Why Washington's War on Terror Failed
Why Washington’s War on Terror Failed
The Underrated Saudi Connection
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175884/tomgram%3A_patrick_cockburn%2C_how_to_ensure_a_thriving_caliphate/#more
By Patrick Cockburn
[This essay is excerpted from the first chapter of Patrick Cockburn’s new book, The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising, with special thanks to his publisher, OR Books. The first section is a new introduction written for TomDispatch.]
There are extraordinary elements in the present U.S. policy in Iraq
and Syria that are attracting surprisingly little attention. In Iraq,
the U.S. is carrying out air strikes and sending in advisers and
trainers to help beat back the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and
the Levant (better known as ISIS) on the Kurdish capital, Erbil. The
U.S. would presumably do the same if ISIS surrounds or attacks Baghdad.
But in Syria, Washington’s policy is the exact opposite: there the main
opponent of ISIS is the Syrian government and the Syrian Kurds in their
northern enclaves. Both are under attack from ISIS, which has taken
about a third of the country, including most of its oil and gas
production facilities.
But U.S., Western European, Saudi, and Arab Gulf policy is to
overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, which happens to be the policy of
ISIS and other jihadis in Syria. If Assad goes, then ISIS will be the
beneficiary, since it is either defeating or absorbing the rest of the
Syrian armed opposition. There is a pretense in Washington and elsewhere
that there exists a “moderate” Syrian opposition being helped by the
U.S., Qatar, Turkey, and the Saudis. It is, however, weak and getting
more so by the day. Soon the new caliphate may stretch from the Iranian
border to the Mediterranean and the only force that can possibly stop
this from happening is the Syrian army.
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