Tag Archives: Syria

Afghanistan, Caliphate, Libya, Syria

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

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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……..

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“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…….

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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

Caliphate, Japan, Jordan, Terrorism

Western Delusions about Kenji Goto, Al Rishawi, and Jordan……….

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“The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) demanded the release of a woman being held in Jordan for allegedly attempting to carry out a series of terrorist attacks in 2005, Reuters news agency reported. In a broadcast carried by the Al-Bayan radio, which transmits in areas the group controls, ISIS described Sajida al-Rishawi as “our sister” asking for her release in exchange for the freedom of Kenji Goto, a Japanese hostage held by the militants. Rishawi is a would-be Iraqi female suicide bomber on death row in Jordan in connection with triple hotel bomb attacks in Amman that killed 60 people…………….”

Sometimes Western pundits and media experts seem delusional about the Middle East. Take the example of the remaining Japanese hostage held by ISIS, Kenji Goto. There is serious talk among Western ‘experts’ that perhaps the humorless Kingdom of Jordan might release an Iraqi terrorist in exchange for him, as the terrorists have demanded. They mean an Iraqi woman, Sajida Al-Rishwai, who participated in bombings in Amman hotels that killed tens of people during the days of Al-Zarqawi. She claims she was coerced by her husband, which is very likely, although she failed to detonate it in the end.
They actually think that Jordan could release the woman, Rishawi, as ISIS is demanding in exchange for the Japanese man. I have some bad news for them.
Can you imagine the uproar in Jordan if the woman is released in order to free a Japanese hostage in Syria? At a time when ISIS is holding a Jordanian Air Force pilot who was shot down over Syria? If the Jordanian pilot is indeed a hostage and not just a defector from the humorless Jordanian Air Force. Which reminds me: we have not read much about how he happened to end up in the hands of ISIS.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Al Aqeda, Arabian Peninsula, U.S. Foreign Policy, Yemen

American Friends, American Enemies: from Syrians to Al Qaeda to Houthis……….

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Strange state of American foreign policy these days. There are cases and situations where allies and foes can be exchanged:

  • The current leader of America’s allegedly closest ally (Israel) and the U.S. president intensely dislike each other. It is obvious they have little respect for each other. Mr. Obama knows that Benyamin Netanyahu bears him ill will, besides being a habitual liar who can’t be trusted (imagine, a politician lying to another politician!). Most Western European leaders also believe the same. Mr. Netanyahu clearly believes that the U.S. president is a weakling who is not willing to launch an attack on Iran on Israel’s behalf. In fairness nor did George W Bush, but Netanyahu would never dare openly defy Bush.
  • Mr. Obama believes that a nuclear deal with Iran is better than yet another American war waged against yet another Muslim country. Especially given the doubtful outcome, the cost-benefit of that war. America’s closest allies outside Europe, the Israelis, and the ruling potentates and princes of some Persian Gulf states, strongly object to almost any feasible deal.
  • The Republican leader of the U.S. Congress has invited Mr. Netanyahu to deliver a speech to a joint session of Congress, just after President Obama’s State of the Union Speech. Basically they are inviting  a foreign leader to respond to the U.S. president. Inside the U.S Congress! Unheard of anywhere in the world.
  • Mr. Obama also now has problems with some of his Arab allies regarding Syria. He and his advisers and most the American foreign policy establishment have revised their position on the Syrian civil war. Most have realized in the past year or so the real danger in Syria now is not the survival of Bashar Al Assad, but what will come afterwards. They were hoodwinked by Saudi, Emirati, and Qatari potentates into betting on the Free Syrian Army, which also did a good job of selling itself to some gullible and jingoistic American senators like McCain and Graham and the not-so-dearly-departed Lieberman. The Free Syrian Army soon morphed, most of it, into Al Nusra Front and ISIS and other groups of kidnappers and cutthroats. 
  • The Americans and the Syrians and Hezbollah and the Iranians are now fighting the same enemy, the Jihadis. For now. Eventually, the Americans would like for Al Assad and Iran and Hezbollah to go away (I am not sure where they can go since they live in the region). Eventually the Syrians and Iranians and Hezbollah would like for the Americans to go away (also not feasible any time soon).
  • To complicate matters, there pops up Yemen, hardly felix now. In Yemen, the United States is trying hard to stem and roll back the regional Al Qaeda branch (AQAP) mainly by bombing its Saudi and Yemeni leadership. So are the new power wielders in Yemen, the Houthis who now control the capital. Yet the Gulf states, especially the Saudi princes and the UAE potentates, don’t approve of the Houthis. Besides their faith which is an offshoot of Shi’ism, they are also suspected of being too close to the Iranian regime. You can’t get any more heretical than that from a Wahhabi point of view. The Houthis do sport some silly Iranian-like anti-American slogans on posters in Sanaa, but it is not clear (to me) if their heart is in it. Nor where they stand ideologically regarding an Iran-style theocracy.
  • So the Houthis fight Al Qaeda. The Houthis are reported to be supplied by Iran, although they don’t seem to carry advanced weapons, unlike Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Americans fight Al Qaeda. Both Houthis and Al Qaeda fight the previous dominant tribal oligarchs of Yemen. Al Qaeda also as usual kidnaps and/or kills any Westerners (or Shi’as) they can get their hands on. Then there are the separatists of South Yemen who would like to regain the independence they lost in 1990. Complicated? Just hang on, it is going to get even more complicated in the coming weeks.
  • Then there is Lebanon, a place the Israeli military seem unable to stay away from. Once I likened it to the moth unable to resist the light and the fire, and cleverly if I may say so. We shall leave Lebanon, and Iraq, and North Africa for another day.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Caliphate, Syria, U.S. Senate

Liberators of Syria: a Few Senators, a Gaggle of Absolute Potentates, and Salafis……..

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Senator Lindsey Graham was on (CNN) last evening, telling Erin Burnett that he just got back from Saudi Arabia where he met commanders and leaders of the Free Syrian Army. Commanders who are allegedly striving to free Syria from bases in the free democratic bastion that is Saudi Arabia.

I did not realize that the Free Syrian Salafi Army still survived anywhere outside the imagination of a handful of senators, and maybe some motels along the Turkish border. The FSA, which is on its last leg, and its Saudi trainers(?) told him that Assad is selling oil for ISIS, or was it buying from ISIS, or something to that effect. Maybe that is so. They also told him a bunch of other “stuff” about the region, especially Syria. They apparently forgot to tell him about the role of Turkey and the Saudis and others in the continued the growth of the terrorist Caliphate of ISIS.

Graham insisted on re-opening the file on U.S. military intervention in Syria. That is his pet project, he and Senator McCain. He seemed to be saying something to the effect that “Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and Turkey are ready to send forces into Syria to liberate it“. Turkey? Turkey has so far refused to join the coalition: it still allows Jihadis to cross freely into Syria (including one Hayat Boumedienne). The UAE doesn’t have enough native people to patrol its own streets; unless it lends its foreign mercenaries. Saudi forces were defeated by the ragtag tribal Houthis only three years ago.

The senator added that only no-fly zones are needed from the US. No-fly zones against Bashar Al Assad, not against ISIS. A simple and reasonable demand, no?
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Hezbollah, Lebanon, Media, Uncategorized, Whistleblowers

Hezbollah’s Mysterious Eager Talkative Whistleblower Commanders………

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“Around a kitchen table in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a midlevel Hezbollah commander moved empty coffee cups and a plastic water bottle around a cell phone, demonstrating how his men repelled an assault by what he said were Islamic State fighters along Lebanon’s border with Syria……..Sporting a neatly trimmed beard, weathered face, and thick khaki cargo pants, this commander, now in his 40s, first fought for Hezbollah during the group’s operations against Israel, when small teams of fighters carried out clandestine cross-border raids. The current war he’s fighting, against rebels trying to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, is much different………. But just as Hezbollah has changed the Syrian war, the conflict has also changed Hezbollah. The organization has become much larger, and its fighters have received the training that only involvement in a long conflict can provide. But at the same time, in some ways, the party is becoming unwieldy and more vulnerable to corruption and infiltration………..”

It says: “Around a kitchen table in Beirut’s southern suburbs“: a cute American touch. Around a kitchen table in the suburbs where Hezbollah is alleged to be entrenched. There have  been several of these anonymous Hezbollah blabbermouths in recent months, all eager to let it all pour out for some Western reporter who often can’t understand Arabic and can’t tell a Lebanese accent from a proverbial hole in the ground.

This Abu Ali: a cute local ethnic touch picking that name, no doubt a ‘nickname’ suggested by some amenable ‘locals’. Somehow it reminds me of Tom Friedman’s favorite Arab cab driver. Abdo in Cairo, Abed in Beirut, Abul Abed in humorless Amman (and maybe Abboudi in Baghdad and Abu Dong in Beijing).

I wonder if he was truly a forties-something Hezbollah ‘commander’ or just a pretender. I can’t imagine the Party allowing its commanders to talk openly to Western media about sensitive issues. Not even seasoned commanders. They probably suspect that some Western correspondents are Mossad agents. This ‘commander’ could be a March 14 minion, he could be Mossad, he could be a cross-dressing actress for that matter. He could be some clever Lebanese scammer doing it for the money. I am not sure, but there have been so many of these improbable blabbing ‘commanders’ of Hezbollah in Western newspapers that I take each and every one with a grain of salt. To be polite. Unless Hezbollah sent to them to implant certain ideas.

And these whistleblowers seem to only talk to Western media correspondents, mainly those hostile to Hezbollah.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Humor, Jordan, Syria

Humorless Caliphate Captures a Jordanian Pilot………

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Have Yourself a Merry Little——-> Kenny G. Christmas 

Al-Manar (the favorite Lebanese network of Mr. Netanyahu) reports that Ban Ki-Moon (Moony of the UN) has asked the Caliphate of ISIS (ISIL, DAESH, WTF) to treat the downed Jordanian pilot humanely. The pilot, from humorless Jordan, was downed while bombing or trying to bomb the hell out of the humorless ISIS terrorists. So, even if the terrorists have enough sense of humor to appreciate this very ‘Christian’ request, it is highly unlikely they will comply. What was odd was the Obama administration condemning ISIS for the capture of the pilot. I am not happy about his capture either, but what were they supposed to do? Give him a medal of the First Class Order of Caliph Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi?

Moony asks them to treat the pilot humanely. He might as well ask them to give up their captured slave girls (all non-Wahhabis) and become monogamists and maybe convert and join a meg-buck church in the USA. Or maybe migrate en masse to some ashram in Auroville, India. Besides, it is not clear if the pilot had clearance from the Syrians to bomb the terrorists in their country, or if he was freelancing like the Israeli IAF often does at will.
Unfortunately, and unless the cutthroats are hard-up for ransom cash in these days of low oil prices, the only humanitarian gesture they will likely offer will be a sharp sword. Unless the pilot can convince them that he is a true Wahhabi.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Arab Revolutions, Baath Party, Jihadis, Syria

Jihadist Revolutionary Council in Syria Adopts Old Baathist Jargon……….

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“Seventy-two Syrian rebel groups on Saturday announced a new coalition to battle the government of President Bashar Assad. But hopes that moderate rebels would dominate the meeting were dashed when extremists gained more of the 17 executive positions than had been expected. Col. Muhammad Hallak, who represented a moderate faction attending the three-day organizational meeting, accused Islamists, especially Ahrar al Sham, which is known to work closely with al Qaida’s Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, of capturing more positions than its influence in the rebellion deserved. A review of the names by McClatchy indicated that moderates hold only six or seven of the 17 executive positions. Hallak also expressed skepticism toward the October document on which the new group, the Revolutionary Command Council…………..”

Revolutionary Command Council: now that is a blast from the lousy Arab Baathist past. It was a common term in the old days, before the Wahhabi oil princes and shaikhs, with their tribal ideology and money, took control of Arab destiny. Before the fate of much of the Arab east from the Persian Gulf to Libya became hostage to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi (with some exceptions).

Whenever a few Baathist (or other Arab) officers staged a military coup and took power, they would immediately establish a Revolutionary Command Council. That was how it went. These Jihadis are merely using a term with which many Arabs, especially in Syria and Iraq are quite familiar.

Then there are the so-called ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels who believe in freedom, human rights, and representative government. As well as other aspects of the American way of life, except perhaps for changing attire in a phone booth. These rebels will reportedly be trained in such bastions of human freedom and representative government as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and possibly the UAE.

I haven’t decided which one is funnier, yet……..
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Iran, Iraq, Syria

Iran in Iraq and Syria: an Unexpected Criticism………

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Happy gobblegobble, Charlie Brown……

Arab media are reporting an interesting development about Iranian relations with Iraq and Syria. They are reporting that a counselor in the Iranian foreign ministry has publicly (sort of publicly, allegedly to a minor media outlet) criticized former Iraqi PM Al Maliki and Syrian president Bashar Al Assad for the worsening mess in their countries. He reportedly blames Al Maliki for aiding the growth of ISIS (DAESH) and blames Al Assad for the worsening bloodshed. I am not sure if the media are quoting him correctly since I have not yet seen his original comments. Al Maliki is now a vice president of Iraq, and Al Assad is still the president of Syria (most of it, anyway).

This could hint at a significant Iranian policy shift or it could be just a personal comment that will then have to be refuted by other officials. But it is almost certainly credible. Time will tell, and soon.

He is also reported by Iranian sources as saying that ISIS (they call it by the Arabic acronym: DAESH) will weaken but will not vanish.

P.S.: (I have always believed and written that the original Syrian uprising went Jihadist as soon as the Islamists of the Gulf states started to send money, weapons, and Wahhabi volunteers. With the blessings of Turkish Caliph Erdogan the First. As for Iraq, deepening internal sectarianism, corrupt domestic politics, and foreign Arab meddling worsened a situation that had emerged after the first post-invasion elections.)
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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