Posted on 08/30/2014 10:19:57 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Obama’s “we-don’t-have-a-strategy” gaffe was so egregious as to distract attention from the fact that he does indeed have a strategy, which has blown up in his face. His strategy is accommodation with Iran at all costs. As I wrote earlier this month, our ISIS problem derives from our Iran problem: Bashar Assad’s ethnic cleansing, which has displaced 4 million Syrians internally and driven 3 million out of the country, was possible because of Iranian backing. The refugee flood in Iraq and Syria gives ISIS an unlimited pool of recruits. Iraqi Sunni support for ISIS, including the participation of some of Saddam Hussein’s best officers, is a response to Iran’s de facto takeover of Iraq.
Now we have analysts as diverse as Karen Elliott House and Angelo Codevilla proposing that the Saudis should use their considerable air force to degrade ISIS. Unless the U.S. commits its own forces in depth, the Saudis never will do so (unless they are defending their own territory, which ISIS is not stupid enough to attack). It is a sad day when America’s appetite for a fight is so weak that we count on the Saudi monarchy to do our dirty work for us. Codevilla writes:
Day after day after day, hundreds of Saudi (and Jordanian) fighters, directed by American AWACS radar planes, could systematically destroy the Islamic State—literally anything of value to military or even to civil life. It is essential to keep in mind that the Islamic State exists in a desert region which offers no place to hide and where clear skies permit constant, pitiless bombing and strafing. These militaries do not have the excessive aversions to collateral damage that Americans have imposed upon themselves.
That is entirely correct: in that region, air power could drastically weaken ISIS, if not quite eradicate it. It certainly could contain its advances (as fewer than 100 American sorties already have in northern Iraq). But the underlying problem will remain: Iran’s depredations have triggered an economic and demographic catastrophe in the region, and that catastrophe has created the snowball effect we call ISIS.
It may be entirely academic to argue that America should bomb not only ISIS, but also Iran’s nuclear facilities and the bases of its Revolutionary Guards. No Republican candidate I know is willing to argue this in advance of elections. Nonetheless, I repeat what I wrote Aug. 12: “The region’s security will hinge on the ultimate reckoning with Iran.”
On Canada’s Sun TV earlier today, commentator Ezra Levant asked me what Obama will do now. My guess is: very little. The reported Egyptian-UAE attack on Libyan Islamists is a harbinger of the future. Other countries in the region will take matters into their own hands in despair at American paralysis. Russia and China will play much bigger roles. And the new Thirty Year War will grind on indefinitely.
we are not fighting for that stinking Saudi monarchy ever again, the writer can forget that foolishness
“Onward, Christian Soldiers.”
Frickin right.
I stated here a long time ago that under 0bama the Caliphate would come to fruition. We are f&&&&ked
The progressives WILL liquidate the poor ISIS and most all muslims eventually..
BUT they are very useful presently.. same with most political liberals..
The progressives ARE NOT LIBERAL.... never have been..
They are demagogues.. enough to make even the muslims blush..
The multi millions murdered by them last century and the billions made miserable.. are a drop in the bucket..
A hard rain is fixin’ to fall..
>> The progressives ARE NOT LIBERAL.... never have been..
You are absolutely correct. But unfortunately, Liberals don’t seem to mind going along for the ride to Hell.
It may be entirely academic to argue that America should bomb not only ISIS, but also Iran’s nuclear facilities and the bases of its Revolutionary Guards. No Republican candidate I know is willing to argue this in advance of elections. Nonetheless, I repeat what I wrote Aug. 12: “The region’s security will hinge on the ultimate reckoning with Iran.”
Now we have analysts as diverse as Karen Elliott House and Angelo Codevilla proposing that the Saudis should use their considerable air force to degrade ISIS. Unless the U.S. commits its own forces in depth, the Saudis never will do so (unless they are defending their own territory, which ISIS is not stupid enough to attack).Huh? If ISIS were operating in the south of Iraq instead of the north, they'd have already raided across the Saudi border, killing thousands, destroying pipelines, and setting oil fields on fire. As usual, 'Spengler' has no idea what he's writing about.
It’s frustrating that people get paid to write this rubbish! Especially when a lot of us home pundits were questioning the Arab Spring and the wisdom of creating a vacuum in the Middle East, who was getting supplied with weapons and to what end, over 3 years ago. There has been a plan from the beginning whether this is actually what they wanted or whether they wanted something different and this is a result of the Obama administration’s stupidity and arrogance is too hard to tell. Either way this promises to be an absolute disaster. If Obama was a Republican the Dems would be calling for his head on a platter.
Liberals aren’t liberal but they now prefer the name Progressives because they have tainted the name Liberal. That’s the main reason I always call them Liberals. When Progressive is sufficiently tainted I might start calling them that.
no chit
These Sunni and Shia, can we get them to fight with each other more and us less?
Which Sunni? The Turks are Sunni, the Kurds are Sunni? Arabs are Sunni of Shia.
This is a scary thought: I believe that Obama would be voted into office for a third term if he could run again, even after we learned about Obama government scandals and foreign policy mistakes Obama has made over and over this past year alone.
He writes well, but his predictions have been off base more often than not. People who rag on the royals don't understand that they are the moderates, that they keep a lid on tens of millions of fanatically-zealous subjects who will depose them if they step out of line. The Israelis and neocons keep going on and on about the royals spreading Islamist propaganda. It's BS. They finance missionary work because it's their concession towards religiosity for the Saudi masses - it's boob bait for Ali. These subjects don't need imams to tell them what to do. They're not illiterates - they can read the world of Allah for themselves. No imam has the authority to countermand the decrees of Allah as set out in the Koran, and any imam who does so literally has a target on his back. Imams have been killed for deviating from the Koran.
The agitprop about the Saudi royals comes entirely from the the pro-Russia/Putin/Iran/Syria shills.
The 3000 corrupt princes (term from Ari Sharon) love their lifestyle of the rich and infamous, but they aren’t the only ones in the kingdom who have money. Cash for jihad against the late USSR was largely contributed by Gulf State billionaires, including those ruled by the royals. Most of the volunteers for the 9/11 mass murders came from Saudi Arabia.
In S.Arabia the wahhabists are independent of the gov’t. Until they got concessions from the House of Saud, they wouldn’t condemn the self-appointed mahdi during that late-1970s standoff at the Great Mosque. Practice of religions other than Islam is prohibited, and the largish Shia minority live almost entirely in the Saudi oil patch.
When the lid blows off — could be this year, could be fifty years from now — the only US priority will be to secure the oil patch, relocating the entire local population if need be. I read somewhere that the House of Saud started a large project during the late 1970s or early 1980s to build new housing for just such a relocation, in order to move the Shiites out of the oil patch and move in the foreign labor necessary to keep everything running, a sort of proactive approach.
When Saddam invaded Iran, starting a massively costly eight year long war which ended with no gains for either side, the housing project was shut down (if indeed it ever broke ground) because of the cost of the war. When Saddam turned around in 1989 and invaded Kuwait (the first time; apparently it was practice for the real thing, regardless the Kuwaitis paid him off to leave) it was seen as a betrayal of the very people who bankrolled his pyrrhic defeat.
And when the Gulf War started, there were so many foreign troops along the border that the Shia minority remained quiet.
fraud pure and simple
Soros counts the votes.
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