conducting legitimate counter-ISIS operations will not be tolerated,” it said.

The US and their allied partners in Syria still assume the deconfliction zones layed out with Russia have remained in affect.  This stands in contrast with Russia’s own statement after the downing of the Syrian jet. Russia has made it clear that all foreign warplanes in Syrian airspace will be shot down.

Is There an Actual US Policy in Syria

With each passing day an incident it has become apparent that the US policy in Syria is non-existant.  This is not to say they have nothing in the works, but they have been caught of-guard by the lightening speed movement of Russian backed pro-regime forces and Iranian Shiite Militias and are trying to push back.

With Daraa falling and regime forces using the Raqqa battle to push Eastward, the US and their coalition forces need find a fast way to push the regime back without causing the war to turn into something much larger.  So far no remedy has been found.

David Gardner from the Financial Times said the following in an opinion piece about the situation:

“The limited initiatives to somewhat attenuate the Syrian disaster are almost all coming from Russia: a tripartite (and ineffective) ceasefire with Iran and Turkey; the “de-escalation zones” Moscow proposed in May, albeit in the four areas where the Assads still face strong challenges from rebels; even a constitutional blueprint to decentralise power in Syria. The US has come up with next to nothing. The common denominator in these three Russian initiatives may be — some western diplomats involved in Syria suggest — that President Vladimir Putin is groping towards an exit strategy from Syria. If so, nothing Mr Trump is engaged in looks likely to help him find one.”

One counter to Gardner’s assertion about Russia’s involvement is that Putin ever the chess player has been playing both sides in the war in order to create an underlying need to entrap the Americans in a quagmire not easily extricated.

While it is clear what happened over the weekend and late yesterday are ominous, they are more examples of an administration being handed a hot potato by its precedessor and not getting up to speed fast enough to handle it.

While Trump may not have moved fast enough to counter Syrian and Iranian advancement in Syria this is more of a product of clear indecisiveness in being ready to push back against the Russians in their desire to control the Levant.

 

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Why is the Iraqi Government Supplying ISIS with Humanitarian Aid?

BasNews, a Kurdish magazine reports that the Iraqi government is tranferring, “thousands of tons of medicine are being transferred to the Islamic jihadists.”

Below is the video proof:

If the Islamic State falls apart, why is the Iraqi government who is headed by a secular Shiite aiding a Sunni Jihadist group?

The answer is simple, the Iraqi government has always functioned on two levels.  On the national level it is run by a Shia who heads a secularist Sunni party, but Iraq has its own Deep State, which has been penetrated by Baathists from the Saddam years.

More than that, a Der Spiegel report published two years ago, blew the lid off of the minds behind ISIS. The report details how the Islamic State was in fact birthed by the same Baathist leadership that had been behind Saddam Hussein.

The Der Spiegel report named Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi other wise known Haji Bakr as the architect of the Islamic State.

“The former colonel in the intelligence service of Saddam Hussein’s air defense force had been secretly pulling the strings at IS for years. Former members of the group had repeatedly mentioned him as one of its leading figures. Still, it was never clear what exactly his role was.

But when the architect of the Islamic State died, he left something behind that he had intended to keep strictly confidential: the blueprint for this state. It is a folder full of handwritten organizational charts, lists and schedules, which describe how a country can be gradually subjugated.”

The secular Baathists understood to regain control of Iraq they had to align with far more driven Jihadists.  It was in this vein that they penetrated the countless Jihadist cells fighting against the US and its nascent Iraqi government. Bakr methodically implemented a plan of using Islamic labels to attract and set up a Baathist control structure that allowed them to capitalize on the chaos in Syria to take over the Eastern part of the country in order to launch a war to regain Iraq.

To do this they needed Islamic underpinnings in order to attract young fighters as well as an excuse to use religion to control their planned Baathist superstructure.

“In 2010, Bakr and a small group of former Iraqi intelligence officers made Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the emir and later ‘caliph,’ the official leader of the Islamic State. They reasoned that Baghdadi, an educated cleric, would give the group a religious face.”

Der Spiegel goes on to methodically build a case that the Islamic State is nothing more than a Baathist initiative to regain control of Iraq.

“Although Iraq’s dominant Baath Party was secular, the two systems ultimately shared a conviction that control over the masses should lie in the hands of a small elite that should not be answerable to anyone — because it ruled in the name of a grand plan, legitimized by either God or the glory of Arab history. The secret of IS’ success lies in the combination of opposites, the fanatical beliefs of one group and the strategic calculations of the other.”

Below is a channel 4 report on the real beginnings of the Islamic State:

The US Inadvertantly Lent Help to ISIS Under Obama

Whether the Obama administration understood the depths of the Baathist roots to ISIS or not may never be known, but what the White House and the Department of Defense believed was that transferring weapons to Sunni Jihadist in Syria would help aid the downfall of Assad.  Not only that the Department of Defense also believed that such “weak” mini caliphate would be able to hold off the Iranian march to the Meditereanean.  The White House wanted the caliphate to be strong enough to destabilize the region, but weak enought to allow the Iranians to march across the Middle East.

The Baathist roots to the Islamic State explains why the goup was successful in utilizing every opportunity to grow into a force that nearly took back Iraq, but why is Iraq still supplying them with weapons?

Although the Baathists as mentioned above have penetrated the government at various levels, another possibility for the transferring of such a large amount of humanitarian supplies is that Iran itself who influences the official army of Iraq and is control of large parts of Iraq through aligned Shiite militias is keeping the Islamic State.  The Iranians are doing this to encourage continued instability in Syria in order to bog down the American backed SDF while utilizing the chaos to establish their control.

What ever the reason behind the shipments of supplies one thing is clear: If we don’t stop the desire  to create chaos in order to establish neo-fascist controlthen the region will continue to experience war and instability.

 

 

 

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WAR ESCALATES: Why Did Iran Just Shoot Missiles Into Syria?

The war in Syria has gone from intensified to explosive as the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced that it fired several ground o ground missiles in from Western Iran into Syria’s Deir Ezzor region in the country’s East.

The purpose, according to the Iranians was a realiation for the attack on Tehran by ISIS on June 7th.

Most likely the Iranian missile attack on Eastern Syria was far more a message for the US coalition than a retaliation against ISIS.

Three points to consider:

  1. The proximity in time to the downing of a Syrian Warplane makes the missile attack a likely soft-retaliation for the US attack within sovereign Syria.
  2. The Iranians need a powerplay as the SDF/YPG are moving South and North in a rush to pick up the pieces as ISIS falls apart. The message is clear: “Don’t expect a post ISIS Syria to be a cake walk.”
  3. Iran wanted to send a message to Israel: “We can already reach you.”

As the Syrian war seems to be exploding in a far more dangerous and chaotic way all the issues surrounding the war are coming to a head.  The next move is now Trump’s…is he willing to stop Iran?

 

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Kurdistan is Coming Whether Turkey Likes It or Not

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”FOR $5/MONTH YOU CAN SUPPORT MICHA’S WRITING” color=”primary” size=”lg” align=”center” button_block=”true” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.paypal.com%2Fcgi-bin%2Fwebscr%3Fcmd%3D_s-xclick%26hosted_button_id%3DPBTQ2JVPQ3WJ2|||”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq declared on June 7 a plan to hold a referendum on the region’s independence this year on September 25. This decision has put into motion the KRG’s drive for independence and the first serious nail in the coffin of the post-colonial state structure in the Middle East.

Despite anger over the referendum in Ankara, Turkey is continuing negotiations with the KRG.

“Our primary aim is to correct this mistake through negotiation. We will keep working on this issue,” the Turkish presidential spokesman said. “To adopt an immediate sanction such as closing the border gate without sitting with them is out of question.”

 

With the Mosul operation essentially on cleanup mode, the Peshmerga has gained significant territory that is now considered part of the KRG and is included in the referendum.

Arif Qurbany a Kurdish political analyst and observer wrote the following in his opinion piece on Rudaw: 

“A decision to set the referendum date in Kurdistan to determine the fate of the Kurdish nation in Iraq with the inclusion of Kirkuk and the all Kurdistani areas outside the Region was a crucial and brave move for all the parties that attended the meeting.”

 

Despite his support for the referendum, Qurbany urged all Kurdish parties to unite in order to see independence be successful:

“If all the people of Kurdistan together have a united will, then the opposition of foreign nations to the referendum will not have a substantial significance and will not pose a threat to the process, just as the nation’s will in the spring uprising of 1991 overcame all barriers. When we also wanted to hold elections for the parliament and later formed the government and declared federalism, not only did no government or country support us, but also they threatened to attack Kurdistan. But because the will of the nation was behind its leadership, no reactions or threats from anyone worked as the Kurds proved themselves on the ground. They were even obliged to deal with us.”

 

Turkey has much to lose from an independent Kurdistan as does the Iraqi government.  Kurdistan remains the most stable area of Iraq and is oil rich. An independent Kurdistan based in Northern Iraq will most likely extend into Northern Syria and connect to the YPG which has already declared itself an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria. As the KRG prepares for the referendum, covert allies of the autonomous area such as the USA and Israel remain silent. Israel itself has nurtured a behind the scenes relationship with the burgeoning country through military training, oil sales, and arms provisions.

Israel took a similar tactic in South Sudan, which most credit for the young country’s successful independence drive.  For Israel, an independent Kurdistan provides it a buffer against Shiite expansionism and a moderate Muslim ally.

The most important geopolitical result of an independent Kurdistan will be a direct check to the expansionist desires of Turkey’s semi-dictator Erdogan, who has had his sites in reinstating a mini-version of the Ottoman Sultanate.  Kurdistan is the best chance for the region to begin to rectify the colonial pursuits of the British and French as well as the Ottoman Empire.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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Will America Move CENTCOM from Qatar?

As the Qatar crisis heads into its second week another shoe is evidently about to drop.  The AP reported that the U.A.E.’s ambassador in Washington, Yousef Al Otaiba, urged the Trump administration to consider moving its air base out of Qatar.

“Maybe someone in Congress should have a hearing and just say, you know, ‘Should we consider moving it?’” the ambassador said in Washington on Tuesday. “And maybe not moving the entire base. Maybe just distribute to various countries so you don’t have all your eggs in one basket.”

The airbase is home to CENTCOM the hub for the US military in the region.  If the US would move the enormaous base Qatar would lose the last piece of leverage it has with the West.

Although behind the scenes the US has been supporting the Saudi led maneuvers against Qatar, it was not until recently that President Trump iterated his support for the Saudi blockade.

“One of the big things that we did, and you are seeing it now in Qatar and all of the things that are actually going on in a very positive fashion, we are stopping the funding of terrorism,” Trump said. “We are going to stop the funding of terrorism. It’s not an easy fight but that is a fight that we are going to win. We are going to starve the beast.”

Although moving CENTCOM is highly unlikely at this point, nothing should be ruled out. With Saudi Arabia moving fast agianst radical Jihad, the time for action is clearly now. If the US does indeed move CENTCOM, it may be the trigger that will start the next round of war in the region.