Category Archives: Caliphate

Caliphate, Iraq, Jihadis, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy, U.S. Politics

1. Blame Game Saga from the Caliphate to the U.S. Congress………

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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The Middle East Iraq-Syria blame game has gotten frantic in the past few months, since the fall of Mosul. Yet almost nobody in the region between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean is innocent of blame. First, the American stance:

  • American politicians have shifted the blame for the Iraqi mess to Iraqis themselves, which is fair enough but up to a point. Keep in mind that almost everybody else in the region is meddling in Iraqi affairs and should get some of the blame.
  • Over the past few months, American blame has focused on former prime minister Al Maliki. If only Al Maliki would/could do certain things, then everything would be fine in Iraq. Now he is out of his old office.
  • Americans also blame other Americans, a favorite political pastime. President Obama is handed the biggest share of the blame. Mainly for failing to keep U.S. troops in Iraq beyond 2011, which is the date agreed to between Al Maliki and George W Bush.
  • Republicans especially prefer to blame Obama for the mess in Iraq, but in fairness they also blame him for everything else under the sun. Including possibly the Ebola epidemic as well as Benghazi, Benghazi. On the up side, they don’t blame him for global warming, because they don’t believe in it.
  • Democrats prefer to blame Al Assad, Al Maliki, and the Republican House of representatives.
  • Speaking of Benghazi, Hillary Clinton is edging toward blaming Obama as she weighs her options for 2016. She would rather not travel anywhere near the Middle East these days, not for another two years.
  • Jingoists like John McCain and his allies blame it all on the reluctance of the Obama administration to join the Syrian civil war. It is this ‘wussiness’, they assert, that has led to the emergence of the Wahhabi-Baathist Caliphate across the Iraqi-Syrian border.
  • Fox News blames the whole mess on the elections of 2008.
  • It looks like America is edging back into Iraq, kicking and screaming. Nobody wants to be seen between now and 2016 as punting on ISIS.
  • FYI: the U.S. Congress is punting on Iraq, since they refuse to vote on it before the 2014 elections. Before elections: Democrats are scared of voting for war, Republicans are terrified of being seen to vote ‘yes’ for anything that Obama supports. No Profiles of Courage there. Courage, courage, as Dan Rather used to shout inexplicably on TV .

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Al-Qaeda, Caliphate, Jihadis, Syria, Turkey

Erdogan Torn Between ISIS and the Kurds………..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“Recalling the deaths of thousands of men and boys at the Bosnian town of Srebrenica nearly two decades ago, the United Nations’ special envoy on Syria pleaded Friday for Turkey to open its border and let Kurdish fighters stream into Syria to help fight off an Islamic State advance on the Kurdish city of Kobani………….”

Mr. Erdogan has been allowing any and all Wahhabi Jihadis from all over the world to enter Syria from his domain in Turkey. Plus allowing passage through Turkey of all the weapons and money they could get from their Saudi and Persian Gulf supporters. He has been an accessory in the terrorists violating Syrian (and Iraqi) sovereignty for years. The least he can do now is allow the Kurds to cross into Syria to help against the ISIS terrorists. That may only partially atone for his collusion (or miscalculation) in the growth and expansion of this bloody Hollywood Caliphate.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Syria, Turkey, US Foreign Policy

Joe Biden on the Erdogan and Wahhabi Trails: With Allies Like These……….

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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““My constant cry was that our biggest problem is our allies — our allies in the region were our largest problem in Syria,” Biden told his listeners in remarks subsequently posted on the White House YouTube channel (go to 1:32:00 if you want to skip the earlier speech). “The Turks were great friends,” he notes, adding that he recently spent considerable time with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and they have “a great relationship.” Ditto the Saudis and the Emiratis. But when it came to Syria and the effort to bring down President Bashar Assad there, those allies’ policies wound up helping to arm and build allies of al Qaeda and eventually the terrorist “Islamic State.”…………”

Joe Biden was right of course. There are facts that I and many others have been pointing out for three years. As soon as that first Syrian uprising started against the Al Assad regime in 2011, the Wahhabi and Muslim Brotherhood money, weapons and intolerant ideology started flowing in to Syria. Soon, bored and indoctrinated young Wahhabi Jihadis started flowing into Syria from the Persian Gulf region. That early Syrian uprising was lost to the newly-imported sectarian narrative.

The absolute tribal princes and potentates from Riyadhh and Doha and Abu Dhabi did not see a people’s uprising in Syria, even though their vast media claimed that they did. For obvious reasons these rulers are not into into liberation movements. They just saw an opportunity to finally gain a foothold in Syria, spread their Wahhabi ideology, and give the annoying Iranian mullahs a black eye. Not necessarily in that order.

In other words, they have sought to buy Syria and its people with petroleum money. Just as they are seeking to buy American and other Western foreign policy regarding the Arab uprisings from Egypt to Bahrain to Syria to Yemen. With some significant success.

The Turks did their part for ‘the cause’: as I have opined before, the Erdogan regime never saw a Jihadi terrorist that they could turn back from entering Syria (and hence Iraq). Money, weapons, and volunteers from the Arab world and Europe continued to flow into the civil war through what I called the Erdogan Trail.

Joe Biden was right: with allies like these…………

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Caliphate, Death Penalty, Jihadis, MENA

Year of Chopping Heads: from Mosul to Oklahoma……

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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Suddenly decapitating seems to be ‘in’ (at least in our region and in world media). It is certainly as ‘in’ as slowly and agonizingly, hit-or-miss, experimental injection of poison to death-row convicts in Oklahoma and other states. It is a toss-up which method is more cruel: you never know until you try both, personally. Beheading is probably more cruel; besides, it is happening more frequently. Especially now that the Wahhabi cutthroats (literally) of this Hollywood Caliphate are resurgent in Iraq and Syria.
The Caliphate unceremoniously mows down Yazidis and Shi’as and native non-Wahhabis into mass graves. But it reserves the more ceremonial beheading for Westerners. It is a tough choice: would you rather be mowed down as one more anonymous body among thousands or would you rather be murdered ceremoniously but painfully?
To keep up with the other Wahhabi Abus, the Saudis have also ramped up their beheading state machine. Reports claim they have accelerated the number of public beheadings, that it is close to 50 so far this year, give or take a couple.
Not to be outdone, the Algerian Salafis have gone back to their 1990s civil war practice of beheading hostages. Not to mention reports of the Philippines Abus, Abu Sayyaf (?) resorting to the endearing old practice.
Not to be outdone, some nutcase in Oklahoma just beheaded a co-worker. Oklahomaaaaaaa Okay? Oklahoma that has been worried about the Shari’a Law creeping into its statehouse and legislature and has been dabbling with laws to forestall it.

Odd, how they believe that chopping heads is the ‘Islamic’ way to execute someone. Just because they did it in the old days. What they overlook is that they had no other choice in those days. They did not have guns or hypodermic needles in the seventh century. Everybody chopped heads at that time, be they Muslims or Christians or Vegans. Even Henry VIII did it, even the French reveled in it for a mad brief period.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Caliphate, Jihadis, Petroleum, Syria, Turkey, U.S. Foreign Policy

ISIS Oil: About the Erdogan Trail………….

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“U.S.-led coalition warplanes bombed oil installations and other facilities in territory controlled by Islamic State militants in eastern Syria on Friday, taking aim for a second consecutive day at a key source of financing that has swelled the extremist group’s coffers, activists said. The strikes hit two oil areas in Deir el-Zour province a day after the United States and its Arab allies pummeled a dozen makeshift oil producing facilities in the same area near Syria’s border with Iraq. The raids aim to cripple one of the militants’ primary sources of cash — black market oil sales that the U.S. says generate up to $2 million a day…………”

It is well to hit the oil wells they have occupied in Syria (and Iraq). But there is a cheaper more efficient way to throttle their oil revenues: a bomb-less way. How do they sell the oil? To whom do they sell the oil? More important: by which route is that oil shipped?

That last question, the route, is the gorilla in the war room. Dealing with it requires some neighborly cooperation from one particular country.There is no sea outlet for the oil since the terrorists don’t control any ports or even any coastal regions. Their only route seems to be through NATO member Turkey. Across the border into Turkey and into the markets. Get Mr. Erdogan to shut the ISIS oil route, if he can. Get him to be less vague, less vague and tentative, about his ties to the Jihadis in Syria (and by extension in Iraq). 

Unless there is another route I am not aware of through which the Caliphate petroleum is shipped.

Then there is that other money route, the one we know that leads “north” into Syria and Iraq.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Al-Qaeda, Caliphate, Syria, Terrorism, US Foreign Policy

Obama’s Curious Syrian Blind Date with Assorted Cutthroats……….

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“Obama runs the risk of mission creep in Syria……. However, the key test will be for the US president. Having committed his forces to the fight, he needs to reflect on the lessons of past unsuccessful campaigns. Two-thirds of Americans support the US attack on Isis. But to retain that support, he must set clear goals and avoid the curse of mission creep………..”

That is normal, this mission creep: it goes with war, all wars. Going to war is not like giving a birthday party, as I tweeted yesterday. Much more unpredictable. It is almost like going out on a blind date: you can never be sure how things will turn out. That is why they called them ‘blind’.

In this case Mr. Obama is going on a double (nay multiple) blind date, along with a gaggle of princes and potentates. Whom he had to pressure and coerce to forcefully side against their wayward fellow Wahhabis of ISIS and Al Nusra and other assorted international cutthroats.

Just don’t get blindsided.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Caliphate, Iraq, Jihad, Turkey, U.S. Foreign Policy

Turkey and the Caliphate of IS: You Scratch my Back and……..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“Turkey, however, did not join the 10 Arab countries that signed on to help build a coalition against IS at a meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, this past week, and has made it clear that it will not partake in military operations against IS. It is willing to provide humanitarian aid, and will in all likelihood offer clandestine support to U.S. efforts. The primary reason the Turks give for their reticence was their concern for the fate of 49 Turkish diplomatic and security personnel who were seized by IS when the group overran the Iraqi city of Mosul; they were released this past weekend. The hostage crisis was emblematic of all that has gone wrong for Turkey in Syria…………..”

Turkey bet on the Syrian rebels early on. In those heady early days of the Arab Uprisings of 2011, when they looked and sounded and smelled like an Arab Spring. Early on, the Turks started voicing support for the Syrian protests, then for the armed Syrian rebels. No doubt partly because they knew that a large portion of the protesters were Sunni fundamentalists of the kind Mr. Erdogan can be comfortable dealing with.

That was just before the nascent Syrian uprising was hijacked by Persian Gulf Wahhabi princes and their Salafi allies. Before it was bought with vast amounts of petroleum money flowing north from Saudi Arabia and Qatar and other places. Before it was quickly changed into a blatantly sectarian movement of hundreds of rival groups and gangs of Jihadis, quasi-Jihadis, and kidnappers fighting Assad and each other.
The Turkish government opened its borders to everyone who was heading into Syria to fight the Assad regime. Foreign volunteers from the Gulf, North Africa, and Europe flowed into Syria from the Turkish borders. As did weapons and money. If this Caliphate is selling Syrian (or Iraqi) oil, as some reports claim, then their only route for that would be through Turkey, with the cooperation of the authorities.
Meanwhile, the sources of volunteers and money for the Jihad were secure in their palaces in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi. They were far away from the Syrian borders and hence felt shrapnel from the Syrian crisis, which they had converted into a sectarian civil war, would not touch them. They wanted to manage the Syrian war and shape its outcome to serve their interests even as starry eyed Western pundits waxed poetic about the war for democracy and freedom in Syria. Which is also what the Turks aimed for: to manage the Syrian war.

The Turks have been scratching the Jihadist backs for three years. Now ISIS have released the Turkish hostages from Mosul. No beheadings there, but then the Turkish hostages probably were all of the right religion and sect. Not surprising that the Turks are staying away from this new NATO campaign against the Caliphate, to the extent of refusing to “cooperate” with the air campaign.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, GCC, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy

Mr. Obama’s New Syrian Alibi: a Pig With Lipstick………

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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Mr. Obama has now got his Arab alibi. He has got the Arab, actually GCC, cosmetics he thinks he needs to expand the war into Syria:

  • The rulers of tiny Bahrain, which need foreign mercenaries and Saudi troops to keep their own rebellious people at bay and repressed, are allegedly bombing the Hollywood Caliphate of ISIS.
  • The United Arab Emirates, a country so full of foreign military bases it looks like Persian Gulf Swiss cheese, is also doing likewise. No news yet if their Blackwater-modeled mercenary army of Colombians and Australians and other foreigners will be involved.
  • Ditto for the rulers of Qatar, who don’t have enough troops to fill two World Cup stadiums in 2022. Let alone wage war on anybody.
  • Apparently Saudi Arabia is also involved, somehow although it is not clear how and in what capacity are the oily slippery princes involved.

So, Mr. Obama has got his “Arab” alibi, his GCC fig leaf, although we all know the ‘real’ war will be American, with some French huffing and puffing. But at what price this GCC alibi? He must have promised a deeper American involvement in Syria, well beyond attacking the Wahhabi Jihadist cutthroats of ISIS. He must have promised something beyond ISIS and Al Qaeda: something like a repeat of NATO’s Libyan adventure in 2011. The results of which we are now enjoying from Tripoli to Benghazi. The temptation and the push by the Wahhabi camp for Mr. Obama to get deeper into the Syrian “civil war” will be strong.

Yes, there is something about cosmetics nagging at the back of my mind. I recall what Mr. Obama famously said during the 2008 campaign for president. Something about “a pig with lipstick is still a pig“. Even if we call it a coalition.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Caliphate, Iraq, Islamic History, Jihadis, Syria, Uncategorized, US Foreign Policy

Where is Caliph Al Baghdadi? the Road to Manhattan………

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“Put yourself in the shoes (and sixth-century black robes) of ISIS’ Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the mysterious boss of the terror group that is striking fear into the hearts of leaders around the world………. Baghdadi, his Cabinet advisers and his two key deputies comprise the executive branch of the government, known as “Al Imara.” The two deputies — Abu Ali al-Anbari and Abu Muslim al-Turkmani, veteran Iraqi military officials who served under Saddam Hussein — to oversee Syria and Iraq………..”

This Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, reportedly né Ibrahim al-Samarrai, is a curious character, as far as Wahhabi terrorist mass murderers go. We have had only one public sighting of him, with a Hollywood-style setting and Ben Hur attire. Allah be praised, as old Hollywood films claim we always say. That was when he gave us the good news and glad tidings that, yes, he has decided to declare himself the latest Caliph, the latest Khalifa successor of the Prophet Mohammed. Ruler of the Umma (that would not be all of us, only those willing to convert to the joys of Wahhabism).

What is interesting now is that he seems to have joined Waldo in an undisclosed location. There has been no news from or about him. There is no personality cult around him. No hint of it after that inaugural appearance, not yet. A personality cult is the first thing a new Arab regime usually starts with. But that is probably related to the religious nature of this movement and this temporary “state”. Even Osama Bin Laden had more of a personality cult in the Western media than he did among Sunni Muslims or even among many fellow Wahhabi Muslims (no need to explain what Shi’as and others thought of him).
Could be that power among the leadership of ISIS is more dispersed and less concentrated, more by consensus, than is common in our region. That could be a deliberate attempt to imitate the very first four Caliphs of Islam, from Abu Bakr through Ali. After that came the Umayyads and the Islamic State became a hereditary monarchy. Or could be that this Caliph is just trying hard to avoid the same fate as the humorless Jordanian terrorist Abu Mus’eb Al Zarqawi and Osama Bin Laden and a few others.

No news yet on whether Caliph Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi plans to attend the coming session of the United Nations General Assembly. It would be fun if the president of Columbia University invites him to be grilled or roasted on campus, as he did for Ahmadinejad a few years ago. Perhaps he will send Izzat Ibrahim al Douri (Abu Baath), Saddam’s surviving albino deputy.

Legend has it that al Samarrai has,  in the past, promised to get to New York,  to get New York. I strongly suspect and hope, however, that New York will get to him, will get him, first.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Caliphate, Iraq, Piss-Up in a Brewery, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy, Wahhabi

Myth of Arab Forces in Iraq and Syria: Organizing a Piss-Up in a Brewery………

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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There has been a lot of talk lately about non-American boots on the ground in Iraq and Syria. Some of the senators during the Armed Forces Committee hearings earlier today, as well as on the media, have been mentioning “Arab forces” that would augment Iraqi forces and Syrian Wahhabi opposition forces.

I got some news for these senators and pundits. If the Iraqi people objected to extended American military presence in their country beyond 2011, do you really believe they would welcome suspected outside Arab forces? This is the age of sectarianism, initially packaged and promoted by several Arab regimes (and I don’t men Iraq and Syria here) as a divide-and-rule strategy. Wahhabi forces from sparsely-populated Saudi Arabia and UAE and Qatar and possibly politically Wahhabi-ized forces from Egypt? Given their history in Iraq and the grief they have caused the people over there with their export of terrorists and weapons and money? Not to mention these regimes’ historical disrespect for the Shi’a (Shi’ite) holy shrines. (Wahhabis have raided Karbala and Najaf in past centuries with the aim of destroying the shrines).

I got some more news for the same senators and pundits. The same objections apply to Syria. Can you imagine the Saudi army and the UAE and Qatari hired-mercenary armies facing the Syrian army and its Hezbollah allies (and possibly other violent allies)? Not to mention facing their own hardened fellow Wahhabi Jihadis who have moved to the dark side with ISIS and Al-Qaeda.

Besides, my rule of thumb of war is against it: you can’t expect them to face these battle-toughened forces if they can’t even organize, militarily, a proverbial “piss-up in a brewery“. And we know these princes and potentates can’t organize that proverbial “piss up in a brewery“. Speaking militarily for now.

This myth of Arab forces inside Iraq and Syria needs to be put to rest. The whole idea is not even DOA: it is dead from before its ill-advised inception.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]