Category: Regional Analysis

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“We Are Coming Nineveh” Obama Must Win in Mosul or Donald Trump Will Do it For Him

Legacies are bitter weapons that plague outgoing presidents time and time again.  Barack Obama thought he had his legacy wrapped up, but then came the blue color workers and placed Donald Trump into office. With one election Obama’s legacy is in tatters and he knows it.  Despite all of that, there is one last battle Obama needs and wants to win to stave off a complete rejection of his so far disastrous foreign policy. This battle is the battle of Mosul, where ISIS is making there last stand as far as nation building is going.

Despite a bitter beginning of infighting between Shiite militias, Turkish troops, Kurdish Peshmerga, and Iraqi National forces, the operation according the Iraqi officials is beginning to move along. “We Are Coming Nineveh”  has a time limit though and that is Jan. 20th.  Right now Obama has kept the Russians out of the bombing campaign and wants to prove he doesn’t need them to finish the job.  If Mosul is not taken by inauguration day, Trump will surely bring the Russians in to crush ISIS once and for all.

Why does this matter?

Obama has staked his foreign policy at least in the waning years of his Presidency on holding off Russian expansion.  Of course Putin has bested him in Eastern Europe as well as Syria.  This means Obama must keep him out of Iraq or risk being seen as a total loser. With Mosul grinding on and 60 days until President-Elect Trump becomes President Trump, the odds are not great that the Iraqi forces will succeed.  Keep in mind ISIS could have been defeated a while ago, but each side fighting in Iraq has used the group as a pawn to offset what they see as a more mortal enemy.

This is why Trump’s approach is to ignore the game on the ground and get together with Putin and flatten ISIS and if need be others.

Jan. 20th is coming.  After that date Iraq and Operation “We Are Coming Nineveh”  are on the chopping block.

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With or Without Trump, Israel May Have Already Checkmated Iran

Over the past few years there has been a lot of chatter on Israel-Azerbaijan relations and what it could mean in terms of a possible attack strategy against Iran.  Azerbaijan shares a border with Iran and also strangely as it sounds happens to be an ally of Israel, despite being a Muslim state.  40% of Israel’s oil is said to be provided by Azerbaijan via the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhancom (BTC) pipeline. Israel supplies state of the art weaponry to Azerbaijan in its off again on again war with Armenian separatists.

Over the last few years rumors have spread that Israel has a secret staging ground for a potential attack on Iran. Although never confirmed by Israel or Azerbaijan, information about a secret airbase in Southern Azerbaijan was leaked to the media in 2012 via Foreign Policy:

In 2009, the deputy chief of mission of the U.S. embassy in Baku, Donald Lu, sent a cable to the State Department’s headquarters in Foggy Bottom titled “Azerbaijan’s discreet symbiosis with Israel.” The memo, later released by WikiLeaks, quotes Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev as describing his country’s relationship with the Jewish state as an iceberg: “nine-tenths of it is below the surface.” Why does it matter? Because Azerbaijan is strategically located on Iran’s northern border and, according to several high-level sources I’ve spoken with inside the U.S. government, Obama administration officials now believe that the “submerged” aspect of the Israeli-Azerbaijani alliance — the security cooperation between the two countries — is heightening the risks of an Israeli strike on Iran. . . . “The Israelis have bought an airfield,” a senior administration official told me in early February, “and the airfield is called Azerbaijan.”

The republicans quickly blamed the Obama administration for the leak, which was never confirmed or denied by White House.

Since the Iran deal this sort of chatter has quieted down, but the Israel-Azerbaijan relationship keeps growing stronger giving Israel a back door to not only attack Iran, but essentially use its advanced drone technology to learn how close Iran is to  building a bomb or launch it.  The assumption in international circles is that Israel was preparing an attack from Azerbaijan using planes.  Yet, with Israel being in possession of some of the most advanced drones in the world, any attack could take place on Israel’s predetermined timeline and in stealth mode.

The map below shows that Azerbaijan to Arak, Iran where its heavy water plant is situated is within the 1,000 km range of the IAI Harop which is designed to auto detonate when it hits a target.  Israel could conceivably use a few of them to destroy the nuclear facilities at Arak.

azerbaijan-arak
Arak, Iran is within 1,000 km of Azerbaijan – Google Maps

So whether or not Donald Trump is able to roll back Iran’s nuclear program, Israel may have used the passage of the Iran deal to quietly prepare its own solution to the ayatollah’s

lev-haolam-building-israel

 

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Bibi Netanyahu: Our Relationship with the USA Will Further Strengthen

Below are Bibi’s remarks at the beginning of the weekly cabinet meeting.  The Prime Minister clearly states he views the relationship with the USA as special and expects it to strengthen no matter who wins the White House. He also believes and hopes that America will continue to insist that any solution to the Israel-Palestinian dispute will be dealt with in direct negotiations with no pre-conditions rather than international forums.

Bibi then listed three countries that Israel has growing bi-lateral relations with:

  • China
  • Russia
  • India

Two of these three are in a current trajectory to be in direct conflict with the United States, especially if Hillary Clinton wins. In a growing multi-polar world that is shredding up the globalist dream of a new world order, Israel may cherish its special relationship to the United States, but is ensuring that it is on good footing with three of the rising powers to its North and East.

Watch the full address below:

Break the BDS

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Conquering Mosul…Does it Matter?

If there was a ever a wag the tail event or at least some twisted version of it, the Mosul offensive would be it.  An impressive array of US, Iraqi, Turkish, and Kurdish forces have now begun the invasion of Mosul, the Iraqi capital of ISIS. Some say 80,000 troops have been arrayed for the campaign.

Yet, with announcements made about the operation in public one wonders whether a successful retaking of Mosul would even matter as most of ISIS’s leadership fled the city a few months ago.

So what is the point of the operation?

Politics…

Sputnik News points out the following:

“In any case, liberating the city will be a major foreign policy victory for the White House, and may give an edge to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, who President Barack Obama sees as his preferred successor. Clinton’s Republican opponent Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized President Obama for not doing enough to fight Daesh, and for working against Russia rather than with it to root out and defeat the terrorist group.”

So we have a lame duck president openly invading another city in order to ensure a Clinton victory.

The world has gone mad and 800,000 residents in Mosul will feel the heat just so Obama can ensure his legacy is repaired.

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War Between Russia and America Only a Matter of Time

If anyone had a doubt that Obama was planning on leaving a mess for next president, the rhetoric between America and Russia should wipe any doubt away.

Ashton Carter the US Secretary of Defense insists on only allowing coalition planes over Syria, but admits that would trigger a war with Russia. Despite that fact Carter has taken the hardline in Obama’s administration.

Carter’s posture seems to be winning Obama over as the administration has increasingly seen the Syrian mess as harming Obama’s legacy. With 3 months to go Obama looks like he is finally willing to confront the Russian bear. In the coming weeks look for increased aerial bombardments in and around Syrian positions. This will trigger a Russian response in both Syria and the Ukraine.

Obama way be willing to start something for the sake of his legacy knowing the president will be left to sort it out, even if it is all out war with Russia.