Iraq in Crisis- Merged Superthread

[a_majoor]

US policy collapse in the region. The administration was so totally pout of touch with the reality on the ground that they were operating in Donald Rumsfeld's "Unknown Unknown's" region. The sheer arrogance of dismissing ISIS as a "Junior Varsity" team is only the tip of the iceberg of how wrong their assumptions were. The question is, how to get back to the knowns?

http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2014/08/23/paradigms-lost/?print=1

Paradigms Lost
Posted By Richard Fernandez On August 23, 2014 @ 2:03 pm In Uncategorized | 147 Comments

The administration’s abrupt transition from complacency to near panic on the rise of ISIS recalls Donald Rumsfeld’s famous dictum. But before the dictum, first the panic. The New York Times [1] captures the sudden shift in attitude in its opening paragraphs of an article by Mark Mazzetti and Helene Cooper:

Earlier this year, President Obama likened the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria to a junior varsity basketball squad, a group that posed little of the threat once presented by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

But on Thursday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called ISIS an “imminent threat to every interest we have,” adding, “This is beyond anything that we’ve seen.”

Now there was no more talk of amateur opponents. Indeed the media outlets were playing up ISIS threats to the president’s hometown of Chicago [2].  The rest of the NYT Mazzetti-Cooper article examined the debate over the seriousness of the threat without reaching a conclusion.  Donald Rumsfeld [3] warned there would be days like this: a man must always expect the unexpected.

Reports that say there’s — that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things that we know that we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.

There are things we do not know and NPR [4] said the failed rescue of James Foley “reveals the challenges faced by US intelligence”. Yet at least it was, to the intelligence community at least, a known unknown.

The U.S. doesn’t really have much in the way of assets on the ground there. The U.S. is allied with the Free Syrian Army. That’s the group that’s fighting the Assad government. But they apparently provide very little in the way of really good intelligence. So instead, and the secretary of defense alluded to this, the intelligence community has to figure out what’s going on by cobbling together information from cell phone calls, Internet traffic and the surveillance from overhead drones.

President Obama’s earlier dismissal of ISIS in January falls into a  much more serious category. In an interview with David Remnick of the New Yorker [5], he boasted that there were now no significant threats worth considering. Al Qaeda had been “decimated.” When Remnick challenged that claim,  pointing  out that the Black Flag was flying over Fallujah, the president famously waved it off. He characterized ISIS as a “jayvee” or junior varsity team, not even to be taken seriously.

“The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” Obama said, resorting to an uncharacteristically flip analogy. “I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.”

In retrospect it was clear Obama didn’t know the true state of affairs. He didn’t even suspect he had got it wrong; it was an “unknown unknown” to him. And not just in some insignificant detail but an error lurking in the facts which made up the very cornerstone of his strategic thinking. The Remnick article clearly illustrates just how critical the mistakes were. Remnick recounted:

Obama told me that what he needs isn’t any new grand strategy—“I don’t really even need George Kennan right now”—but, rather, the right strategic partners. “There are currents in history and you have to figure out how to move them in one direction or another,” Rhodes said. “You can’t necessarily determine the final destination. . . . The President subscribes less to a great-man theory of history and more to a great-movement theory of history—that change happens when people force it or circumstances do.” (Later, Obama told me, “I’m not sure Ben is right about that. I believe in both.”) …

At the core of Obama’s thinking is that American military involvement cannot be the primary instrument to achieve the new equilibrium that the region so desperately needs. …

Ultimately, he envisages a new geopolitical equilibrium, one less turbulent than the current landscape of civil war, terror, and sectarian battle. “It would be profoundly in the interest of citizens throughout the region if Sunnis and Shias weren’t intent on killing each other,” he told me. “And although it would not solve the entire problem, if we were able to get Iran to operate in a responsible fashion—not funding terrorist organizations, not trying to stir up sectarian discontent in other countries, and not developing a nuclear weapon—you could see an equilibrium developing between Sunni, or predominantly Sunni, Gulf states and Iran in which there’s competition, perhaps suspicion, but not an active or proxy warfare.

Now that the Sunni/Shi’a civil war has made a mockery of his “equilibrium” and Homeland Security prepares to defend Chicago, the analytic problem is better presented in the reverse: what didn’t the president get wrong? His foreign policy isn’t in need a tweak or a tuneup; in fact the question now is whether any parts of it can still be salvaged. He can’t drive it to the used car lot and sell it to someone else. The best he can do is tow it to the junkyard.

To salvage anything he has to go back to the known knowns. Like a man in a swimming pool who belatedly realizes that he can’t swim, his first step must be to extend his foot to see if he can reach bottom. If not, then where is the nearest gutter?  The problem is the floundering man in the pool had introduced himself as the next Michael Phelps.  Now he has to save himself without letting on.

The administration is caught between demoralization and the need to maintain appearances. More broadly, this is true of the left as a whole in this moment of crisis. Try as they might, the left can’t think of a way to reverse the catastrophes of their making because, like a bad leak that can’t be addressed by a washer change, the fault lies behind their wall.  To fix things they’re going to have to rip everything out and start almost from the beginning.

The attraction of Ferguson was it offered them momentary escape into a re-enaction of the Old Days. Freedom Rider and all that. But it’s 2014 and not 1964 and when Ferguson fades, ISIS and Putin and the recession will still be there. Neither Obama nor the Left can handle the truth, so they won’t handle it.

Therefore they will remain transfixed, in a state compounded of fear, nervous laughter, bravado and denial, until a hit big enough comes along to snap them out of it. But the fear is there. It was there even when Remnick interviewed Obama in January. Like a man feeling the first indefinite symptoms of a disease, he must have guessed something was wrong and already thinking of how to shift the blame.

“One of the things that I’ve learned to appreciate more as President is you are essentially a relay swimmer in a river full of rapids, and that river is history,” he later told me. “You don’t start with a clean slate, and the things you start may not come to full fruition on your timetable.”

Rumsfeld would have guessed Obama would look for someone to blame, for that was a known known. The catastrophes and cascade of failures had one simple cause in his universe: someone else.  The buck stops there. His predecessor had dropped the baton in the relay race of history and it was his sad duty to be the victim. Whatever betide, whatever befall,  remember: he could have been a contender.

Article printed from Belmont Club: http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez

URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2014/08/23/paradigms-lost/

URLs in this post:

[1] New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/23/us/politics/us-isnt-sure-just-how-much-to-fear-isis.html?_r=0
[2] Chicago: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/08/22/ominous-tweet-connects-isis-threat-in-chicago/
[3] Donald Rumsfeld: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns
[4] NPR: http://www.npr.org/2014/08/21/342228835/failed-foley-rescue-reveals-challenges-faced-by-u-s-intelligence
[5] David Remnick of the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/01/27/going-the-distance-2?currentPage=all

 

[CougarKing]

Not sure if this British tabloid is to be believed, but if true, those ISIS terrorists had better be scared, VERY scared.

Mirror

SAS and US special forces forming hunter killer unit to 'smash Islamic State'

Elite British and US special forces troops are forming a hunter killer unit called Task Force Black – its orders: “Smash the Islamic State.”

The undercover warriors will aim to “cut the head off the snake” by hitting the command structure of the Islamist terror group responsible for a trail of atrocities across Iraq and Syria, reports the Sunday People.

PM David Cameron has told the SAS and UK spy agencies to direct all their ­resources at defeating IS after a video of US journalist James Foley being beheaded shocked the world.

British special forces will work with America’s Delta Force and Seal Team 6. The move sees a rebirth of top secret Task Force Black, which helped defeat al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq .

(...EDITED)

 

[ShadyBrah]

Not sure if this British tabloid is to be believed, but if true, those ISIS terrorists had better be scared, VERY scared.

Mirror

Thank god. To me it seems like IS is begging the world to go after them.. Let it happen.

 

[CougarKing]

Enough hinting and continue striking the terrorists!

Defense News

Sen. Graham Hints at Future Strikes Against Islamic State
Aug. 24, 2014 - 09:15PM  |  By AARON MEHTA

  CHICAGO — As the Obama administration weighs further action against the Islamic State, one of the top defense voices on the Hill is sending clear signals he expects action soon.

“To the terrorists organizations who wish us harm, we’re about to come after you again, all over, and we’re gonna beat you, yet again,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said during an Aug. 23 speech at the National Guard Association of the United States annual conference in Chicago.

“You can’t be war weary at a time when those that wish to destroy your life are just getting started,” he said later in his speech. “We may be tired of fighting them but they’re not tired of fighting us. But let me tell you how this movie ends: they lose, we win.”

The use of the phrase “all over” is notable, as speculation abounds about potential military actions in Syria to help combat the movement of the Islamic State, also known as ISIL, following the execution of American journalist James Foley.

(...EDITED)

 

[Edward Campbell]

Michael Bell, a knowledgeable observer, offers a pessimistic look at the West's "Hobson's choice" viz a viz IS in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/at-most-we-can-prevent-the-worst/article20199916/#dashboard/follows/

At most, we can prevent the worst

MICHAEL BELL
Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, Aug. 26 2014

Michael Bell is adjunct professor of political science at the University of Windsor, and also teaches at Carleton University. He served as Canada’s ambassador to Jordan, Egypt and Israel.

We are today eyewitness to butchery unseen in the Arab world in living memory. We are witness to the dramatic rise of the organization known as ISIS, ISIL and more recently as the Islamic State, an outgrowth of al-Qaeda equipped with a still more extreme commitment and zeal, determined to create a regionwide Caliphate based on a perverse interpretation of Islam.

These militants are devoid of any notion of tolerance toward the other, thus justifying the wholesale slaughter of those who fail to conform to their absolutist beliefs. Hence, for example, the near-obliteration of the Yazidi and Christian communities of Iraq, already staggering under persecution by Islamic radicals. Hence the Islamic State’s military success against those whose motivation, as with the Iraqi armed forces, is questionable or whose organization and cohesion are vulnerable, including the moderate opposition in Syria.

The absolutism and intolerance of fundamentalism are inherent in the Islamic State’s belief system: Violence is justified, indeed required, to cleanse society in the name of the most holy.

The IS phenomenon has grown and flourished through the turmoil of internecine wars. These were unleashed in Iraq by the U.S. invasion in 2003 under the neo-conservative principles of George W. Bush (supported at the time by Stephen Harper, then in opposition) who appears to have believed he could turn that country into an American Garden of Eden.

In Syria, chaos was induced in 2011 by the noble, but ill-fated, attempt to bring a pluralist and rights-based Arab Spring to that country. The Islamic State is but the most extreme representation of the radical fragmentation that resulted. This terror group now controls large swathes of western and central Iraq and virtually all of eastern Syria. Although conglomerate anti-IS forces seem to have stabilized the war front in parts of Iraq, the group’s expansion continues. Islamic State forces last week took partial control of the Tabqa airbase in eastern Syria, the last such facility east of Aleppo still held by the Assad regime.

Sadly, the enthusiasts of neo-conservatism and the Arab Spring were naive and misguided in their expectations. The record is clear: The bulk of Western policy-makers and analysts have been disastrously overambitious in their expectations of “a better world.” When they look at the Middle East, concerned outsiders should focus on what, in the cold light of reality, can be achieved. To go beyond that is an indulgence because it legitimizes our own belief system. We have an obligation not to leave matters worse than we found them through ill-thought-out policies and practices.

No matter how well-intended, Western interventions have not proven themselves viable. We have little if any understanding of the loathing and disdain that permeate communities in that tortured region. Given the appalling nature of regimes such as those of Saddam Hussein, we have been faced with a Hobson’s choice governed by ethnicity and ideology that yield overriding narratives in their most radical form. This is a zero-sum game. The choice between the old autocracies and the situation today is not one to be envied, more obviously so as the situation continues to deteriorate.

One is left asking whether democratic pluralism is the answer to the problems of the Middle East. The old dictators maintained cohesion, however forced, and predictability, at whatever cost, for their citizenry.

Is there anything we can do at this stage to better the situation? Transformational change is an impossibility. But we do have humanitarian responsibilities to mitigate the worst. The need for relief screams out with, for example, more than one million refugees in small Jordan alone. This means food, housing, health care, education and emigration, where it can be accommodated – a not inconsiderable challenge but in part, at least, achievable.

Humanitarianism goes beyond traditional definitions: Jordan must be underwritten, despite its autocracy, because it cares for so many and its location is so strategic. The front line of Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq must be stabilized and its forces supplied with armaments, weaponry intelligence and air support. Further, to combat the Islamic State in Syria, short of supporting Bashar al-Assad – which is not going to (and should not) happen – efforts must be made to consolidate and arm the moderate, if problematic, opposition, directing them first and, for the present, foremost against the IS.

In other words, the person bearing ultimate responsibility for shaping the Western response to a situation he did not create, U.S. President Barack Obama, is therefore caught in the ultimate Catch-22 : as the dictionary says, “a dilemma from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions.”

I agree, broadly and generally, with Prof Bell: whatever we do is going to be wrong.

I stand by my broad prescription:

    1. Isolate the entire region (the Islamic Crescent) (only a few exceptions, including: Israel, Jordan, Malaysia) in social, political and economic terms; and

    2. Use diplomatic and propaganda tools to ferment internal dissatisfaction within Islamic societies.

I believe that only the Muslims, themselves, can decide their own fate.

I suspect that American strategy is almost entirely driven by domestic, partisan political concerns and we ought to mistrust the US in all foreign affairs questions.

 

[Kilo_302]

We're so horrified at what ISIS are doing but at least someone found the time (in the middle of a giant LAV sale) to "rebuke" Saudi Arabia. The level of ignorance over this is astounding, and it's not being helped by the less than stellar reporting of the media. The Saudis created ISIS with US help to fight Assad in Syria. Not a year ago, McCain was chomping at the bit to bomb Assad and send weapons to Syrian rebels, and now he's calling for the US to bomb ISIS in Syria. "And the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round...." It would be laughable if it weren't so tragic, the US is once again fighting it's own creation in Iraq.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/22/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-executions-draw-rebukes.html?_r=0

 

[PanaEng]

You and a lot of other ppl keep lumping "Syrian Rebels" all together - out of a dozen-and-a-half different groups the int orgs had a hard time keeping up on their background, intentions, allegiances, etc. and whether they would survive or not or get assimilated by another group. So it was hard to figure out who to support but, also, that support was slow to materialize once we figured out who was reliable and gave too much time for ISIS to grow and assimilate most of the other groups.

We're so horrified at what ISIS are doing but at least someone found the time (in the middle of a giant LAV sale) to "rebuke" Saudi Arabia. The level of ignorance over this is astounding, and it's not being helped by the less than stellar reporting of the media. The Saudis created ISIS with US help to fight Assad in Syria. Not a year ago, McCain was chomping at the bit to bomb Assad and send weapons to Syrian rebels, and now he's calling for the US to bomb ISIS in Syria. "And the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round...." It would be laughable if it weren't so tragic, the US is once again fighting it's own creation in Iraq.

 

[OldSolduer]

I agree with ERC - cordon the area off and let them sort it out despite my barbaric nature.

They'll figure it out eventually

 

[Jed]

Yes, I agree with Jim and ERC as well. Picket and bypass.

 

[Kilo_302]

You and a lot of other ppl keep lumping "Syrian Rebels" all together - out of a dozen-and-a-half different groups the int orgs had a hard time keeping up on their background, intentions, allegiances, etc. and whether they would survive or not or get assimilated by another group. So it was hard to figure out who to support but, also, that support was slow to materialize once we figured out who was reliable and gave too much time for ISIS to grow and assimilate most of the other groups.

None of this changes the fact that Saudi Arabia and the US had a direct hand in creating ISIS. Saudi Arabia has encouraged them to go into Iraq as a counter to Iran and the US was using them as a counter to Assad.

 

[Edward Campbell]

When I say isolate, I mean exactly that: no travel to or from the region (Tel Aviv and Amman excepted, and, yes, I include NATO ally Turkey in my isolation zone) ... a Canadian want to go a visit his/her sick granny in Damascus? (S)he goes to Amman and then tries to convince the Jordanian police that (s)he ought to be allowed to cross into, and far, Far, FAR more difficult, cross back from Syria. The multibillionaire Emir of something or other wants to go to London for medical treatment? Sorry, mate, try Cairo. Students want to study in Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany or the USA? Sorry, boys and girls, try Tehran. Real, honest to god refugees are crying to get into the West? Sorry, folks, wait in line in the camps in Chad.

Embassies? Yes. Big ones in Jerusalem, Amman and Kuala Lumpur, a few small ones, little better than consulates, in Ankara, Cairo, Baghdad, and a few other capitals: listening posts, at best.

Sell arms? Sure. Give arms? Never!
 

 

[George Wallace]

Yes, I agree with Jim and ERC as well. Picket and bypass.

No accepting of Refugees or Immigrants from those nations, as well.

 

[CougarKing]

No accepting of Refugees or Immigrants from those nations, as well.

What about those who are already here? They will strongly oppose and lobby against such a policy. And don't underestimate the financial resources of many of the immigrants from Gulf states who came on the investor immigrant status.

 

[George Wallace]

What about those who are already here? They will strongly oppose and lobby against such a policy. And don't underestimate the financial resources of many of the immigrants from Gulf states who came on the investor immigrant status.

The vast majority of immigrants from those nations have been in Canada and the US of A for quite some time and are are of all Faiths.  The vast majority of them do not agree with the barbarians, nor have any affiliation with them.  Although they are silent for the most part, some are starting to speak out against the barbarians.  Many in fact already do accept such a policy.  They did not immigrate to Western nations to become terrorists.  They came to better their lives and those of their children.

If you seriously propose we not take those measures and allow the barbarism to escape those nations and spread their madness to Western nations, then you are promoting their beliefs by your apathy.  Our Charter of Human Rights unfortunately is too lenient in its interpretation of discrimination and Hate crimes, often favouring a minority faction, even if it may be a faction that wants to deny similar Rights to others.  Time to wake up and call a barbarian what they are; a "Barbarian".

There currently are no reliable resources or agencies in those nations that are trustworthy enough to properly conduct any form of Security or Criminal checks to verify anyone's identity, nor their criminal or terrorist affiliations.  Are you seriously suggesting that we ignore this and allow all to pass through our 'gates'? 

It may seem inhuman, but it is insane not to. 

 

[Fishbone Jones]

None of this changes the fact that Saudi Arabia and the US had a direct hand in creating ISIS. Saudi Arabia has encouraged them to go into Iraq as a counter to Iran and the US was using them as a counter to Assad.

This is not time to play the blame game. That'll be for historians to write.

It is the time, now, to try sort the situation out. As ERC says, and I'll paraphrase in case someone doesn't get it, 'Lock them down, let them kill each other until we have a winner'.

Once we have a winner, we'll decide whether we can trust\ work with them, or if we have to kill them too.

As these fundamentalist groups gain power they become a world wide threat. They have one cause in mind. They cannot be reasoned with. They want one thing and that is total world wide capitulation to their beliefs or death to those that won't capitulate. In other words, they wish to enslave the world and there are no negotiations or half measures, for them. You with them 100% or your dead.

'What ifs' will not suffice. If not checked, by a mass kill off, they will get here eventually, and start spreading their hate and violence, wholesale as they are over there.

I'll not stand by, thinking my grandson may have to live like that. I do not hate Muslims or the religion of Islam. However, the fundamentalists are neither. They are a deadly wave of cancer that need to be slaughtered wholesale.

With even one left alive, the cancer will reoccur, spread and start killing everything around it once more.

 

[ShadyBrah]

I get a strange look every time I say "wipe them all out" but it's becoming the only option. You can Kill every top dog, and blow up every base, convoy, and training location, but time and time again somebody will take the reigns to keep their mission going.

At this point it might be easier to weed out the innocent and the sane, remove them from the country. Then blow the remaining to bits. 

 

[CougarKing]

The vast majority of immigrants from those nations have been in Canada and the US of A for quite some time and are are of all Faiths.  The vast majority of them do not agree with the barbarians, nor have any affiliation with them.  Although they are silent for the most part, some are starting to speak out against the barbarians.  Many in fact already do accept such a policy.  They did not immigrate to Western nations to become terrorists.  They came to better their lives and those of their children.

If you seriously propose we not take those measures and allow the barbarism to escape those nations and spread their madness to Western nations, then you are promoting their beliefs by your apathy. 

I am only concerned (terrified actually) about the minority who do agree with the barbarians and often are complicit in funding sympathizer organizations or the terror organization themselves.  Some of these sympathizers can hide in academia and in minority communities, only raising their voice in certain mosques (such as the notorious Al-Sunnah Al-Nabawiah Mosque in Montreal) or at anti-Israel protest rallies. 

However, finding them would a problem for law enforcement and other appropriate authorities, I suppose.

And I am not apathetic to what you said...I actually agree with you about being more stringent in limiting immigration from that region.

 

[George Wallace]

At this point it might be easier to weed out the innocent and the sane, remove them from the country. Then blow the remaining to bits.

Sorry, but that is not unfeasible.  There is no legitimate and credible organization (Law Enforcement, Government) in those countries that would be able to validate the credentials of these "innocent and sane" people.  To accept them at "their word" would only be opening the doors for agents and sympathizers of ISIS and other terror organizations who want to destroy the West.

 

[ShadyBrah]

Sorry, That was meant to be sarcastic. But it wouldn't be a bad idea IMO, if it was at all possible

 

[Kirkhill]

Sorry, but that is not unfeasible.  There is no legitimate and credible organization (Law Enforcement, Government) in those countries that would be able to validate the credentials of these "innocent and sane" people.  To accept them at "their word" would only be opening the doors for agents and sympathizers of ISIS and other terror organizations who want to destroy the West.

Which is why the French were right in Algeria in the 1800s and the Brits were right in the Gulf States in the 1700s.  In both instances the problem was pirates hijacking trade in the general vicinity. If the locals can't maintain law and order then somebody else has to do it for them - whether they like it or not. The USMC is proud enough of their "shores of Tripoli" and their Mameluke sword - but those are only tokens of a raid conducted by the US.  It had no lasting effect - much like modern US foreign policy.