Category Archives: Syria

Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Iran, Jordan, Mossad, Syria, US Foreign Policy

Qassem Suleimani Pops Up in Amman: Good Housekeeping Seal, LOL or SOS?…….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“Debkafile’s military and intelligence sources reveal exclusively that Gen. Qassem Soleiman, commander of the Revolutionary Guards elite Al Qods Brigades, paid a groundbreaking visit last Thursday, March 5, to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan as guest of Gen. Faisal Al-Shoulbaki, director of General Intelligence and a close adviser to King Abdullah II.The visit, encouraged by Obama administration policy, showed one of America’s oldest Sunni Arab allies, recognizing the di rection of the trending regional reality to jump the lines over to Tehran. Iran’s grab for Middle East influence is now reaching from four capitals, Baghdad, Damascus, Sanaa, Beirut to a fifth, Amman………………..”

Some of these Israeli not-official-anymore sources are beginning to sound as crazy as many Arab sources. Almost as crazy. Especially when it comes to Iranian Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani and his travels in the region. This Israeli narrative claims that he has visited Amman recently, smack in the humorless kingdom of Jordan. While he was still in Iraq shoring up the campaign against the murderous Caliphate of ISIS in Tikrit. Or maybe in Syria, or along the Kurdish border. Or was that Yemen? Still, it is possible that he snuck into Amman for a quickie, but unlikely. Unless he intends to participate in training the New New Syrian opposition, the New Improved FSA, the latest iteration that is being financed by the Saudis, Emiratis, et al. But it can’t be: this new FSA is reported to have the Good HouseKeeping Seal of Approval, from the Capitol to Riyadh.

As early as early 2013, some Persian Gulf media, owned by the oligarchy, claimed that he, Suleimani, was in Egypt, apparently holed up at some Cairo hotel. Meeting his Egyptian (Muslim Brotherhood) counterparts over drinks at a Cairo bar. The goal was clearly to discredit the ruling Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo for improbably mixing with such company of ill-repute. It was to set the stage for the Gulf-financed military coup d’etat by General Al Sisi (who promoted himself to Field Marshal after the coup).

In case you are confused, here are links to some earlier posts of the General’s travels and various dastardly acts he has been engaged in:

OH OH, QASSEM SULEIMANI IS BACK STALKING YOUR DREAMS………

FIRST BLOOD? IRANIANS IN THE BATTLE FOR IRAQ………..

QASSEM SULEIMANI: PLOTTER WITH MORSI, DRUG SMUGGLER TO GCC, ELECTION MANAGER IN IRAQ ………….

BREAKING NEWS: NETANYAHU TO BLAME IRAN’S QASSEM SULEIMANI FOR LIBYA TERROR ATTACK……….

MORE ON IRAN’S QASSEM SULEIMANI: SOLVING THE MYSTERY…………

PREDICTABLE SYRIAN WAR: IRANIAN SULEIMANI TO ASSAD, FRENCH ANTI-AIRCRAFT TO FSA……………

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                         Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Iran, Iraq, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy

Fighters of ISIS: Soldiers, Wahhabis, Mullahs, and Crusaders………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“He’s best known for bankrolling Republicans Rick Santorum and Scott Walker afloat, but Foster Friess has a new cause a long way from D.C. Republican megadonor Foster Friess is shifting his sights from political campaigns to a military campaign: to fight ISIS and save Kurdish lives. Behind the scenes, the conservative Christian has been traveling to the Middle East to support the vulnerable Kurdish minority in Iraq, and then coming back to the U.S. to lobby for arming and training their militias, known as the Peshmerga. These forces are on the front lines of the war with ISIS……………”

Media and many politicians here (in the USA) have barely lost the afterglow of their Washington orgy with Benyamin Netanyahu. Now it is back to business: now they profess to be terribly worried about Iraq again. No, not worried about ISIS controlling so much territory. Not about the continued terrorist suicide bombings against civilians that kill and maim every day. They are not worried about ‘the war’ itself or about the people of Iraq (or Syria).

They are worried about the reported Iranian help to Iraqis against ISIS, specifically around Tikrit. Even as Western boots are on the ground, many more of them than we know. Even as Arab Wahhabi air forces fly over Iraq and Syria, bombing ISIS. Even as Wahhabi Arabs start hosting training facilities for more Wahhabi rebels in Syria. Even as jingoists like John McCain and other Likudniks in Washington call for even more robust American intervention, like an effective invasion of Syria.

And where do they get their ideas that the ‘region is seething’ at Iranian ‘intervention’ in Iraq? Not from the real masses of Arabs that stretch all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. No, from the very same Wahhabi Arab potentates who created Al-Qaeda and ISIS and from where Arab money and volunteers still flow through Turkey, and from the former Baathists in Iraq. They get them from princes and potentates of what Field Marshal Generalissimo Al Sisi, their own creation, called ‘half-states’.

The terrorists of ISIS and others have always claimed that Western intervention is a continuation of the Crusades. That is not true, not completely, not on the policy-making level. Now they can point out to this rich Christian-Salafi man and possibly others as proof that the West has no respect for Muslims even as it claims to free them from Jihadist terror. People like him should stay away, they only serve the propaganda of the Caliphate. The politicians that he owns should also stay away: they don’t know Middle East issues from the proverbial hole in the ground.

What next? Owner of the Republican Party Sheldon Adelson will start his own militia to liberate Arabs and Muslims? He can start on the West Bank………….

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, MENA, Syria, US Foreign Policy

McCain’s Half-Empty Glass: Questionable Terms of Reference…….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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Saw John McCain on MSNBC (Morning Joe). It was predictable: he did not add anything new to my knowledge. He never disappoints (me or his interviewer):

  • When asked about the Iran nuclear talks (P5+1) talks: he quoted Netanyahu (always of questionable veracity to the world on the other side of the Atlantic or the Pacific), Arab allies (Wahhabi powers Saudi Arabia, Qatari, UAE……… all true democracies).
  • When asked about Syria: insisted on his old mantra of no-fly zones, train more dubious current or future Wahhabi recommendations. Roll the dice again and see what comes up, maybe something better will happen than in the past (Al-Nusra, ISIS, Al-Sham, etc). He did not mention that the main US trained opposition group just joined Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria today.
  • About Iraq. When asked about some towns freed from ISIS by Iraqi forces, he grumbled that there were also formerly-hostile Iraqi Shi’a militias who contributed. Always a half-empty glass.
  • He did praise Zbigniew Brzezinski, to his daughter, as a cold-warrior. He forgot to add that the Afghan campaign (against the Soviets and their Afghan allies) gave us modern Jihadism, then Al-Qaeda, then its ISIS offspring. That the Arab (and Turkish) intervention in Syria funded and enabled the growth of this new monstrous Caliphate.
  • Asked about Russia and Ukraine: send forces to Poland and the Baltic.
  • I didn’t hear anything about “liberated” Libya. Remember Libya that was liberated by McCain and Lieberman and Bernard-Henri Levy and Tony Blair (and NATO)? Or maybe I just subconsciously blocked it.

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, GCC, Jihadists, Syria

Strategic Science Fiction: Unified Arab Force, Unified Arab Farce…….

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“As threats in the Middle East grow, there’s a pressing need in the region, Egypt’s President said Sunday. “The need for a unified Arab force is growing and becoming more pressing every day,” President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said in a televised address, noting that Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have offered to send troops as Egypt steps up its efforts to battle ISIS in neighboring Libya………”

Also sprach Field Marshal Al Sisi, elected president of Egypt by almost 98% of the vote last year.
They are now talking about a unified Arab force to fight the murderous jihadis of ISIS from Libya to Syria and Iraq. And possibly fight ‘others’ after that. From Arab politicians to Western media pundits and retired generals and even former CIA agents. Everybody is suddenly a strategist: a Napoleon and a Caesar.

There has never been an effective unified Arab force in modern times. There is a joint Gulf GCC force called the Peninsula Shield that was supposed to be a joint “defense” force against external threats. It failed its only chance to defend when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, by not showing up. The only ‘operation’ on its resume has been to intervene in Bahrain and crush the pro-democracy uprising there during the Arab Spring of 2011. This is typical of Arab armed forces: their priority is protection of the ruling order against internal unrest. We have seen this across the board, from Libya to Egypt to Syria and Bahrain and Yemen.

A joint Arab force to fight the Caliphate of IS? With actual casualties and body bags? Unlikely that the Arab countries can sustain the needed human costs. Besides the hesitation to enter, say, Syria and become sitting ducks between the two sides, the Jihadis and the Syrian army and its allies. Just imagine humorless Jordanian and United Arab Emirates troops facing two formidable opponents in a two-front war: skilled experienced and suicidal Wahhabi Jihadists and Syrian army veterans plus Hezbollah. The UAE, with barely 1 million citizens, reportedly has an imported foreign mercenary force for its own internal security. Just imagining the Emirates in such a battle merits a resounding WTF plus an LOL (and possibly an Oscar for science fiction).

The first battle might be the last one, a Waterloo. Besides, a unified Arab military force would be the worst thing to happen to the Arab peoples now. It will only lead to unified repression: one force with one strategy and one deadly force to keep the repression and the oppression going. Exactly what happened in Bahrain.

I suspect the push is more from the West, mainly from some hawks in the US. It makes sense to have an Arab force in order to “legitimize” action and make it politically acceptable at home, or so they think. The real action would be by NATO powers, a la Libya 2011. Some of the Arab princes and potentates are no doubt thinking of a post-ISIS phase, when they can ‘clean house’ in Syria and maybe in Lebanon. They have allies over here as well for that endeavor.
Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy

Saudis and Qataris and Turks to Teach Syrian Rebels the Basics of Democracy……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“The United States and Turkey have reached a tentative agreement to train and equip moderate Syrian opposition fighters and expect to sign the pact soon, U.S. and Turkish officials said on Tuesday with Ankara predicting a signing in days. U.S. officials have said they plan to train about 5,000 Syrian fighters a year for three years under the plan. Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as Turkey, have publicly offered to host training sites…………”

If you liked the results of the earlier double Wahhabi (Qatari and Saudi) intervention in Syria, you’ll probably love this one. If you liked the results so far of the intervention by Saudi princes, Qatari potentates, and Turkish fundamentalists, then you’ll love this new development. If you liked Jabhat Al Nusra, Ahrar Al Sham, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and the other cutthroat groups that morphed from the various iterations of the Free Syrian salafi Army, you’ll probably love this new iteration. Now we learn that Doha and Riyadh, the two bastions of free speech and electoral democracy are offering to host the training camps of the moderate humanitarian Syrian rebels who fight alongside Jabhat Al Qaeda of Syria. They are sure to learn how to win a civil war and rule Syria, as soon as pigs learn to fly.
Know what I think? I think President Obama may not be buying it either. He is being pressed by the princes and bulldozed by Senate jingoists like John McCain and Lindsey Graham, the same group that gave us the New Liberated Libya and the Caliphate of ISIS.
Read what a former advocate of the Syrian opposition, former U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford thinks now of the Syrian rebels, read it here.
Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

Al-Qaeda, Caliphate, Iraq, Syria, Terrorism, Turkey, Uncategorized, US Foreign Policy

Caliphate: Islamo-Baathism and Al Rishawi’s Wardrobe Malfunction……….

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Caliphate of ISIS seems to be a coalition of at least two strange bedfellows:

One is an offshoot of Al Qaeda, the AQI that was once led by Jordanian terrorist Abu Mes’ab Al Zarqawi. Zarqawi plagued Iraq for a few years with acts that were gruesome even by the standards of Iraq’s bloody history. He hailed from Zarqa, another humorless town in Jordan, hence his Jihadi nom de guerre (they usually add the hometown or home country of the cutthroat as a last name). Al Zarqa in Jordan was proud of her native son, even as he terrorized Iraqi peasants and townsfolk, especially Shi’as whom he publicly called a snake (coincidentally the late Saudi King Abdullah had urged the U.S. to cut the head of the snake by attacking or invading Iran, according to Wikileaks documents).

Zarqawi was a celebrity in his hometown, and he was eulogized extensively in that grim town after the Americans delivered his just deserts in 2006. But hero-worshipping Zarqawi had suddenly started being frowned upon in Jordan after the Jihadis blew up several hotels and killed a bunch of people in Amman. One of the terrorists survived because she had a wardrobe malfunction, literally, and her explosives didn’t detonate (Sajida Al Rishawai who was executed in Jordan last week).

The other major component of this Caliphate, inside Iraq, consists of former Baathists. These are generals and colonels and lower military men who deserted Baghdad when the Americans attacked in 2003 and vanished for safety (long before Paul Bremer officially disbanded the old Iraqi army, that army had disbanded itself and deserted without fighting for Baghdad or any other town). These also include security men, experts at interrogation, terror, and torture. It is probably these Baathists who are the major link to the tribes of Al Anbar and to former rank and file men of the old armed forces. Iraqi Sunnis, even the tribal types of the border regions, traditionally are not of the Wahhabi Al-Qaeda type mindset, most of them are/were rather secular (by Muslim standards). Could it be a marriage of convenience? It could, but for how long? It certainly will not survive the loss/fall of Mosul, whenever that happens.

Then there are the foreigners and their women be they Arabs or Europeans. Their case is obvious: it takes dedicated Wahhabism or dedicated birdbrains or both to buy the stuff these people spread over the various media.

Then there are the outsiders, the enablers and financiers of the campaign of terror. These hail mainly from Arab states, especially the Gulf states, and the Islamist rulers of Turkey and its military, who have for years allowed all foreign Jihadis to cross the border into Syria. An apparent silent alliance of Turkish officials and the Caliphate. Even as some fools in the U.S. Senate and Congress agonize over whether Turkey will be willing to actively join a coalition against the Caliphate of terror. Not realizing that Turkey, like some Arabs, has been in this war for a few years. On the other side.
Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

Arab Revolutions, Jihadis, Salafi, Syria, US Foreign Policy

Free Syrian Salafi Army: Under New Management Again?……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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I use a telltale sign in avoiding restaurants and some other businesses. Whenever I see a large sign over a restaurant that promises: “Under New Management“, I know I should stay away. The larger the sign, the more certain I am. Ditto for other businesses.

Which brings me to the so-called Free Syrian Army (which I originally and presciently dubbed Free Syrian Salafi Army from the beginning in 2011). Of Course some senators and Arab oil princes have never stopped pushing the idea of this FSA, even as it was sinking deeper into irrelevance. They are still pushing for it, even as it has been “Under New Management” several times in the past four years.

Now they, the Arab princes and their Senate pals, want a yet newer iteration of the same old stale now-defunct Free Syrian Army. They want a no-fly zone which the United Nations will never agree to after the NATO deception in Libya. And they want boots on the ground from countries that created, fed, armed, and wed ISIS (ISIL, DAESH). And they want boots on the ground from countries that have no boots to put on the ground. Arab countries that need to rely on imported foreign mercenaries to keep their own peoples repressed.
Can you repeat the same mistakes and expect better results? Miracles do happen………
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Afghanistan, Caliphate, Libya, Syria

Washington’s Liberation Theology: Charlie Wilson’s Wars………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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Saw Senator John McCain on TV when I woke up this morning. He was making the rounds of cable networks. He was asked as expected about ISIS (ISIL, DAESH). He answered with the same old mantra of the past three or four years: “No Fly Zone, Free Syrian Army“.

Except the old Free Syrian Army that he and the Arab princes had been pushing in Syria is no more. It has been completely Wahhabi-ized, as ‘we’ warned of so long ago. The ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels, the wine-sippers, have left their five-star hotels along the Turkish border and departed for Paris, Abu Dhabi, Doha, and other venues. As ‘we’ predicted two years ago, it is now ISIS, DAESH, Al-Nusra, Ahrar Al-Sham, WTF, etc.
It is amazing how they go back to the same playbook that created this mess to start with. The playbook of Afghanistan in the 1980s: Western weapons and Wahhabi oil money used in tandem to liberate a Muslim country from its present and hand it over to the joys of Wahhabism:

  • We saw it in Afghanistan after 1989, when the Mujahideen took over ‘liberated’ Kabul and set to destroy it, before handing it over to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda to finish the job. But that was okay, we got a good Hollywood film out of Charlie Wilson’s War.
  • We saw it again in Libya, when NATO used a loophole in a UN resolution to bomb the country and hand it over to the current warring Wahhabi terrorist groups who now dominate it and are in the process of destroying it. Afghanistan Redux on the Shores of Tripoli.
  • They pushed for a repeat in Syria, and Obama and Hillary Clinton made the right political noises about the longevity of Bashar Al Assad.
  • Meanwhile John McCain and his sidekicks started their own war on the Syrian-Turkish border, with a lot of help from Turkish fundamentalists and repressive Arab oil princes eager to explore the delights of a democratic Syria where free speech would reign.

Can you repeat the same mistakes and expect better results? Miracles do happen.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Caliphate, Iran, Iraq, Islam, Syria

Iranian Boots Now Officially ‘On the Ground’ in Iraq and Syria……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“Iran’s Supreme Leader has permitted a limited group of Iranian youth to fight along with “Iraqi, Syrian and Lebanese brothers,” according to Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammed Ali Jafari. Jafari, while addressing a ceremony in Tehran last Friday, mentioned discussions he had with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, saying that “despite the number of youth who are permitted to join the fighting (outside Iran), no one else should leave the country” for resistance abroad, the Iranian Mashregh news agency reported……………”

Everybody has known for some time that there are Iranian advisers, and maybe some combatants, serving in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State and other armed groups. We have all seen ‘leaked’ photos of the enigmatic Brig. Suleimani in Iraq. Everybody has also known that there are Arab, American, and European fighters and advisers on both sides in Iraq and Syria. Some of the latter are official with the regulation boots, others who are mainly on the Jihadi side are free-lancers. This new report about Ayatollah Khamenei makes things ‘official’ now. Especially in view of the potential casualties which are impossible to hide in a Muslim society where a death and its rites are a very public matter.

Officially the wars in Syria and Iraq are now part of a multi-layered wider war: a sectarian war within a regional war within a global war. Which they have been for some years now, but unofficially. Now which box should be opened first? Which layer should be peeled first to reach the heart of the matter and solve it?

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Caliphate, Iraq, Media, Syria, Terrorism

Seeking the Caliphate: Advice to Wayward Journalists and Concubines…….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

Kenji Goto of Japan was beheaded today, as seemed inevitable if the ISIS Caliphate did not receive the freed Sajida Al Rishawi. It is becoming gradually, and painfully, obvious that two types of travelers, fellow travelers, now head into harm’s way at their own risk. They should know the potential consequences by now. These two are:

  • Foreign journalists who seek information or a scoop or glory in harm’s way. They should know by now that these Wahhabi cutthroats go by identity and have no respect for non-combatants. A foreign journalist is the same to them as a foreign soldier. Just stop doing it, and if you do go in, be ready to bear the consequences. If I go there I fully expect to get beheaded, why shouldn’t these foreign journalists expect the same? Just don’t do it.
  • Foreign women who seek their glory in warming the beds of the cutthroats. They should by now know the consequences: if you get in, you are in for the long haul.
  • If you want to report on human tragedy there are many other places that need world attention more than Iraq and Syria. Go to North Africa, or the Sahel, or Yemen, or Pakistan: seek your resurrection and glory elsewhere. Just stay the hell out of Syria and Iraq. Ditto if you are a European woman who wants to shack up with Jihadists. 

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter