Mosul fell to ISIS 18 days ago. Iraqi forces are now on the move and have retaken Tikrit. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28069800 ISIS will not become a country for several reasons. One, no one likes them. Two, Iraqi forces have been reinforced with Shite militias and American advisors and intelligence. ISIS days are numbered. A half billion dollar Syrian aid package will likely pass our do nothing congress in the coming days. I think the writing is on the wall for ISIS. They reached their zenith a few days ago.
ISIS and the Kurds are fighting each other. We already are on friendly terms with the Kurds. Allied forces provided protection to the Kurds during Saddam's reign of Kurdish terror. But the Turks, a NATO ally, and the Kurds don't get a long too well. http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/turkey-seeks-boost-peace-process-kurds-24312043
You could be right. I hope you are right. Here's a really scary thought. What if everything that has happened in Iraq so far is just the entrée to the main course?
Turkey has already said that the Kurds are entitled to self government and that if they decide to go it alone, Turkey will recognize them. Turkey sees the Kurds as a buffer between them and the radical islam of the arabs, and as a valuable trading partner, transshipping Kurdish oil through Turkey. 24% of Turks are Kurds, and the turks have seen them as a restive captive population on a good day-----that view seems to be changing lately. If the Kurds decide to pursue independence, I would expect them to push all the way to the Tigris north of Baiji.
Yeah well all they've managed to do so far is leave a bunch of helicopter wreckage and army corpses there. Last I checked, the rebels still firmly hold Tikrit and the Maliki government is scrambling ever harder for positive propaganda. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28077425 I doubt they have much of a future in the long run. Only so many banks to rob, only so many useful idiots to serve the cause before they start to run dry. It's one thing when a failing terror state has Russian or Chinese backing, but ISIS doesn't have many friends; maybe Pakistan will step forward and provide a little quiet assistance on the side, if they're lucky, but they'll need far more help than that. How will they operate, maintain, equip and fuel an effective air force? How will they survive or pose a serious threat without one? How are these rampaging hoodlums going to feed the people they'll be depending on for their shelter, supplies and survival? How will they secure clean drinking water? Where will the fighters get treatment when they have malfunctioning kidneys or what have you? If those guys want to live in the dark ages, they're going to find themselves experiencing the very worst of it; even the Taliban had Pakistan backing them up for all their modern needs, these ISIS guys are going to be all on their own. Still, I wish the US just stayed out of it altogether, including the drones and advisors. Anything the US does to fight the Sunni terrorists is only going to empower Shia terrorists backed by Iran in their place, while giving everyone an excuse to blame America/Obama for the bad weather and anything else that goes wrong. Unless it looks like there's going to be an impending Holocaust of Muslims in the region and a limited US intervention could realistically prevent it, don't bother.
Quote from Crispian Cuss: (No idea who Crispian Cuss is, but he puts this very well) Identifying the least-worst candidate as an ally and then backing them with weapons and money is an age-old policy. It takes the US back to the dark arts of the Cold War practised before the heady ideals of liberal interventionism. It's a tactic many wish they had never abandoned. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/op...ate-why-mainstream-media-201472630816350.html
There was no such time - or at least, no such phase change in the methods and arts of US foreign policy. The US has been doing what it does pretty consistently - with greater or lesser fervor, more or (mind-bogglingly) less competence, a shifting palette of public justification or carefully protected silence, for a very long time now.
The lesser causes far less trouble than the greater. "Meddling is better than intervening." should be on the president's desk, along with "The Buck Stops Here"
There's no way out of this mess other than doing what America did with Korea only the wall would be much loner along 2 countries boundaries. That would require more billions of American money to establish that sort of thing and that's not going to happen. A civil war will continue there until there are no other people living there.
Imagine if the US spent the 2 trillion it wasted in Iraq in developing Africa, same as the Chinese did.
Think of all the defense companies that wouldn't have made as much money. It's easy to forget the little people.
What they need to do is build a wall around the whole region and stop the influx of all the Russian weapons fueling the various terrorists, tyrants and their manufactured crises. Would save a lot more money than having to fight a proxy war against Putin every 5 years and then sending athletes to endorse whatever crapfest he's putting on for show.
In the article, the "lesser evils" being referred to are the secularist rebels in Syria (or whatever's left of them at this point). I've spent well over a year openly advocating for vastly increased military and financial assistance to such groups, and I think they have a greatly positive role to play in containing the Shiite and Sunni extremists of the region. I certainly wouldn't view Iran with its present regime as a lesser evil than ISIS; Iran and its allies are responsible for a vastly greater number of deaths, and in my opinion their overall goals are just as extreme, they simply exhibit far greater patience in pursuing them.
The regime in Iran may be bad, but at least it is stable, and has an educated population. Change for the better is probable, given good circumstances. Isis will establish a "Year Zero". If they establish themselves they will kill huge numbers to create their vision of utopia. It is a far worse prospect.
So if the US was to go in, bomb ISIS, and likely kill large numbers of Sunni civilians in the process, you don't think Iran would immediately move in and capitalize on the situation in a way that's less than rational or beneficial for the region? I'd be ok with the US simultaneously bombing Assad, Hezbollah, ISIS, Shia militants and any Iranian troops who try to get involved, but I don't like the idea of leaving a vacuum for any one of them to fill. Iran has a reasonably educated population but it's far from stable, they've merely sat on the sidelines fighting their wars by proxy since their decades-old tat with Saddam. Honestly I see a grand opportunity here to isolate the region, put a chokehold on their weapons and monetary supplies and force their conflicts into a rapid burnout. Islamic extremism has been piggybacking for decades on Cold War proxy fights and poorly-conceived western travel and trade policies intended to engage and/or exploit the region. Tighten the economic sanctions until Russia and Iran's balls turn purple, have a stern word with the Sunni Gulf states, and normalcy will eventually start to kick in. ISIS will eventually collapse on its own- they have no economy, they rule over a collection of abandoned dusty ghost towns, and half their own allies are promising to turn on them as soon as they find it convenient.
No, they're saying we should slap Putin on the wrist until he gets a booboo, and we shouldn't invite him to the Prom. That'll straighten him out but good.
Oh yes and don't forget how happy Iran and Syria were to donate office space and startup funds to ISIS back when it was fighting US troops in Iraq. No, rational players they aren't, and I don't think we should be playing into any of their chess games or cleaning their own messes for them when their pitbull breaks loose.
.............and if ISIS were fighting Iran, and they were posing no threat to US interests, the US would possibly be backing them. Or not, depending on what the current chaotic objective required. Lack of a consistent objective seems to be a real problem for the US. If they, and everyone else, knew what they wanted, life would be far simpler. I believe Crispian Cuss meant that if you had to make a choice between the two, that financing third parties is preferable to "boots on the ground". Both result in death and disruption, but it's a matter of scale. If I were called Crispian Cuss, I'd change my name. To Crispian Kuss.
Really? As far as I recall, the Sunni partisans in Iraq were being supplied by Sunnis - Saudi and others. They were fighting an ugly civil war with the Iranian backed Shiite partisans, which was the side that earliest and most effectively accommodated itself to the US political circus act and became the government. Syria at the time was handling a mass of refugees largely Sunni, and most likely made whatever deals it could to prevent the current disastrous Sunni revolt from happening then. If you recall, the Iraqi Sunni partisan strongholds along the Iraq/Iran border were not at all favored by Iran, being the source of raids and troubles inside Iran as well as violations of a hard won border, but Iran could do little about them given the US military enforcement of a no-go zone for Iranian military along that border.
