Top 5 Contradictions in Obama’s Emerging ISIL Strategy

[unhappycamper]

http://www.juancole.com/2014/09/contradictions-emerging-strategy.html

Top 5 Contradictions in Obama’s Emerging ISIL Strategy
By Juan Cole | Sep. 15, 2014

~snip~

1. Kerry deeply wanted buy-in from Egypt, the most populous Arab state and the most important military power among the Arabs. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, however, insisted that the strategy be wider-ranging than just a push against ISIL He wanted a campaign against “terrorism” in general. Al-Sisi’s government has declared devotees of political Islam, i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood, to be terrorists. Al-Sisi believes he can “turn” Obama, getting him to stop criticizing Egypt for the overthrow of the Morsi (Muslim Brotherhood) government, and that the US need for him gives him a trump card in this regard.

2. There are hundreds of guerrilla groups fighting in Syria. Some of them have given fealty to the the so-called Islamic State. Others have joined a rival organization that is more Salafi in coloration, the Islamic Front (strong in Aleppo). The National Coalition and the Free Syrian Army are yet another force, heavily dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and now much weakened. So if Obama agreed with al-Sisi to pursue a global ‘war on terrorism’ together, he would be in the difficult position of opposing the Free Syrian Army and of agreeing to help crush the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood– among the major opposition groups to both ISIL and the Baath regime in Damascus.

3. That is, Obama’s desire to support a “moderate” opposition will lead him to back to the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria. But Saudi Arabia, one of Obama’s major partners, has declared the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, and they have the money to make that stick. With Egypt and Saudi Arabia against the National Coalition and the Free Syrian Army (because of their Muslim Brotherhood ties), Obama by allying with them is basically allying with the murky Islamic Front, which has some al-Qaeda elements and now has turned openly anti-democracy and anti-rights for minorities.

4. Saudi Arabia will provide training camps for the rebels of the “moderate” opposition. But it is rumored that the Saudis are behind the splinter group from the Free Syrian army, the “Islamic Front.” It rejects democratic elections. The Islamic Front is full of people who have continued to have rigid religious views but who are trying to find new allies. The Saudis will be training people, in other words, very much like the Islamic State fighters in their fundamentalism, but who are less hostile to Saudi Arabia and perhaps slightly less openly brutal. That’s a “moderate” Sunni opposition?

[truedelphi]

1. But who cares about contradictions? It is time for a new war.

Last edited Tue Sep 16, 2014, 12:25 PM - Edit history (1)

The same as the old wars. With certain profits for the Military Industrial Complex totally guaranteed, and uncertain expectations.

We hardly can say we "won" anything in Iraq, after Iraq War II of 2003, as we didn't see to it that immediately after Saddam Hussein fell, that there were enough troops there, and enough of a strategy to give the people of Iraq the democracy we had boasted would soon be theirs. I mean, the Bush strategy of putting tens of thousands of our combat service people in poorly armored SUV's and having them travel up and down some truly dangerous roads is not really a winning war strategy - it is a ridiculous component to a war that came about in order to rid the world of the dangers of the threats of a mushroom cloud and of Weapons of Mass Destruction, when neither of those threats was real.

But we must pretend not to notice any of this! This time it will be different!