November 22, 2015

Countries Have a Common Enemy, ISIS, and a Common Interest to Bring an End to ISIS’ Destructive Ambition

George Washington University's Program on Extremism, in a report published on December 1, 2015, found "unprecedented" ISIS mobilization within the U.S., "bigger than any other mobilization we have seen since 9/11." So much for Obama's "jayvee" squad. "ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa" warns of "some 250 Americans who have traveled or attempted to travel to Syria/Iraq to join the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and 900 active investigations against ISIS sympathizers in all 50 states." Of 71 charged with ISIS-related offenses, "56 have been arrested in 2015 alone, a record number of terrorism-related arrests for any year since 9/11." And the next time your grandmother is subjected to a TSA pat-down, keep this in mind: "Of those charged: The average age is 26" and "86% are male." Just over half "traveled or attempted to travel abroad," while "27% were involved in plots to carry out attacks on U.S. soil." There are "300 American and/or U.S.-based ISIS sympathizers active" on Twitter or other social media, according to the study, and some "make the leap from keyboard warriors to actual militancy." Some even "reached mid-level leadership positions within the group." [Source]

Netanyahu: ‘ISIS is good for Israel’


Rehmat's World - Last Sunday, Netanyahu in his first comment on ISIS victory in Iraq, said that Washington should stay out of the Iraqi conflict – and let the Sunni militants defeat the Shia-dominated government of prime minister al-Maliki and break-up Iraq.
“This will weaken Iranian influence in the Arab region,” said Netanyahu during his address at Tel Aviv University’s INSS think-tank.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Thursday told US Secretary of State John Kerry that he believes “the creation of an independent Kurdish state is a foregone conclusion,” citing Iraq’s “breaking up.” Meanwhile, Israeli President Shimon Peres told US President Barack Obama that “the Kurds have, de facto, created their own state, which is democratic.”

Recently, the Jewish TIME magazine, revealed that Washington plans to split Iraq into three weaker states which would never pose an ‘existential threat’ to the Zionist entity. The plan calls for; an Israel-friendly Kurd state based on Kurd-majority areas in Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran, a Shia-dominated state around Baghdad, and a pro-Saudi Sunni state along Saudi-Iraq -Syrian border.

On June 23, 2014, American Jewish author, Phyllis Bennis, the so-called “anti-Israel”, but a racist Jew and a closet Zionist, wrote an article suggesting five steps Obama can take in Iraq without going back to war. One of the suggestion, is: “engage immediately with Iran to bring pressure to bear on the Iraqi government to end its sectarian discrimination, its violence against civilians, and its violations of human rights.”

One wonders, does Ms. Bennis know that the greatest human rights abusers in the region happens to be United States’ allies like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and Israel.

In June 25 interview with fellow Jewish Amy Goodman at ‘Democracy Now!‘, Bennis said that while John Kerry visited Baghdad, Cairo and Amman recently, Kerry ignored Tehran, “the most important stop he could make”. She also claimed that both the US and Iran have a common enemy – ISIS. Here too, Bennis exposed her Zionist card. Iran support al-Maliki government to have a stabilized Iraq along its borders. The US, on the other hand, as usual supports both al-Maliki and ISIS for the security of the Zionist entity. The so-called “Islamist ISIS” is a creation of United States. These Wahabi-Salafi throat-cutters are armed and funded by America’s allies in the region. The US-Israeli personnel provided military training to these Takfiris in Jordan and Turkey.

Let us not forget Zionist Christian joke (WND), reported by Michael Maloof: “ISIS threatens nuke attack on Israel.” How ironic, Israel is the only entity in the region with 240-400 nukes.
“The US and its regional allies have armed ISIS in Syria and Iraq. The motives are clear. To remove Assad, drag Iran (and Hizbullah) to this into this quagmire with the intention of bleeding all sides. It would also justify American presence to combat ‘terrorists’ and foreign fighters so that America can re-occupy its bases and dominate the Persian Gulf region as planned. To sum up, neoconservatives had long sought to dominate the Persian Gulf and use it as a launch pad in their grand strategy of global dominance. When fear of communism and inter-state wars ceased to justify this agenda, 9/11 came to the rescue. Sectarian division eliminated resistance to the plan. As renowned strategist Michael Porter said, “Finally, strategy must have continuity. It can’t be constantly reinvented.” The ISIL is that continuation,” said Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich, a US-Iranian journalist and author. Read the article here.

Canadian Jewish professor Michel Chossudovsky says that the so-called “US-Iran” collaboration against ISIS in Iraq is a media scam. Tehran has rejected western claim saying there were no negotiations.

On June 22, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei blamed United States and its regional allies for the current bloodshed in Iraq. He stressed that Tehran is against any foreign interference in Iraq. He said the US should let the Iraqis resolve their own problems. He also said that there is no Shia-Sunni sectarian conflict. The ISIS agenda in Syria and Iraq is to destroy resistance to American domination of the region.

ISIS: Creating A Common Enemy


By Dr. Alon Ben-Meir - The current escalating sectarian violence between the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the Iraqi forces, as well as the unending civil war in Syria have become intertwined. Neither can be resolved without the other, and it will require a dramatic shift in strategy from the U.S. to bring about drastic change in the political and military landscape in Syria and Iraq.

What is happening in Iraq today, and how the unfolding events may play out in the coming months or years, is directly related to three central developments:

First is President Bush’s misguided Iraq war, which has precipitated the violent conflict between the Shiites and the Sunnis in the region. Second is President Obama’s failure to reach a security arrangement with Iraq before the complete withdrawal of American forces, as well as conditioning continued American support of Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki on the establishment of an inclusive government of reconciliation. Finally, is the unwillingness of the U.S. to provide the rebels in Syria early in the conflict with the kind of military hardware needed to blunt Assad’s onslaught that could have prevented the rise of ISIS and the potential disintegration of Syria. President Obama’s decision to provide vetted rebels with $500 million in U.S. support will be helpful but may well be too late. The combination of these factors brought about the convergence of Al-Qaeda and Islamic jihadist groups into Iraq and subsequently into Syria, causing the unfolding horror we are witnessing today.

The legacy of the Iraq war has finally forced the Obama administration to reassess its involvement, or lack thereof, in the raging violent conflicts both in Iraq and Syria, and it must now develop a strategy that might help marginalize ISIS in both countries.

There is no clear-cut solution. The bloody conflict in the neighboring countries transcends ISIS’ aspiration to establish an Islamic Sunni state encompassing Iraq and Syria. There will be continuing violence embedded between the Sunnis and Shiites for many years. It has now reached a new peak as Shiite-dominated Iran and Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia assumed the leadership of their respective sects, which are waging a proxy war in both Syria and Iraq and determined to preserve their hegemony if not the survival of their regimes.

For these reasons, the U.S. ought to now pursue a multi-pronged strategy that must first deal with the urgent need to stop the advancement of ISIS toward Baghdad, and then address the long-term Sunni-Shiite conflict that plagues the region.

In connection with Iraq’s growing violence, the U.S. is left with no choice but to take the lead and orchestrate a military response against ISIS forces. Such an effort must be conditional upon Maliki’s full cooperation on the military front, as well as an agreement to form a new government of reconciliation that must include Kurds and Sunnis.

Moreover, to show goodwill and encourage Sunni tribal leaders to support the efforts against ISIS, the U.S. must insist that Maliki release thousands of Sunni prisoners who have been incarcerated for years without trial, and stop exhorting (alongside Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani) young Shiites to form militias against ISIS, which is creating a recipe for an intensified sectarian war and chaos.

Even if Maliki takes any of these measures, , during the next few months the U.S. should quietly encourage other Iraqi Shiite leaders, who are unhappy with the corrupt authoritarian Prime Minister and are committed to establishing a government of reconciliation, to push him out of power. This will be necessary to change the domestic political outlook and encourage the Kurds and the Sunnis, who deeply resent and distrust him, to cooperate in the longer term.

The U.S. should also make every effort to contain the mutual animosity between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, as both governments need to realize that the danger at hand must first be addressed. Whereas Iraq holds “the Saudi government…responsible for the dangerous crimes committed by these terrorist groups,” the Saudis blame Iraq for the ‘sectarian and exclusionary policies implemented in Iraq over the past years that threaten its stability and sovereignty.’

It appears that Obama is seriously considering enlisting Iran politically and militarily to help Maliki stem the advances of ISIS towards Baghdad. But the U.S. should keep in mind that in whichever capacity Iran’s involvement in Iraq may be, it will only strengthen its hold on Iraq and further advance its regional ambition to become the dominant power.

For this reason, Iran’s involvement must be conditioned upon Tehran’s commitment in words and deeds to end its support of the Assad regime and help bring about the end of the horrifying civil war in Syria. Iran’s professed desire to engage its neighbors constructively and contribute to regional stability stands in total contrast to its continued support of the murderous Assad regime.

It is also important to note that while the enmity between Saudi Arabia and Iran is not likely to recede any time soon, there is a temporary common interest between the two. A commitment by Iran to assist in ending the civil war in Syria and to eventually allow the emergence of a representative government in Damascus could ease the tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran and de-intensify the Sunni-Shiite divide.

The Saudis are also fearful of the spread of extremist Jihadists and are particularly concerned about ISIS’ intention to target the monarchy as much as Iran is concerned that ISIS’ potential success will lead to the establishment of an extremist Sunni state governed by strict Sharia law next door. These two common concerns may well create a thaw between the two countries.

Finally, the use of American military forces against ISIS is no longer avoidable. Without American military support, Iraq and the entire region will face a long period of violence and instability, which could draw other countries into the conflict with menacing implications.

Being that ISIS is on the move and is adept at guerilla warfare, it will be extremely difficult to bomb ISIS targets, particularly because they hide among civilians. This may necessitate some American special forces on the ground, but the bulk of the forces will have to come from the Iraqi military.

Counterintuitively, the current conflict in Iraq and the changing geopolitical dynamics could accelerate the process of ending the civil war in Syria. To that end, the U.S. must seize upon this opening and spearhead the delivery of weapons to the rebels to stop Assad from continuing his indiscriminate bombing of rebel hideouts while killing thousands of civilians in the process.

For this reason, once the U.S. commits to preventing ISIS from achieving its goal, it cannot do so incrementally. All countries in the region have a common interest to bring an end to ISIS’ destructive ambition. They must now set aside their differences and rally under American leadership to achieve their common objective.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

ISIS’s War Against Everyone

June 11, 2014

Slate - Alliances in the Middle East are always a bit complex and often contradictory, but the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s shocking recent victories in Iraq are setting new standards for strange bedfellows. Virtually every major actor in the region has reason to be concerned about the group’s new prominence, including some who normally hate each other: 

Iraq: With Fallujah, Mosul, and now Tikrit under its control, ISIS is the most serious threat that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Iraqi government has faced since the worst days of the Iraq war.*

U.S.: The nightmare scenario for the U.S. troop pullout—that it would leave the government vulnerable to takeover by extremists—now appears to be coming true. Iraq has turned to the U.S. for more aid, but the $20 billion Washington has already poured into training and equipping Iraqi security forces doesn’t seem to have accomplished much, with reports that troops have fled their posts, leaving valuable military equipment in the militants’ hands. The U.S. has expressed concern about the events, but beyond supplying more money and guns, it’s unclear what Washington is willing to commit to the fight.

Iran: Oddly, the two primary backers of Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government are the U.S. and its longtime foe Iran, which has good reason to fear a Sunni-dominated extremist group coming to power next door. Just weeks after Maliki traveled to Washington to lobby for more military funding last November, his government inked a $195 million weapons deal with Iran, in violation of a U.N. arms embargo on the Islamic Republic. Iran is now calling for an international effort to stop ISIS.

The Syrian government: Some suspect that Bashar al-Assad allowed or even facilitated the rise of ISIS in order to divide the rebel movement, but in the long run, it’s hard to see him tolerating a situation in which a large swath of his territory is effectively outside of government control.

The Syrian rebels: Both moderate and Islamist rebel groups have clashed with ISIS over control of territory and resources inside Syria. Plus, the group’s prominence makes international funders less likely to support the anti-Assad forces.

The Kurds: The semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government is locked in a bitter dispute with Baghdad over oil revenues. Syrian Kurds have also been fighting against Assad. But ISIS is moving into Kurdish-controlled areas, and the Peshmerga—Iraqi Kurdistan’s armed forces—have been deployed to help contain the insurgency, perhaps allowing the KRG to extract more concessions from Baghdad in the future.

Turkey: ISIS fighters kidnapped the staff of the Turkish consulate in Mosul today, a day after kidnapping 28 Turkish truck drivers. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, which has been one of the most important backers of the anti-Assad rebellion, is holding emergency meetings over the crisis.

Europe: European governments, particularly Britain and France, have recently announced efforts to prevent their citizens from traveling to Syria to join rebel groups, and ISIS, with its international goals and social media savvy, appears to be the top recruiter of foreigners. The suspect held in the attack on a Jewish museum in Brussels last month had spent time fighting with ISIS in Syria.

Saudi Arabia: Maliki has accused the Saudi government, along with Qatar, of supporting ISIS, but the kingdom has lately become warier about supporting Islamist groups in Syria and announced in May that it had dismantled an ISIS-linked terror cell in in Saudi Arabia.

Israel: As you might expect, ISIS is not a big fan of the Jewish state, and Israel is reportedly cultivating ties with moderate Syrian rebel groups in order to counter its influence.*

Al-Qaida: ISIS is often referred to in news reports as “al-Qaida-linked,” and indeed it began as an offshoot of al-Qaida in Iraq, the group once led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, but al-Qaida central actually disavowed the group in March. ISIS had defied instructions from al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who wanted to merge it with another Islamist rebel group, the al-Nusra front. ISIS, meanwhile, has publicly blamed Zawahiri for the infighting between Syrian rebel groups.

Or as one commentator has put it, ISIS suddenly seems to be in a “war against everyone.”

Clearly the group must have some international support. As journalist Hassan Hassan notes in the National, there are likely “donors with deep pockets” who “prefer to sponsor an Islamic state in the making rather than a project for one.” But it’s still a remarkable development that can get all the actors above on the same page.

Top Comment:

Why would you hate ISIS, isn't ODIN the real problem, with that insufferable Barry?  How's the femur? On the other hand, the deep-seated resentments and enmities between these groups may make it impossible to coordinate a unified response to the threat ISIS poses. Certainly no such response has presented itself so far. The only way to win a war against everyone is to assure that they continue to be at war with each other.

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3 comments:

  1. Stephan Larose said:

    But Israel does pressure the US to launch attacks against its neighbors to weaken them, and the US, at Israel's behest, has committed massive war crimes with millions of innocents dead throughout the region. Libya was a functioning democracy with healthcare for all, now it is a terrorist arms depot and a failed state. The same can be said for Afghanistan and Iraq. The US must cease being the world's greatest purveyor of terrorism if there is to be stability, the whole reason ISIS exists, or even Al Queda is because of US/Saudi support and financing.

    http://news.yahoo.com/cowardly-murder-ex-drone-operators-speak-jobs-001824335.html

    http://www.salon.com/2011/11/23/bush_and_blair_found_guilty_of_war_crimes_for_iraq_attack/

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/15/iraq-death-toll_n_4102855.html?ir=Australia

    http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2004/332-burying-genocide-the-un-oil-for-food-programme.html

    http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2015/03/26/2015-report-war-on-terror-body-count-exceeds-1-3-million/

    Sorry, but you can't go abroad, destroy the social/security infrastructure and functioning governments of an entire region, kill millions of people and then expect stability. The rise in terrorism as a consequence of these actions were entirely predictable, thus is stands to reason that these were all planned:

    According to Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya in a 2011 Global Research article, The Yinon Plan was a continuation of Britain’s colonial design in the Middle East:

    “[The Yinon plan] is an Israeli strategic plan to ensure Israeli regional superiority. It insists and stipulates that Israel must reconfigure its geo-political environment through the balkanization of the surrounding Arab states into smaller and weaker states.

    Israeli strategists viewed Iraq as their biggest strategic challenge from an Arab state. This is why Iraq was outlined as the centerpiece to the balkanization of the Middle East and the Arab World. In Iraq, on the basis of the concepts of the Yinon Plan, Israeli strategists have called for the division of Iraq into a Kurdish state and two Arab states, one for Shiite Muslims and the other for Sunni Muslims. The first step towards establishing this was a war between Iraq and Iran, which the Yinon Plan discusses.

    The Atlantic, in 2008, and the U.S. military’s Armed Forces Journal, in 2006, both published widely circulated maps that closely followed the outline of the Yinon Plan. Aside from a divided Iraq, which the Biden Plan also calls for, the Yinon Plan calls for a divided Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria. The partitioning of Iran, Turkey, Somalia, and Pakistan also all fall into line with these views. The Yinon Plan also calls for dissolution in North Africa and forecasts it as starting from Egypt and then spilling over into Sudan, Libya, and the rest of the region.

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  2. Mike Sotarios said:

    They foreign invaders and illegal aliens in occupied Palestine are indeed the ones who created the terror group so called ISIS and they are the one who are sustaining those terrorists financially and militarily for the sake of destabilizing Syria and keeping Iraq in turmoil.This a well proven fact. Furthermore, the genocide and atrocities those diabolic creatures have been committing against the indigenous people of Palestine have no parallel in the history of mankind. To put in perspective, the late honorable Nelson Mandela said on numerous occasions that the genocide and atrocities black South Africans endured during the apartheid era pales in comparison to the genocide and atrocities the jews have been committing in Palestine for decades. This sentiment was echoed by so many dignitaries from South Africa including Bishop Tutu. Bottom line is that they are indeed the source of all evil in the middle east. They should be all shipped back to wherever they came from, be it Poland, Austria, Hungary, Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Spain, France, Germany, Britain, the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Morocco, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq, Iran or Ethiopia if there is to be a chance for peace and tranquility in that region.

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  3. All the weapons that ISIS has are US made, and the hilarious explanation the US gave was that the weapons were stolen from the ""freedom fighters" fighting in Syria, But the US, NATO, NATO member Turkey are the ones who allowed these mercenaries to enter this area, to topple the Syrian government, those are the freedom fighters that the west has been helping all the way.

    Also, these "supposed" barbarians & terrorists aren't just going there blindly, they have plans, they controlled the oil fields in the area, and they are selling the oil in much lower prices to the western nations (or to put it correctly, western major "Elite" corporations), and Turkey and Israel are facilitating this, because money has no religion, when this people sell the oil at fifth of the price, and the other countries facilitating the buy get a commission of half the price, then it is a great deal for them, no matter who dies or who suffers.


    The guns are US made. In one of the first photos of Isis on Daily Mail, it a was an obvious pic of white men in "black face" to pass as terrorists... in that same photo they're holding US made, brand-new model weapons that the US military hadn't even received yet. Many commenters who are 2nd amendment nuts noticed the model immediately.


    I agree with your conclusions. ISIS is an obvious psyop. Why do you feel the need to refer to 2nd Amendment supporters as "nuts"? This article makes it very clear that the governments that rule us are anything but benevolent. The "nutty" idea, is that only that bunch of globalist psychopaths should be armed. Remember, when you support civilian disarmament, you are supporting the idea that the new world order crew should have a monopoly on force. That's not a very "awake" position to take.

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