Walt's plan for the war in the Middle East

During the US election campaign, Hellery Clinton responded to challenges on what she was going to do to win the war against the Islamic terrorists -- the ones she wouldn't call by name -- by saying that she had a plan, which included the capture of Mosul, which would fall in a matter of days. Donald Trump said that even if the anti-ISIS "coalition" succeeded in liberating Mosul, they'd find the IS leaders long gone, precisely because La Clinton had given them plenty of notice, plus details of President 0's plans to "degrade" the soldiers of the Prophet.

As I pointed out a few days ago, in "Meanwhile, in the Middle East...", predictions of the capture of Mosul turned out to be premature. Latest reports are that the Kurds, advancing from the area they control in northern Iraq, are stalled at the gates of the city. The alleged Iraqi National Army, coming up from the south, has been unable to prevent ISIS fighters from breaking out to the west and south, heading for Syria. Enough of the terrorists remain in Mosul to make its fall uncertain at best.

Meanwhile, the eyes and ears of the world have turned toward Syria, where ISIS has retaken the ancient city of Palmyra, which it lost some nine months ago. Turns out this great victory for the "coalition" was, errr, of a temporary nature. As in Afghanistan and Iraq, "we" learned that occupying and securing a given area is rather more difficult than taking it in the first place. I can almost hear the cries of "They're baaaack!"

If you believe the propaganda dished out every day by the lamestream media, the retaking of Palmyra by ISIS isn't that big a deal. What is a big deal is the fall of Aleppo -- once Syria's biggest city -- not to ISIS but to [SHOCK! HORROR!] the forces of the evil, devilish, inhuman Bashir al-Assad! With more than a little help in the form of airstrikes by the Russians, Syrian government forces have entered and taken control of 99% of the eastern part of Aleppo, which had been held by rebel militias for years. MORE SHOCK! MORE HORROR!

The chattering classes and spokesthingies for liberal democracy are engaging in an orgy of handwringing, pissing and moaning that almost defies description. Here's a sample, written by someone called Terry Glavin [Who he? Ed.] in today's Emotional Post. "J’accuse! May Allah look down in his mercy upon Aleppo — no help is coming from us. This is what we have become. This is the depravity to which we have all sunk. Aleppo has fallen and so has humanity. We are disgraced."

Walt doesn't see it quite that way. There have been some civilian casualties in the battle for Aleppo, to be sure, including women and children. Hundreds, not thousands, have been killed, but those numbers pale in comparison to the numbers executed -- not killed in fighting, but executed -- by ISIS. So why is it the "end of civilization" when Syrian government forces do the killing, but not when atrocities are committed by the Sunni Muslim rebels and the Islamic extremists of ISIS? Answers on the back of a postage stamp, please, to the usual address.

As of this morning, the Assad government controls most of western Syria, which is the only part of the country worth having. The Kurds have most of their homeland in northern Iraq. ISIS holds their capital, Raqqa, as well as Mosul (still) and Palmyra (again). The alleged Iraqi government has a tenuous hold on Baghdad, but not much else. Their ill-trained and timorous army is (sometimes) fighting it out with ISIS for eastern Syria and south-central Iraq. I'll go out on a limb here and predict that there will be no significant change of any kind in the year to come. Lifetime pct .985.

What, then, should the USA, soon to be under new management, do about the Middle East? I've given it a lot of thought [All this week? Ed.] and can come up with no better plan than to bug out and let the Muslims duke it out amongst themselves. That, in essence, is what Ron Paul has been saying for years. The Syrian armed forces, with the help of the Russians, will keep pushing eastward, while the Kurds, helped by the Iranians, will keep pushing down from the north. Let them destroy the Sunnis (ISIS plus assorted rebel militias) if they can, and good luck to them. We’ve got no skin in that game.

Further reading: "Some Perspectives on the War on Terror: Anyway you look at it, it's a failure", by Philip Giraldi, in The Unz Review, 20/12/16.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East...

A random selection of headlines from this weekend's news...

- 25 dead after bomb explodes during Mass at Coptic Orthodox cathedral in Cairo

- Turkey stadium bombing death toll rises to 38, including 30 police officers

- 9 months after being driven out, IS militants recapture Palmyra

- Iraqi offensive against ISIS stronghold in Mosul stalls; Defense Secretary Carter arrives to assess situation

- Syrian army, Russian warplanes pound rebel-held Aleppo but advances halt

- Death toll hits 45 in Yemen suicide bombing

- Kerry calls for "grace" as Syrians set to take Aleppo

- US Sends 200 More Troops To Syria Days After Obama Lifts Ban On Arms Supplies To Rebels

Meanwhile, the Prez (soon to be ex-Prez) thinks the most important thing he should do before leaving office (at last!) is to prove that the Russians are responsible for the election of Donald Trump. You couldn't make this stuff up.

Further reading: "Trump’s Promised 'New Foreign Policy' Must Abandon Regime Change for Iran", by Ron Paul, 4/12/16.

VIDEO: How goes the war against IS/ISIL/ISIS? It's a fiasco!

In the past ten days, while Walt was preoccupied with weightier matters [The NHL playoffs? Ed.], the "Caliphate" struck back, seizing the key cities of Ramadi (in Iraq) and Palmyra (Syria). The loss of the latter is sad for the West because it was a centre of culture and civilization since for millennia, and priceless antiquities are now threatened with destruction by the Islamic barbarians. The toll of dead (beheaded and otherwise) and displaced (refugees) in both places continues to mount.

How did this happen? For over a year now, it will be remembered, the Paranoid States of America and its running dogs (O Canada!) have been bombing the excrement out of targets -- latrines, dumptrucks, and so forth -- in Iraq and Syria, with the avowed aim of "degrading" (not "defeating") "ISIL" (as Obama and Harper still call it), and keeping our countries safe from the dreaded Islamic terrorists.

Now, with the fall of Ramadia and Palmyra, the shekel has dropped. The coalition's defence honchos have belatedly realized that without boots on the ground, the mission against ISIS is futile. They tell us that they already knew that, but were relying on the Iraq's alleged army -- trained and advised by coalition troops -- to get the job done. How's that working out? At Ramadi, the Iraqis, although outnumbering the jihadists 10 to 1, turned tail and ran.

Pause for a little levity...
Q. How many gears to Iraqi tanks have? A. One forward, four reverse!
Q. What's the forward speed for? A. In case they're attacked from behind!

United States Secretary of Defense Ass Carter ["Ash"! Don't do that again. Ed.] didn't actually tell that joke on CNN last Sunday, but did, on the national air, criticize Iraqi soldiers for not being willing to fight and defend themselves. He blamed the biggest ISIS victory in almost a year on something that sounded a lot like Iraqi cowardice. What he actually said was, "What apparently happened [in Ramadi] is that the Iraqi forces showed no will to fight. They were not outnumbered. In fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force. And yet they failed to fight."

Mr. Carter’s frustrations are apparently shared by the Prez. Mr. 0 told The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg that "if the Iraqis are not willing to fight for the security of their country, then we cannot do it for them."

In "Why Iraq's Military Has No Will to Fight" Matt Schiavenza says it’s easy to see why Washington is unhappy with Baghdad. He writes: "In the eight years since the US formally occupied Iraq, the US invested $25 billion in training and equipping the country’s armed forces before withdrawing in 2011. To this day, a much smaller number of American soldiers remain in the country in order to train Iraqi soldiers.

"What accounts for the Iraqi military’s failure? Many problems stem from the Bush administration’s decision to disband the existing Iraqi military in 2003 and build a new one from scratch. Intended to rid the institution of officers linked to Saddam Hussein, the move instead left thousands of armed men unemployed and embittered. This contributed to a security vacuum within Iraqi society and fed a vicious anti-US insurgency. Many high-ranking officials who served under Saddam have now become senior commanders with ISIS.

"The Iraqi army is also notoriously corrupt, a legacy of Nouri al-Maliki’s years as prime minister. Fearful that a strong military would pose a threat to his power, al-Maliki replaced top commanders with political clients drawn from his Shiite sect, undermining any attempt to establish a merit-based system of promotion. So-called 'ghost battalions' draw salaries despite never reporting for duty, and the forces who do remain are no match for fanatical ISIS fighters.

"'Military training, no matter how intensive, and weaponry, no matter how sophisticated and powerful, is no substitute for belief in a cause,' William Astore, a former US Air Force lieutenant colonel, wrote last year in the American Conservative."

That's a very good analysis from a respected -- and liberal -- source. But it begs the question Walt and others have been asking since the beginning. What are "we" -- Obama's "coalition of Western democracies" -- doing there? Why are we meddling in the Middle East, taking sides in Islamic civil wars and jihads which are really none of our business? See "Canada re-ups for another year of the Obama war" and "Jordan's King Abdullah II speaks about the 'war within Islam'"

Quoting the Schiavenza article again: "The main problem with the Iraqi military is the problem with Iraq as a whole -— the country effectively no longer exists as a unified state. Kurdistan, for all intents and purposes, acts as an independent country. Much of the Sunni population lives in territories controlled by ISIS. The rump Iraqi government, meanwhile, operates in close cooperation with Iran, which funds Shiite militias that act as a paramilitary force. The Iraqi military, then, is less a cause of the country’s failures than a reflection of them."

Dear readers, Iraq is a fiasco! So says Ron Paul, in a dialogue with Daniel McAdams, the latest installment of the Ron Paul Liberty Report. Here's "Who Won't Fight in Iraq?".