Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

As the United States is trying to figure out what to do in a Middle Eastern tinderbox rendered even more volatile from ill-informed American meddling, President Obama thinks he is taking a “safe route” by asking Congress for half a billion dollars to train and support Sunni rebels in Syria who are both anti-ISIS and anti-Assad. Exactly how will he know who they are? By badges conveniently stapled to their foreheads? Even the experts cannot be sure in a world of shifting alliances and slippery slopes.  

It is a sign of abysmal leadership when Obama grasps at crumbling straws and GOP leaders demand immediate U.S. military support that has failed us for the last decade plus. Oh, and the Republicans aren’t proposing anything specific… they just want something to happen. Like? Polls tell us that the vast majority of American people want us to stay out of this one.

On June 29^th, ISIS declared a new caliphate based from the Iraqi and Syrian territory they have conquered – a supreme Islamic republic they claim now stands atop Muslims everywhere! Woo hoo! Shiites delight as a murderous Sunni state now claims control over you too!

“The spokesman for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [Levant = Syria], Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, made the announcement in an audio statement posted online on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Muslim extremists have long dreamed of recreating the Islamic state, or caliphate, that ruled over the Middle East, much of North Africa and beyond in various forms over the course of Islam's 1,400-year history.

“Al-Adnani declared the group's chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the new leader, or caliph, and called on jihadi groups everywhere, not just those in areas under the organization's control, to swear loyalty to al-Baghdadi and support him… ‘The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organizations becomes null by the expansion of the caliph's authority and the arrival of its troops to their areas,’ al-Adnani said. ‘Listen to your caliph and obey him. Support your state, which grows every day.’” AOL.com, June 29^th. Be still my heart. Do we really want to become embroiled in this new, improved Iraqi war?

But as the ISIS cry-sis escalates in both Iraq and Syria, it is interesting to watch how regional factions are reacting or taking advantage of the chaos. Two of America’s most important regional antagonists merit special attention: Iran (powerful Shiite extremists) and the Taliban (powerful Sunni extremists). 

Despite some purported American back-channeling with Iran’s “political leadership” on the ISIS explosion against Shiite Iraq, Iran’s religious leadership (the boyz really in control) remains wary of any U.S. involvement in their new puppet government (thank you America for ousting the Sunnis who used to control!) in Baghdad: “Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said [June 22^nd] that he was against any intervention by the United States in neighboring Iraq, where Islamic extremists and Sunni militants opposed to Iran have seized a number of towns and cities, the official news agency IRNA reported.

“‘We strongly oppose the intervention of the U.S. and others in the domestic affairs of Iraq,’ Ayatollah Khamenei was quoted as saying, in his first reaction to the crisis…. ‘The main dispute in Iraq is between those who want Iraq to join the U.S. camp and those who seek an independent Iraq,’ said the ayatollah, who has the final say over government policies. ‘The U.S. aims to bring its own blind followers to power since the U.S. is not happy about the current government in Iraq.                           


“Ayatollah Khamenei said Iraq’s government and its people, with the help of top clerics, would be able to end the ‘sedition’ there, saying extremists are hostile to both Shiites and Sunnis who seek an independent Iraq.

“Earlier on [June 22^nd], Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, said that some countries ‘feed terrorists by their petrodollars,’ in a veiled reference to the [very Sunni] Arab Persian Gulf states, and warned that such support would come back to haunt them.” New York Times, June 22^nd.

While the Ayatollah might not want Americans undoing the Shiite domination in Iraq, upsetting Iran’s power over that nation, one way or another he is going to have to deal with millions of exceptionally violent and angry Sunnis who hate Iran even more than the United States. Read: expect direct Iranian intervention to support the incumbent Shiite regime without kowtowing to American pressure to create a Sunni-inclusive government in Baghdad. There are lots of long fuses being lit all over the region… and Central Asia seems to be aware of the new rise in Sunni anger… and power in the Islamic world.

Thus, in the rock-strewn rugged terrain in Afghanistan, the Taliban are feeling their oats, sensing a good moment to strike with Western forces distracted in Iraq and unable to figure a clear path for intervention even in that region. The June 27^th New York Times presents this summary recent event that suggest the futility of NATO efforts to “stabilize” a region that has had a nasty reputation of devouring outside nations trying to moderate these forbidding lands:

“In one of the most significant coordinated assaults on the government in years, the Taliban have attacked police outposts and government facilities across several districts in northern Helmand Province, sending police and military officials scrambling to shore up defenses and heralding a troubling new chapter as coalition forces prepare to depart.

“The attacks have focused on the district of Sangin, historically an insurgent stronghold and one of the deadliest districts in the country for the American and British forces who fought for years to secure it. The Taliban have mounted simultaneous attempts to conquer territory in the neighboring districts of Now Zad, Musa Qala and Kajaki. In the [last week in June], more than 100 members of the Afghan forces and 50 civilians have been killed or wounded in fierce fighting, according to early estimates from local officials.

“With a deepening political crisis in Kabul already casting the presidential election and long-term political stability into doubt, the Taliban offensive presents a new worst-case situation for Western officials: an aggressive insurgent push that is seizing territory even before American troops have completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“The battle in Helmand is playing out as, about 1,500 miles to the west, Iraq is losing ground to an insurgent force that advanced in the shadow of the American withdrawal there. The fear pulsing through Afghanistan is that it, too, could fall apart after the NATO-led military coalition departs in 2016.”

“Already, areas once heavily patrolled by American forces have grown more violent as the Afghan military and the police struggle to feed, fuel and equip themselves. The lackluster performance of the Afghan Army so far in Helmand has also evoked comparisons with Iraq, raising questions about whether the American-trained force can stand in the way of a Taliban resurgence.” “Can stand in the way”?! Really? ISIS is also gaining additional ground in Syria, minute by minute, even as Iran and Russia send attack aircraft to the Shiite-leaning government in Baghdad. Shiite militia are readying their offensive to regain Iraqi territory from ISIS. As ugly as things are now, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

For those thinking that the Sunni-Shiite-Kurdish factions can reunite under a single Iraqi banner, try this on for size: “[Iraqi] Kurdish President Massoud Barzani asked lawmakers to form a committee to organise a referendum on independence and pick a date for the vote… ‘The time has come for us to determine our own fate and we must not wait for others to determine it for us,’ Barzani said in a closed session of the Kurdish parliament that was later broadcast on television… ‘For that reason, I consider it necessary ... to create an independent electoral commission as a first step and, second, to make preparations for a referendum.’… Barzani's call came days after Kurds and Sunnis walked out of the newly-elected Iraqi parliament’s first session in Baghdad, complaining that the majority Shi’ites had failed to nominate a prime minister.” Reuters, July 3^rd. Iraq never was a unified nation with a unified national identity… and our failure to understand the depths of the cultural divide really did make matters worse.

Everybody seems to be drawing lines in the sand. Shiite leader, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki – considered by most to have only exacerbated the negative feelings among the feuding factions – is a problem that only seems to be getting worse. “[A]l-Maliki refused on [July 3^rd] to give up his quest for a third term in power, defying a chorus of critics demanding his replacement as the country faces an existential threat from Islamist insurgents.” Reuters, June 4^th. What in it for us to intervene? We’re can’t win, no matter what we do… even if we do nothing.

We desperately need to spend money in the United States on education, infrastructure and research. The inequality of income on our own shores is toxic to long-term growth and sustainability of the American quality of life. And the only reality of spending money in these unending Islamic wars is that American intervention is not going to make the region better for anyone. It hasn’t worked in Iraq, and it is failing miserably in Afghanistan. America is now the Oliver and Hardy (for those old enough to remember these comic misfits – see above picture) of military intervention: another fine mess you’ve got us into!

I’m Peter Dekom, and that definition of insanity – you know, repeating the same behavior and expecting different results – is echoing in my mind.