ISIS: Behind the Group That Took Mosul

FROM the get go, it is imperative to understand that the current disintegration of Iraq -even as this is being written – into the hands of Al Qaeda should have been a jihadi no-brainer. And don’t bother scratching your head, pondering: how did this happen? In fact, had this not come to pass, well, that would have been a head scratcher!

In reality, the nanosecond that Barack HUSSEIN Obama announced the end of U.S. troops in Iraq, back in October 2011, just in time to use as a sound bite for his 2012 propaganda campaign, Iraq became the primary target for Al Qaeda’s mega thrust. He understood as much. Yes, he did.

Mind you, while some Americans (other westerners too) understand the geo-political gravity of the situation, the fact of the matter is that this American-Israeli understands what is taking place, not just from an overall geo-political perspective, but from one whose own borders are, to a maximum degree, threatened. And so much more.

To wit, the following is not an exercise in theoretical posturing. Indeed, its knock-on effects are cataclysmic, especially when catapulted onto Iran’s nuclear menace and Syria’s dissolution. So between Iran, via its proxy arm Hezbollah, using Syria as a staging ground, and Al Qaeda jihadists gaining another foothold, the region has never, ever been more menacing. Besides, for the time being, you can put aside the endless warring between Sunni and Shia, a centuries old conflict with no end in sight. If only said inter-tribal warfare were the major issue, what a relief that would be. After all, let them just kill each other and the west will be that much safer. However, this is only a pipe dream.

As a matter of record, within both Islamic streams, splintered groups are jockeying for power to create the first Islamic (Caliphate) arc in modern history, and with a terror entity as its hegemonic power! OMG!! But for westerners, and in the most simplistic of terms, think of the above in relation to the largest criminal organizations bar none, perhaps using the Mafia as a template. Raising the stakes even further, thus postulate Islamic outcomes via mega steroids, as they fight major turf battles, ultimately seeking to extend their authority over everything in their wake. However, not just to those who owe them this or that debt, if you dare imagine.

In fact, make no mistake: this site is not suggesting that Iraq’s Shiite PM has been anything but a pawn of Shiite hegemonic powers, hardly a model “democrat”. Nevertheless, after all the American/western blood and treasure spilled on behalf of Iraq, one would expect  that the ascension of an Al Qaeda Islamic State in Iraq and Levant – ISIS – endangers not only all of the Mid East and beyond, but the entire free world. Surely any POTUS would fight against this outcome – or so one would believe.

As indicated on numerous occasions, starting back in Dec. 2012 – many moons ago, at least in the realm of the average westerner’s ADD-afflicted thinking –  the Islamist-in-Chief’s illegal war in Libya gave Al Qaeda a renewed tailwind! How magnanimous. But there’s more.

Tailwind One: 

How many recall the chemicals unleashed on Syria’s captive population? How many understand how the usage of chemical warfare became a blow back outgrowth, due to Barack HUSSEIN Obama’s upending of Libya for the benefit of the Brotherhood Mafia? How many know that Al Qaeda is (one of) its bastard offshoots?

Tailwind Two:

Still and all, no rational observer, let alone national leadership, wouldn’t expect the very same Al Qaeda terror organization to stay clear of Israel’s borders. So isn’t the tailwind given by Barack HUSSEIN Obama to Al Qaeda another one of his weapons used against Israel, a nation he rabidly detests, all the more a grave geo-political disaster, being that Israel is the ONLY western “outpost” in the entire Islamic-riven jihadi region? Of course.

Tailwind Three:

But even if we leave aside Iraq’s current disintegration, what part of Al Qaeda and its vanguard’s barbarism towards Christians and other minorities hasn’t been apparent in both Egypt and Syria, let alone throughout Africa? In other words, when does the leader of the free world step up and proclaim: yes, establishing Islamic jihadi safe havens must be an inviolate “red line”, principally as a high priority western interest?

Tailwind Four:

And, in light of the above, isn’t it apparent as to why a growing case for impeachment is warranted, as the Islamist-in-Chief, for all intents and purposes, aids and abets Al Qaeda takeovers?

Tailwind Five:

So, back in January 2014, how shocking was it to hear: Al Qaeda declared the first independent Islamic state towards a reconstituted Caliphate!

But that was then and this is now…..

U.S. Said To Rebuff Iraqi Requests To Strike Militants

WASHINGTON — As the threat from Sunni militants in western Iraq escalated last month, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki secretly asked the Obama administration to consider carrying out airstrikes against extremist staging areas, according to Iraqi and American officials.

But Iraq’s appeals for a military response have so far been rebuffed by the White House, which has been reluctant to open a new chapter in a conflict that President Obama has insisted was over when the United States withdrew the last of its forces from Iraq in 2011.

The swift capture of Mosul by militants aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has underscored how the conflicts in Syria and Iraq have converged into one widening regional insurgency with fighters coursing back and forth through the porous border between the two countries. But it has also called attention to the limits the White House has imposed on the use of American power in an increasingly violent and volatile region.

A spokeswoman for the National Security Council, Bernadette Meehan, declined to comment on Mr. Maliki’s requests. “We are not going to get into details of our diplomatic discussions,” she said in a statement. “The current focus of our discussions with the government of Iraq and our policy considerations is to build the capacity of the Iraqis to successfully confront” the Islamic extremists.

The Obama administration has carried out drone strikes against militants in Yemen and Pakistan, where it fears terrorists have been hatching plans to attack the United States. But despite the fact that Sunni militants have been making steady advances and may be carving out new havens from which they could carry out attacks against the West, administration spokesmen have insisted that the United States is not actively considering using warplanes or armed drones to strike them.

Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq’s foreign minister, last year floated the idea that armed American-operated Predator or Reaper drones might be used to respond to the expanding militant network in Iraq. American officialsdismissed that suggestion at the time, saying that the request had not come from Mr. Maliki.

By March, however, American experts who visited Baghdad were being told that Iraq’s top leaders were hoping that American air power could be used to strike the militants’ staging and training areas inside Iraq, and help Iraq’s beleaguered forces stop them from crossing into Iraq from Syria.

“Iraqi officials at the highest level said they had requested manned and unmanned U.S. airstrikes this year against ISIS camps in the Jazira desert,” said Kenneth M. Pollack, a former C.I.A. analyst and National Security Council official, who is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institutionand who visited Baghdad in early March. ISIS is the acronym for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, as the militant group is known.

As the Sunni insurgents have grown in strength those requests have persisted. In a May 11 meeting with American diplomats and Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the head of the Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, Mr. Maliki said he would like the United States to provide Iraq with the ability to operate drones. But if the United States was not willing to do that, Mr. Maliki indicated he was prepared to allow the United States to carry out strikes using warplanes or drones.

Some experts say that such American military action could be helpful but only if Mr. Maliki takes steps to make his government more inclusive.

“U.S. military support for Iraq could have a positive effect but only if it is conditioned on Maliki changing his behavior within Iraq’s political system,” Mr. Pollack said. “He has to bring the Sunni community back in, agree to limits on his executive authority and agree to reform Iraqi security forces to make them more professional and competent.”

But so far, the administration has signaled that it is not interested in such a direct American military role.

“Ultimately, this is for the Iraqi security forces, and the Iraqi government to deal with,” Rear Adm. John F. Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said Tuesday.

A vehicle belonging to the Iraqi security forces was abandoned in Mosul. CreditReuters

The deteriorating situation in Iraq is not what the Obama administration expected when it withdrew the last American troops from there in 2011. In a March 2012 speech, Antony J. Blinken, who is Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser, asserted that “Iraq today is less violent” than “at any time in recent history.”

From the start, experts have stressed that the conflict in Iraq is as much political as military. Mr. Maliki’s failure to include leading Sunnis in his government has heightened the sectarian divisions in Iraq.

But American officials also say that militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria represent a formidable military threat, one that Iraq’s security forces, which lack an effective air force, have been hard pressed to handle on their own.

Adding to that challenge is the fact that the group controls territory on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border, and the Iraq and Syria conflicts have been feeding each other.

Said Lakhdar Brahimi, the former United Nations envoy to the collapsed Syria peace talks: “The region is in trouble, starting with Iraq. When I went to Baghdad in December, I was told that for every 100 operations ISIS did in Syria, it did 1,000 in Iraq.”

Critics say the latest developments show the weakness in an administration strategy designed to shore up Iraqi forces and to combat a growing Islamic militancy in Syria that officials say poses an increasing counterterrorism threat to the United States.

In a speech on Wednesday, Susan E. Rice, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, said that the American effort to buttress Iraq’s forces had been effective. “The United States has been fast to provide necessary support for the people and government of Iraq,” she said in remarks at the Center for New American Security in Washington.

The United States has provided a $14 billion foreign military aid package to Iraq that includes F-16 fighter jets, Apache attack helicopters and M-16 rifles. It has rushed hundreds of Hellfire missiles as well as ScanEagle reconnaissance drones.

A second round of counterterrorism training between American Special Operations commandos and Iraqi troops started in Jordan this week. At least two F-16s are set to arrive in Iraq by September, and six Apaches will be leased for training later this year, Iraqi and Pentagon officials said.

But some former generals who served in Iraq said a greater effort was needed.

James M. Dubik, a retired Army lieutenant general who oversaw the training of the Iraqi army during the surge, summed it up this way: “We should fly some of our manned and unmanned aircraft and put advisers into Iraq that can help the Iraqi Army plan and execute a proper defense, then help them transition to a counter offensive.”

Israeli war planners are, as always, watching the encirclement of the nation’s borders, and not just from Iran’s (usual) proxies. And no one should be oh so shocked when Israeli forces take matters into their own hands, knowing full well that Barack HUSSEIN Obama has no interest in tamping down the flames, even though it will appear as if U.S. cooperation is in the background. Nonsense.

More specifically, and even more incendiary, what kind of a (im)moral cretin, a pygmy, leaves Americans to fend for themselves under jihadi fire:

WND previously reported Friday that private contractors who have recently returned to the U.S. from Iraq said their former colleagues effectively had been abandoned by the U.S. military and were fighting for their lives against an army of jihadists surrounding the base who belong to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

The U.S. contractors were at Balad to help the Pentagon prepare the facilities for the delivery of the F-16 aircraft the Obama administration has agreed to provide the Iraqi government.

The surrounded Americans said they were under ISIS fire from small arms, AK47s, and rocket propelled grenades, or RPGs.

The contractors had been able to hold the base, but those on the scene reported it was only a matter of time before the ISIS terrorists succeeded in breaking through the perimeter. The sources confirmed the contractors were still under siege, despite an Associated Press report Thursday, citing U.S. officials, that three planeloads of Americans were being evacuated from Balad.

WND learned from sources that the jihadists closed down escape routes, and the U.S. Air Force was in a stand-down position. U.S. forces were not assisting even with air cover so a private extradition flight could land for a rescue, the sources said.

Privately scheduled exit flights had fallen through, sources said, as several private pilots originally scheduled to make the flights quit.

The sources contended the U.S. military could provide the necessary air cover to protect C-130s or other air transport craft sufficient to make the evacuation, but far officials had refused to get involved.

In the main, removing American boots from Iraq literally paved the road for factions of jihadists to plot unimpeded. Predictably, instead of America taking the lead, the wayward Commander-in-Chief is now “in talks” with Iran’s killing machine, deciding how best to beat back Al Qaeda!

Thursday afternoon, Iran’s most powerful gun, the Al Qods Brigades chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani, arrived in Baghdad to take over the push against ISIS, in the same way as he has managed Bashar Assad’s war in Syria, and pull together the demoralized and scattered Iraqi army.

Those steps by Washington and Tehran pave the way for the US and Iran to cooperate for the first time in a joint military endeavor.

Since ISIS forces, albeit boosted by tens of thousands of armed Sunnis flocking to the black flag, are not capable of capturing Baghdad and have halted outside the city, President Obama and Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have won a small space for deciding how to proceed.
Khamenei must determine whether Gen. Soleimani with the help of American weaponry can stop al Qaeda, save Maliki from collapse and prevent the fall of Baghdad, and whether it is worth sending an Iranian army division over to Iraq, our intelligence sources reported earlier Thursday. They have since entered Iraq and are fighting ISIS forces.

These moves by Tehran will determined how Washington acts in the coming hours.

Does any westerner believe this confab will turn out well, let alone for American and Israeli objectives?

For if the POTUS’s “red lines” via Syria and Iran are any indication of his ill intent, what makes anyone think that Al Qaeda’s arc in Iraq – previously aiding their ascension in Syria through Benghazigate – will elicit another result?

Bulls eye.