Sunday, June 15, 2014



IRAQ AND THE TWILIGHT ZONE

Once again people like Fareed Zakaria rush to the smell of money and spurt out meaningless statements about an event, this time Iraq, as people like me sit back, listen and say, “ why does the media think if you have an Arabic name, you are automatically an ‘expert’ in the Middle East”?

George Bush???????

Really Fareed?

Did you attend the same international school of foreign affairs that Nancy Pelosi slept through?

Ok, I’m not going to waste anymore of my time on these paid talking heads…what they say is complete waste of time and time is not what the West  has to waste when it comes to the investment  made in Iraq.

Let me address the issue that seems to be the distraction of the day, and yes I said “distraction”.

Baghdad!

Are the troops that are loyal to Maliki capable of stopping the ISIS and “others” advance on Baghdad?

Yes, they have equipment and yes they are larger in numbers, but is that enough?

Talk today was centered on the “advance” being stopped north of Baghdad, or slowed according to whose reports you listen to.

Here is the hint to that report being accurate or not.

Do the Sunni groups desire to occupy Bagdad?

Do they wish to shove the Shia back into the East and South and have the Maliki government step down?

My bet is that is exactly what is taking place.

The Sunni groups are full of battle hardened Warriors with years of experience in Syria.

Yet, they have a few strategical challenges they have no history of overcoming.

1.      Their ranks have grown as they moved forward…those deciding at the last minute to change sides… join the wining team and it’s these new members, who are not known, not trusted and unproven in combat that must be dealt with…..do you keep them….kill them….turn them down…. The bottom line is , as they advance…they change…and dealing with that change is a dangerous issue.

2.     As is the case every time a revolutionary group strikes out to “change” the course of a nation or region, the devil is in the details!  How will you govern… who will run the utilities… who will keep the society moving back towards “normal”….what is “normal” under the oppressive mindset of the Sunni groups?   Yes,  killing and shooting and blowing things up is exciting to unemployed young men who have no vision of a real future for them…but when that is over…what is left?  Ask the Rebels who won in Libya?

3.     It’s one thing to speed down a highway in a Mad Max looking convoy…..stopping to get gas and post a few YouTube clips, but soon, perhaps today, the Iraqi forces, along with the Iranian units already with them…yes… you can bet on that one… they will force the Sunni groups into a conventional conflict….one that will require maneuver, communications…communications the Iranians will jam and monitor....logistical resupply and detailed planning to respond to a force that is in a defensive position and armed with standoff weapons. Yes…the initial Shock of the blitzkrieg forced the poorly trained and poorly lead forces in front of the movement to flee…but that has been the cycle of battle for thousands of years and that is the cycle that is taking place now in Iraq.

Bagdad will not fall to a insurgent Sunni force, but it may collapse, more than it has, under its own weight of incompetence.

In the Rubble, the ones that will pick up the pieces and put something back together again will be the Persians!

Ah yes… Once again… the Arabs will have to turn to the Persians for guidance and that always comes at a price.

Soon the machine of sending young Arab men from Iraq into the killing fields of Syria will crank back up…..soon… mothers and fathers and young wives will see their men being placed into the ground for the sake of the Persian vision for the region and the Eye Doctor Puppet that serves the Persian Masters.

Iraq is the new Syria and have no illusions that upsets the Iranians for it does not!

What is important to the Persians is the ability to operate from Syrian and Iraqi and Lebanese land and that doesn't require peaceful cities or a safe society.

Nations is crisis are nation willing to do your bidding.

Iraq has entered into the twilight zone and the Persians really don’t care.