Replies

“ISIS are primarily guns for hire”

Nonsense from beggining to end. That all Islamic terrorist groups get funding from sources they keep secret, those funds have always been found to have come from like-minded rich Muslims in the Middle East. The teeroists like ISIS do not act “at the behest” of anyone, or anything, other than their Islamist agenda. They get donors because those donors agree with their agenda. The donors do not direct them, but are just satisfied with the anti-western and/or Muslim sectarian mayhem they create.

“Given ISIS-K is currently arrayed against China, Iran, and Russia “

ISIS-K may at times appear to be “arrayed against China, Iran and Russia”, but that is more because where they are - in the “stans”, which collectively border Iran, China and Russia. That does not mean they are not also anti-western nor that they have had time had Shia Muslim targets, which they have had.

“Devastating military interventions independently launched by the US and Russia wiped out that demonic construct in 2017.”

No it did not. Like Al Queda and all the rest major losses may reduce their size, their operations, their notice and their effectiveness. Like Al Queda that does not “wipe them out”. Shrunken greatly, yes. “Wipes out”, no.

“The CIA and MI6 were no doubt immensely relieved. After all, extremely awkward questions about how precisely ISIS came to be were comprehensively extinguished”

No. That was extinguished before 2017. People are always wrongly confating bod consequences (from stupid actions) with bad intentions. Nearly always wrong.

“For example, a July 2016 RAND paper on the “unthinkable” prospect of “war with China” forecast a need to fill Eastern Europe with US soldiers in advance of a “hot” conflict with Beijing, as Russia would undoubtedly side with its neighbour and ally in such a dispute. It was therefore considered necessary to tie down Moscow’s forces at its borders.”

No. It was considered that it, in a “hot conflict” with China, it “would be necessary” to enlarge NATO’s presence in Eastern Europe.

And “Six months later, scores of NATO troops duly arrived in the region, ostensibly to counter “Russian aggression”.”

Again, it had nothing to do with the Rand paper. It was scheduled joint NATO training manuevers, schedueled before
any such report from Rand.

“April 2019 RAND published Extending Russia. “

The authors characterization of the Rand study is off base and countere to some what the Rand authors said about various things. You have to read the Rand report so see the differences for yourself.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html

The same is true with the Rand report about the “long war”, in the middle east. You have to read the whole report yourself. It is not a “directive” to anyone. It is a what if report with many caveats.

For instance in re: “This priority will interact strongly with that of prosecuting the long war,” RAND declared. The think tank went on to propose a “divide and rule” strategy to maintain US hegemony in Iraq, despite the power vacuum created by withdrawal. Under its auspices, Washington would exploit “fault lines between [Iraq’s] various Salafi-jihadist groups to turn them against each other and dissipate their energy on internal conflicts”, while “supporting authoritative Sunni governments against a continuingly hostile Iran”:

“This strategy relies heavily on covert action, information operations, unconventional warfare, and support to indigenous security forces…The US and its local allies could use nationalist jihadists to launch proxy campaigns to discredit transnational jihadists in the eyes of the local populace…This would be an inexpensive way of buying time…until the US can return its full attention to the [region]. US leaders could also choose to capitalize on the sustained Shia-Sunni Conflict…by taking the side of conservative Sunni regimes against Shiite empowerment movements in the Muslim world.”

ISIS nor ISIS-K were given any support in that. In Iraq and in Afghanistan the support went to nationalist tribal groups, and yes in Iraq that meant Sunni groups trying to fend off Shia groups funded by Iran.

But read the Rand paper yourself:

https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG738.pdf

“As extensively documented in WikiLeaks-released diplomatic cables, US, Israeli and Saudi intelligence immediately decided to overthrow Assad by fomenting a local Sunni rebellion, and started financing opposition groups for the purpose.”

NOT TRUE. The regime change agenda against Assad began during the GWBush admin, with overt and covert efforts, along with some Middle East partners. That’s at least a decade earlier and was unrelated to any oil pipeline plans. The U.S. wanted Assad out, the Suadis and others wanted him out (he had been on the outs with most of the Sunni regimes for many years, due to his alliagnment with the Mullahs in Tehran.

That the civil strife against Assad had no western purpose than the opporunistic chance to take advantage of the so-called “Arab Spring”, but as was evident, beyond cueing to the domestic “Syrian oppostion” groups that their covert helpers would be with them, it was clear, all the way, it was an idea with no real plan for how it could possibly unseat Assad, nor any recognition of how Russian and Iranian influence in Syria would grow because of it. It was really an ignorant stupid idea to begin with. Thank the NEOCons in the GWBush admin who started the agenda, before Obama was ever thinking of running for office.

The mistake the west and the “moderate” Middle East Sunni regimes made with respect to Syria was the same mistake they had made in Afghanistan - total lack of vetting of the motivations of the “fighters” they helped, in the end meant they had used Islamist ideologue fighters who had their own goals of what “success” would mean. Bad consequences of stupid decisons, not intentions. Brighter minds eventually stopped the poorly thought out efforts for “regime change” in Syria.