generalspeaking

Cleaning Up

"This is a critical moment for Iraq's future. It is a moment of decision for Iraq's leaders and it's a moment of great urgency."
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry

"[Mr. Maliki and the Iraqi leadership face a test, whether] they are able to set aside their suspicions, their sectarian preferences for the good of the whole."
"And we don't know. The one thing I do know is that if they fail to do that, then no amount of military action by the United States can hold that country together."
U.S President Barack Obama

Two men who appear to have come a little late to the game. Examining the score to date, it's rather late to be positing that there is any opportunity remaining for Iraq to pull itself together again. But then miracles do happen, and in the volatile Middle East the strangest things are pulled off. Take, for example, an powerful outside agency looking in and deciding that they would remove the tyrant that keeps tribal/sectarian antipathy from self-devouring.

What a surprise when the chimera began devouring itself, starting with the tail and ending with its eyeballs. The stiff-upper-lip friendly confrontation appears to have left Prime Minister Al-Maliki silent about whether he might consider stepping down from a position that has clearly imperilled the country he represents in promoting the interests of Shiites over Iraqi Sunnis. Ham-fisted governance at best, idiotically oppositional in reality, confusing tyranny with good administration.

The spillover from the swift takeover of over one-third of the country by the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham has certainly left its neighbours in a quandary. There are rumours that there is a new league of ISIS Islamists calling themselves the Islamic State of Saudi Arabia.... As for Jordan, its army has dispatched reinforcements to the border with Iraq to boost security. In Lebanon, heavily armed police took custody of a sleeper cell linked to the group in raids on two hotels in central Beirut.

Syrian Information Minister Omran Al-Zoubi warned on Monday that events in Iraq pose dire threats to "the entire Middle East", undermining security in Europe and beyond. Syrian rebel factions recruit teenagers of 15 to fight, using them as soldiers and snipers, as stretcher bearers and suicide bombers. Rebel groups of all types, 'moderate' and Islamist, are using children in the conflict. And that includes the Free Syrian Army, the Islamic Front and the Nusra Front, along with ISIS.

The United States is being warned by Iran not to interfere. "We are strongly opposed to U.S. and other intervention in Iraq. ... We don't approve of it as we believe the Iraqi government, nation and religious authorities are capable of ending the sedition", stated Iran's Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "American authorities are trying to portray this as a sectarian war, but what is happening in Iraq is not a war between Shiites and Sunnis. The U.S. is seeking an Iraq under its hegemony and ruled by its stooges", he charged knowledgeably.

Not a war between Shiites and Sunnis. Well, that clears that matter up to the satisfaction of all. How wrong could we be!

There was no statement with respect to whether the esteemed mullah was under the influence of drugs at the time of his statement. Iran does have a drug problem, imported from Afghanistan. Either that, or Ayatollah Khamenei knows something no one else does. Yes, yes, the Quds force is in Baghdad, its formidable general absorbing Iraqi forces among the trained and battle-ready Quds militias, to defend the Baghdad fortress, its electrical grid, its water system, its nearby oilfields.

To retain at the very least, a vestige of the geography that once marked out Iraq's vast territory now in full dispute and hostile hands.  Where ISIS has consolidated its firm control of Iraq's vast western region. The crossing at Turabil providing a gateway to ISIS beyond Iraq and Syria, into Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The advance by the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham following on its seizure of Qaim allows it to move fighters and supplies at will between those areas it controls in both Syria and Iraq.

After Qaim there was Rutba, Rawah, Anah; quite the catch. Enabling ISIS to focus on extending its grasp further north. Where the remaining Iraqi forces in Tal Afar west of Mosul, withdrew into Kurdish controlled geography; preservation being for them the preferred measure of valour, leaving the town to the Islamists.

Labels: Conflict, Iran, Iraq, Islamists, Syria, United States

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, June 25, 2014