Tuesday, May 19, 2015
The US Military Can Lead the Middle East out of Its Crisis If President Obama Decides to Let Them Do Their Job
WAKE-UP CALL FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA AND HIS WHITE HOUSE ADVISORY TEAM. ~~~~~ The fall of Ramadi, the sunni capital of Iraq's Anbar province, is a stunning defeat for Iraqi security forces and military. It is an even more stunning defeat for the Barack Obama Middle East and Iraq "policy" : (1). hands off, no US ground troops, (2). try to force cohesive action from an Iraqi government that at best exists on the shiite-Iran side of the equation, by asking it to protect sunnis from ISIS, and (3). throw military equipment at this useless government knowing that it will not be distributed to sunnis and Kurds who need it and know how to use it, but, rather, knowing that it will, finally, when given to these Iran-led shiite militias, be abandoned to ISIS when the militia defenders flee from an ISIS advance. ~~~~~ It would seem a lot easier and more efficient to simply ship the US arms directly to ISIS and announce that President Obama and his advisors prefer an ISIS caliphate in Iraq. ~~~~~ Of course, the second sentence of that announcement would be to bid a final farewell to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, jordan, the Gulf states, AND Israel as we have known and nurtured them. ~~~~~ At the same time, Mr. Obama could also announce that it is time to abandon the past pretense that he is actually negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran and just tell the Ayatollahs that from now on it's full steam ahead toward finishing their nuclear bomb and ICBM program. ~~~~~ But, that would mean that Obama and his advisors would also need to alert Europe and Africa that "the Iranians are coming." ~~~~~ And shortly thereafter, Mr. Obama might want to alert Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines that North Korea, joined by Iran, Russia and China, will soon be making house calls. Perhaps Australia and New Zealand would be safe until later. ~~~~~ And all the while, the US military will be reinforcing American east and west coast border areas to intercept nuclear ICBMs. ~~~~~ Dear readers, if you think this a gross exaggeration of the run-on events following the fall of Iraq, please let me know how your vision of a shiite Iraq that is an Iran client state differs. ~~~~~ P.S. to President Obama and his advisors : You may not have noticed, occupied as you are with tossing US allies to the Iranian wolves, so let me remind you that you are the head of the best trained, best equipped, most professional, in short the finest military in the world. Perhaps if you take time to let this fact sink into your decision-making genes, it will occur to you that you cannot -- cannot on your best day -- plan a strategic and tactical military plan to avert the collapse that is fast approaching in the Middle East, starting with Iraq. But, your military can. That is their job. Your job is to understand and approve the plan and obtain congressional approval for the required budget. The world has fully noted your queasiness about real military engagement, but in crises, even the queasiest commander-in-chief must be prepared to use his military general staff for things other than parade functions. It is time to get out of the way, Mr. President. Ask your military Joint Chiefs to prepare the Middle East plan -- my guess is that they have already done this. Let them implement it -- before your unfathomable and unjustified sense that you know everything about being a military commander leads us into World War III when a real military plan could contain it in the region that now suffers greatly from your unskilled attention.
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Does the triumph or failure of democratic ideals over ideological rivals have to do with “the victory of an idea or the victory of arms?”
ReplyDeleteIn more direct terms that which is stirring right now in the Middle East a matter of ideological encounter or is it a winner take all battle of arms backed by religious fundamentalists?
For me I don’t think it about any ideals or freedoms we hold dear. It’s all about power, control, land, and wealth. There is really nothing ideological about it. It is masquerading as “religion” but only masquerading.
The supposedly legitimate armed forces of Baghdad are, as has been witnessed again in Ramadi, not fit for the purpose. The true defenders of Baghdad and of the government are right now heading toward Ramadi. They are the forces of the "Hashd al-Shaabi" (popular mobilization). They are the Shia militias, supported by Iran. These militias are the wall behind which the Amadi government shelters.
ReplyDeleteThe Obama insists on maintaining the illusion that the government in Baghdad is something other than a Shia sectarian-dominated entity in the process of entering a de facto military alliance with the Iranians. This stubbornness is producing the current absurd situation in which Western air power is being used in support of Shia Islamism.
American hesitation to aid Kurdish and tribal Sunni forces has left the field to Iranian-backed Shia militiamen, seen here after their recapture of Tikrit in March.
It is important to understand that this is not taking place because there is no other option for stopping the advance of the Islamic State. There is another, more effective option: direct aid to the Kurds, and to the Sunni tribes further south.
This past weekend with the fall of Ramadi raises questions about Obama’s strategy to defeat ISIS in Iraq and his likely ability to do anything effective in the Middle East. The seizure of the city of Ramadi by the Islamic State (or ISIS) on Sunday was a major setback for the Iraqi government and for the Obama administration.
ReplyDeleteThe panicked retreat of Iraqi police and security forces from Ramadi underscores the continued weakness of the Iraqi army and police. It also raises questions about the viability of the Obama administration’s strategy to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq or any place else.
The fact that the Baghdad government now is considering moving Shiite militias to Ramadi, a predominantly Sunni city, suggests that Iraq’s central government still lacks adequate support from Iraq’s Sunni Arabs to defeat the Islamic State. This spells trouble for Iraqi and American plans to ever defeat the Islamic State.
The Obama administration is beginning now to see the idiocy of the lack of a Middle East policy or a hint of allowing the U.S. military to set the policy and then be allowed to carry it out.
The action (or lack thereof) by the Obama government in not using American military forces to face and defeat ISIS is a convincing argument that Obama has no idea what he is doing in the Middle East. He exhibits his unwillingness to use the finest military force ever assembled to stop this ravenous march of ISIS. He continues to play the role of a Commander-In-Chief of a military that he has no respect for, no understanding of, and speciously has no real aspiration to stop the march of ISIS through country after country.
ReplyDeleteISIS is a rag tag bunch of a volunteer militia that has one thing one their side … their allegiance to an idea. They are mostly not trained at all, they are armed mostly with weaponry taken from defeated forces, they are religious fundamentalists that have nothing better to be doing at the present time and they see this as a call from Allah to slice and dice throughout the Middle East.
Meanwhile Nero (in the form of Obama) sits worthlessly by watching the obliteration of operational regimes of sorts.
The war in Iraq is really beginning to resemble the Vietnam Nam war. How many times and how many casualties will it take before we learn our lesson from Vietnam and once a city, Provence , ridge line, valley, etc is taken and the enemy is dislodged we keep the area under our control.
ReplyDeleteAnd maybe it's time that President Ibama address the Anerican public and tell us just what his objective is in Iraq. Oh! That can't happen until he figures out what they are can he?