Posts
Iraq and Syria have become constants
in our lives – as they are in American foreign policy. Continued strife in both
places, though, is not preventing some from composing first drafts of recent
history. This is especially so for the Islamic State. This premature effort to
lay down intellectual markers to shape our collective memory has the
unfortunate consequence of doing injury to reality. It also blurs
accountability for gross errors of judgment and action.
This essay highlights features of
what has become the conventional “narrative.” It is a story line that deviates
from the truth – whether intentionally or unwittingly. A corrective is
badly needed. What I offer here is not a definitive account but rather a
detached rendering of what the record tells us. It benefits from discussions
with persons who have had long experience in and deep knowledge of both
countries as well as the multiple expressions of political Islam generally. One
person in particular has provided detailed explanations of salient issues:
Alain Chouet, former Chief of the French Security Intelligence
Service. Chouet’s answers to some outstanding
questions are included in Addendum I.
Michael Brenner
“History Is Hard To
Predict”
As the
Islamic State is forced to retreat, and seems destined to be pushed to the
margins as just another Takfiri terrorist group, pens are being uncapped
to compose the early drafts of what is designed to be the official if informal
narrative of the saga. It is destined to be the central element in a larger
narrative about Syria, the survival of the Assad regime and the American-led
strategic failure. We see the first outlines of the story in sponsored reports
being issued by think tanks and consultancies. Predictably, they are composing
a picture that grossly distorts reality – and, in some important respects, misrepresents
it. This is par for the course. For, as with other American misadventures in
the Middle East, there is an identifiable narrative that preceded our
intervention, gained purchase as the ensuing drama unfolded, and then is etched
in accounts intended to justify the critical decisions taken and to whitewash
the pernicious consequences.
In
regard to ISIS, the key features of the “narrative” are these:
1. ISIS was a home-grown, almost spontaneous movement – with roots in
Jabhat al-Nusra/al-Qaeda - that emerged among the disaffected Sunnis of
Anbar province of Iraq and Northeastern Syria.
2. It has been more-or-less self-sustaining from the outset with only
minor facilitation from external parties.
3. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey sympathized with some elements of
the original organization, and later made a few self-interested deals with the
leadership, but never provided crucial support.
4. In regional strategic terms, the threat posed by the Iranian
organized and directed ‘Shi’ite Crescent’ was an underlying cause of the
movement’s genesis and provides an understandable explanation for the
sympathies noted above.
5. The Shi’ite dominated Iraqi government in Baghdad shares much of
the blame since it did little to mollify Sunni concerns about becoming a
marginalized minority in Iraq. In addition, it allowed the Iranians to acquire
undue influence in the country – thereby stoking fears across the border in
Syria.
6. A continued, large American presence in Iraq as sought by
Presidents Bush and Obama could have offset these trends, and could have
suppressed ISIS when it first arose as a military threat.
7. The Assad regime, too, bears heavy responsibility for ISIS’ rise.
Its violent suppression of the democratic movement in 2011 opened the way for
them to gain influence as effective opponents of Damascus while discrediting
the democratic and moderate Islamist elements. Iran had a major hand in Assad’s
strategy.
8. ISIS’ incomes have been overwhelmingly self-generated. It includes
the levelling of taxes on the population under its control, smuggling of oil,
the sale of looted antiquities, and the seizure of cash from financial
institutions taken in Mosul and elsewhere.
9. ISIS’ military equipment was acquired illicitly and smuggled to
them in Syria and Iraq. Whatever supplies they may have received from external
parties was intermittent, minor and now has ceased. Their heavy equipment was
seized from the Iraqi Army which they routed around Mosul in June 2014.
Here
are the counterpart features of the “narrative” as it recounts the involvement
of al-Qaeda – and associated Takfiris - in Syria. (Al-Qaeda a.k.a.: Jabhat
al-Nusra Front). The contextual strategic elements in the plot line remain
the same.
1. Al-Nusra emerged organically among the Syrian Sunnis in opposition
to the oppressive Assad regime
2. Its affiliation with al-Qaeda Central, Zawahiri’s shura in
the Afghan-Pakistan borderlands, was at first a loose one that – after a period
of coordination – has loosened again
3. Al-Nusra received some financial support from private
sources in the Persian Gulf, but these have largely dried up
4. The Turkish government, or sympathetic elements within the Ankara
government, may have turned a blind eye to the infiltration of fighters from
other places and to the importation of supplies. However, the Erdogan
government has not been in league with al-Nusra. The same applies to financial
assistance and the smuggling of export items.
5. Al-Nusra & Assoc. operates independently of
“moderate”/democratic groups. They largely respect the latter’s autonomy within
the framework of a broad-based modus vivendi agreement
6. Military aid to those “moderate” groups provided by the United
States and other countries has not been transferred to al-Nusra
7. The key to reducing the influence of al-Nusra is abdication by
Assad. That would undercut their popular support, devalue their purely military
contribution to the overall opposition and strengthen the attraction of
democratic elements
This is
the outline of the prevailing narrative that is shaping assessment of the Takfiri
threat in Syria and Iraq. The rendition is riddled with distortions,
untruths and critical omissions. It bears the same relationship to the
historical record as Zero Dark Thirty does to the actual location and
assassination of Osama bin-Laden. It is mostly fiction.
The central truths of the complicated
tale are these.
·
Takfiri groups of various shapes and sizes (including the Muslim
Brotherhood) were already embedded in Syria when the demonstrations against
Assad broke out in early 2011. They were bent on violence from Day One. They
moved quickly and effectively to establish themselves as the dominant force in
the multifaceted opposition. (It is noteworthy that the upheaval in Syria didn’t start in
the Capital Damascus - like in Tunisia or Egypt; but rather in the
town of Dera’a on the border with Jordan where the Muslim Brotherhood was well
established as a legal political party. The unrest then spread to Idlib
province, near the Turkish border, before its extension across the whole
country).
·
Al-Nusra, ISIS and Ahrar al- Sham – along with other violent
Salafist outfits - grew from the same root stock. The schisms derived mainly
from differences over tactics, individual leadership ambitions and the
manipulations of outside parties who provided material support, political
backing and encouragement. Those
parties were Erdogan’s Turkey, the Kingdom of Saudi Arab and Qatar. For the
KSA, the point man was Saudi’s Prince Bandar bin-Sultan Al-Saud (head of the
KSA’s Intelligence Agency) who oversaw the project of promoting Sunni
opposition to Assad. His public remarks declared bluntly that that it was a
critical piece in a plan to finally put Shi’ite Islam in its place. At the beginning, in
August 2012 and following the instructions of its chief, Prince Bandar, the GID
created Jabhat al-Nusra to confront the expansion of ISI (soon rebranded
ISIS). We have evidence of the
role of the GID in the formation of Jabhat al-Nusra. Hence, as Bandar was the chief,
we can assume that he gave instructions for implementing the project.1 (+ Addendum I)
Each
had its own objectives; but they agreed on the common aim of creating a
fundamentalist Sunni state and eliminating Iranian influence in Syria. An
ancillary purpose was to weaken the Shi’ite regime in Iraq by undercutting ties
to Iran and encouraging a de facto tripartite partition of the country.
Saudi
Arabia’s underwriting of violent takfiri groups like al-Qaeda/al-Nusra
in Syria derived from the same strategic logic that had prompted their
large-scale support for the Iraqi insurgency in the previous decade. During the period
2004-2009, 75% of the foreign volunteers joining jihadi groups in Iraq came
across the Saudi border. And of those 75%, more than the half were Saudi born
or Saudi residents (including members and officers of the KSA army or
national guard). KSA was trying all in its power to undermine the
shi'a dominated government in Iraq and to curb Iranian influence in the
country. The United States, which was absorbing casualties and spending vast
sums in its campaign to suppress the insurgency, never voiced its displeasure
publicly or – as far as we know – privately. Instead, they concentrated their
rhetorical fire on Iran (and still do) despite the absence of any concrete
evidence of any consequential Iranian contribution.
·
Al-Nusra, and ISIS once it split from al-Qaeda, received
financing from the Persian Gulf. Qatar favored ISIS, the KSA favored al-Nusra.
(Addendum I) Turkey took on the main responsibility of: providing facilities
for organization and training; the transit of arms from various sources
(including the United States – indirectly); the transit of foreign jihadis into
Syria; and, not least, entered into a structured arrangement with ISIS
for the export of oil from conquered areas via a network of convoy routes that
terminated at Turkish ports. Erdogan’s son was a director in the firm that
handled things at the Turkish end. These activities continued unabated until
the end of 2015 when Russian intervention shifted the terms of the game.
·
The United States government made a calculated decision to look
the other way in regard to all manner of external interventions from Sunni
regional powers. That was the course it followed until late 2015. To this day,
Washington has not confronted any of the three governments that supplied and
succored al-Nusra & Assoc. or ISIS. It did quietly remonstrate with Ankara
about the oil trade when embarrassed by a Russian presentation at the United
Nations. Most recently, the U.S. has entered into a quid pro quo deal
whereby it casts a benign eye on the Turkish incursion into Northeast Syria
(motivated mainly be the aim of blocking the Kurds’ attempt to establish a
strip of controlled territory along the length of the border) in exchange for
Ankara’s breaking with ISIS, i.e. cutting its losses.
·
The United States refrained from attacking oil fields, oil
terminals or the highly vulnerable convoys for four years. It similarly
refrained from any military action against al-Nusra & Assoc. until January
of this year when it took a few potshots at units in Idlib.
·
The United States indirectly provided arms to the takfiri
groups via two routes. The first took the form of trans-shipments through Saudi
Arabia. They included the gift of TOW anti-armor missiles that gave a critical
advantage to al-Nusra in its 2015 campaign against Idlib province whose success
prompted desperate Russian intervention. The other was via shipments of
equipment to non-takfiri groups who either passed them on to al-Nusra or
had them seized by al-Nusra. This became a routine practice of which the United
States government was fully aware. The CIA initiated these transfers on a
clandestine basis in 2012 (most of the arms originating in Libya), and after a
temporary interruption, they were resumed in conjunction with U.S. Army
programs established in Jordan.
The Libyan connection has been lost
in the furor over whether Hillary Clinton’s State Department acted swiftly
enough to save the besieged CIA operatives in Benghazi. In fact, the Consulate
served as the outpost for the CIA team that was acquiring and transfer
arms prised from Gaddafi's arsenal from Benghazi to Syria. Ambassador Stevens had come to Benghazi to initial agreements with
shadowy shipping firms that were contracted to transfer the
arms to Syrian rebels via Turkish ports. The debacle simply was a matter of the
CIA being outclassed by Ansar al-Sharia on the latter’s
own turf. An added twist was the Pentagon’s growing apprehension that the
CIA was sending weapons to terrorists groups whom we might be fighting one day.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Martin Dempsey, took the initiative to
delay the deliveries and to substitute decrepit arms of Korean War vintage for
Gaddafi’s state-of-the-art weaponry. It is not clear whether President Obama
knew of this intra-mural infighting.
·
The United States made its priorities manifest when, at the end of
last year, the Air Force launched intensive strikes against Syrian Army
positions in support of an ISIS offensive around Deir Az Zur. Its
ulterior purpose was to sabotage the political agreement just reached by
Secretary Kerry and the Russians on a coordinated approach in dealing with takfiri
groups in Syria. Sponsored by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, the successful
move expressed the Pentagon’s fierce opposition to any cooperation with Russia.
·
The strategic context for these acts of commission and omission
was set by the Obama administration’s inability to reconcile its stated
dedication to the overthrow of Assad (Obama: “Assad must go!”) and its concern
about the growing power of the main takfiri groups. Instead, it made the
critical decision of prioritizing the former. That had two capital
implications. 1) Washington took a hands-off approach to the dominant role of
al-Nusra on the main fronts in Syria; it refused to tackle either Ankara or
Riyadh on the question of their backing for al-Nusra and ISIS; and it pulled
its punches on the economic front of its project to evict ISIS from Iraq. 2) It
sought to protect itself from criticism, or even awkward questions, about the
resulting advantages it gave to terrorist groups which since 9/11 had been the
country’s enemy Number One, by concocting a narrative that elided these thorny
issues. It ignored the role of the Sunni powers, it presented the Syrian
opposition as “democratic” or Islamic “moderates’ with al-Qaeda depicted as
merely playing s supporting role (its name never uttered), and it blamed Assad
as being the root cause of it all.3
·
The self-imposed imperative never to offend Turkey also was the
reason why Obama refused to place blame for the notorious sarin attack in 2013.
U.S. Intelligence soon realized that it was not an act by the Assad government;
rather, it was a false flag operation likely orchestrated by the Turks in
cahoots with the Free Syrian Army to bring Washington into the war. That
explains why the President took no action when his “red line” seemingly
war crossed. Yet, instead of being forthright he paid an enormous political
price by observing the rule of omerta.
·
This task of fabricating “the narrative” was greatly eased by the
near complete failure of the American foreign policy community and the MSM to
call attention to those obvious contradictions and dubious claims.
·
Today, those same parties are engaged in the exercise of
entrenching the fictitious narrative into the history books.
Why did the Obama administration
commit itself to a strategy that made little sense from the perspective of
American security interests?
Two
reasons stand out. First, it well expressed the preferences of the Israeli
government which wanted Assad out due mainly to his support for Hezbollah, and
wanted a tough line against Iran, cast as its greatest enemy. Second, the United
States placed the highest value on good relations with the KSA, the Gulfies and
Turkey because the network of bases on their territory was viewed as essential
to the Pentagon’s grand plan of maintaining full spectrum dominance in
the region. Against whom never has been specified although Russia now has been
recruited to fill the need. This is the same line of thinking that led the
Obama people to provide crucial support that enabled Saudi Arabia to conduct
its murderous air campaign against the Houthis of Yemen. There, the
consequences have been a great expansion of al-Qaeda (which at times has fought
alongside the Saudi forces) and the implantation of the Islamic State.
On the
base issue, Obama and his ductile cadre of senior advisers never challenged the
brass. The nuclear deal with Iran provided further justification for doing
nothing to ruffle the feathers of our regional allies – all of whom were peeved
that we didn’t go to war to overthrow the mullahs‘ regime. The diplomatic
alliance of Israel and Saudi Arabia, buttressed by its lobbying juggernaut in
the United States, sealed the deal whereby the United States was reduced to
being the dog wagged by the tail of its dependent allies (to its own detriment)
in determining how it addressed all aspects of the Syria cum Iraq
crises.
Second
order consequences.
The
protracted civil war in Syria along with the upheaval in Iraq pushed a wave of
refugees into Turkey – and other neighboring countries. Ankara took on the
heaviest share of the burden of providing for them - financially and
materially. Subsidiaries of Erdogan’s AKP did benefit by garnering lucrative
contracts and running the illicit emigration operation. In other words, state money
went into the party coffers.
In
2015, Erdogan seized on the opportunity created by the refugee build-up to
blackmail European governments and the EU. He triggered and orchestrated a
massive outflow to the Greek islands located conveniently just a short distance
from the Turkish shore. His demand for billions in ransom in exchange for
staunching the flow worked marvelously as the Europeans reeled under the sudden
flood. Angela Merkel took herself personally to the Court of Erdogan to deliver
a promissory note for Euros 5 billion. The refugee spigot duly was closed.
Other demands regarding Turkey’s status vis a vis the EU were part of
the package.
The
ensuing turmoil across Europe, as countries flailed about in unsuccessful
efforts to fashion a feasible common policy, contributed mightily to the
pervasive anxieties over Muslim refugees, terrorism and the dilution of
national cultures. Those anxieties have fed the rise of
ultra-national/neo-fascist movements. In addition, the spillover effects added
to the momentum behind Brexit and even the upsurge in racist and xenophobic
sentiment in the United States which has given impetus to the Trump phenomenon.
Throughout
this period, American policies have been contradictory and incoherent. There is
no discernible strategic design – certainly not one grounded in regional
realities. Most everything Washington has done is disjointed with the sole
fixed reference points being placating Saudi Arabia & friends and
satisfying Israel’s self-defined wants. In this sense, Obama indeed has
left a mess for Trump. Trump, in turn, is proclaiming: if you think this is
a mess, wait until you see what I have in mind. Doubtless, he'll be true to
his word.
Forecast
This
broad stroke overview of what’s been going on in Iraq and Syria provides clues
as to what likely is to happen once the jihadi groups are more or less
neutralized. While Syria will remain a tangle of knots, Iraq is easier to
picture
·
The United States will press hard to
maintain military bases and substantial forces. That already has been stated by
Secretary of Defense General James Mattis, Head of the Joint Chiefs General
Joseph Dunford and Centcom chief General Joseph Votel. In effect, they aim to
restore what they lost in 2008 when al-Maliki kicked us out. This conforms to
the strategic goals of maintaining a dominant presence throughout the Middle
East, exercising influence in Baghdad and thwarting Iran. They hope, thereby to
eclipse their earlier failure.
·
The Kurds will shout: “AWESOME! Hamdu’ALLAH”
Unless they already have been betrayed – once again – by Washington in Syria to
pacify Erdogan. The Sunnis will be ambivalent: in need of a constraint on
Shi’ite revenge, but less than happy by the thousands killed and wounded by
American air strikes during the Reconquista. The latter sentiment will come as
a surprise to American policy-makers
·
Prime Minister al-Abadi will come
under strong counter pressure from those Shi’ite political factions who blocked
those plans eight years ago. Also, from Iran. It has sponsored the Hashed
shi’ite militias who will remain semi-autonomous and susceptible to guidance by
Quds force officers who have been embedded with them. The crucial player is
Muqtada al-Sadr who is vehemently anti-American. His party’s support in
Parliament is needed for al-Abadi and his Dawa-led government to stay in power.
Al-Sadr remains popular and has organized a series of anti-government
demonstrations protesting corruption and incompetence by the current
leadership. Sadr has nationalist credentials. Not only did he take up arms
against the Americans, he organized demonstrations in support of the Falluja
Sunni rebels in 2004. They were damaged, though, when breakaway factions of his
movement took part in the fratricidal civil war of 2005-2008.
As to Iran, his relations are mixed.
Al-Sadr did live in Iran, got some early support from Tehran, and then took up
residence in Qum to pursue Islamist studies. We should recall, though, that
Iran forced him to yield to al-Maliki when his own forces had the upper hand in
Basra in 2007, and then let him down when al-Maliki broke the Iran brokered
accord by joining the U.S. in its assault on Sadr City. Placed in the position
of choosing between the staunchly anti-American but intemperate al-Sadr and an
al-Maliki government that, too, was resisting a permanent American presence,
Iran chose the stolid al-Maliki. Hence, there is no love lost between al-Sadr
and Tehran. That helps to explain why Sadr last week called for “friends”
as well as ‘enemies” to vacate Iraq once ISIS has been disposed of.4
Of course, all of this history has
been airbrushed from “the narrative.” Indeed, most probably no one in official
Washington even remembers what actually happened. The ulterior purpose of the
exercise re. Iraq is to convince the world that its authors had not committed a
tragic error of historic proportions back then.
·
The signing of a Status Of Forces
Agreement (SOFA) with Washington would provoke mass demonstrations accompanied
by violence. The government may well fall. There will be attacks on American
personnel and facilities
·
National elections will generate new
sectarian tensions. The United States has interfered in every Iraqi election
since 2003 – always losing. So it will again.4 Either the SOFA will be rescinded or
a new insurrection, led by Sadr, may begin. Hopes of reknitting the country
will whither. Official Washington, the think-tank world and the MSM will draft
a revised narrative to put a gloss on this latest exercise in self-mutilation.
·
The Iraqi people will continue to pay
the price of American obtuseness and arrogance
This
would be the third iteration of Mission Impossible: an American state-building
project in the Islamic world: Afghanistan, Iraq I and Iraq II. As was said
about the butchery at the battles of the Somme and Passchendaele in WW I, the
first was a tragedy, the second a crime. A third in the Islamic world
deserves the label of psychopathology. For a further humiliating failure,
counterproductive results in terms of the terrorist threat, and serious
collateral damage to American interests in the region are the near certain
outcome.
Why go
down this suicidal path? It’s the same question we ask about our persistence in
hanging on in Afghanistan. Pride, vanity, the “can-do” spirit, the base
obsession? The honest answer would be something like the “street creds” that
motivate gangs in Chicago and Los Angeles. “Creds” to achieve exactly what? Our
leaders in Washington, uniformed and civilian, have given us no better answers
than have the Bloods and the Crips.
Is our
antic muscle-flexing since 2001, and now the Trump troupe’s chest-pounding
display, intended to cow Russia, China, and Iran? If so, Putin, Xi and Khamenei
clearly are unimpressed.
NOTES
1. Adam Entous;
Nour Malas; Margaret Coker Connect (25 August 2013). "A Veteran Saudi Power Player Works To
Build Support to Topple Assad". The Wall Street Journal. This self-same
strategic perspective prompted the Saudi leadership to actively encourage
the Sunni insurrection against the American occupation of Iraq.
2. On the CIA operation, see Seymour M. Hersh “The
Red Line and the Rat Line” London Review of Books December 19 2013. Also, Hersh
“Military to Military” LRB January 7, 2016. In the latter article, Hersh refers
to a Defense intelligence Agency report in 2013 .
The document showing ‘that what was
started as a covert US programme to arm and support the moderate rebels
fighting Assad had been co-opted by Turkey, and had morphed into an
across-the-board technical, arms and logistical programme for all of the
opposition, including Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State. The so-called moderates
had evaporated and the Free Syrian Army was a rump group stationed at an
airbase in Turkey.’ The assessment was bleak: there was no viable ‘moderate’
opposition to Assad, and the US was arming extremists.
3. We should bear in mind that the
Islamic State was already a formidable force before its seizure of
Mosul and surrounding territory in June 2014.. That success filled their
coffers with some $400 million looted from the branch of the Iraqi National
Bank as well as putting in their hands the arsenal of the routed Iraqi Army.
Before then, ISIS had seized Ramadi and Fallujah (just 40 miles from Baghdad)
and taken control of swathes of territory – all hundreds of miles from their
bases in Northern Syria. The money and material required for those operations
could not be acquired from the largely rural areas and small towns that they
occupied. Moreover, the organizational apparatus put in place needed secure
locations of some size and possessed of necessary facilities.
These large, fixed requirements had
to be met before Mosul. Forces needed to be recruited, trained, equipped,
etc. The implication is clear: the role of Turkey was crucial in
every respect – except financing. That could only have come from Saudi Arabia
and the Gulf. This was acknowledged by Vice-President Biden in his candid
remarks at Harvard’s JFK School in October 2014:
Biden told attendees that the militant Islamist group had been
inadvertently strengthened by actions allies took to help opposition groups
fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad….
"They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands
of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad. Except that the
people who were being supplied were al-Nusra and al-Qaeda and the extremist elements
of jihadis coming from other parts of the world,… We could not convince our
colleagues to stop supplying them."
The best informed and credible appraisal of ISIL’s
finances is provided by Luay al-Khatteeb. His analysis first appeared in the revue Petroleum
Economist, and then in a somewhat abbreviated English version in the Huffington
Post Feb 2, 2016 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
His conclusion: “Unless the
international community deals with the wellspring of global terror-financing -
instead of peddling exaggerations of the caliphate’s self-reliance and oil
capabilities - it will be unable to defeat IS. Its efforts would start with an
effective campaign against terror-financing stemming from the Gulf, to stop
them from “remaining and expanding”
4. See: Muqtada al-Sadr: “Iran out” again Al-Akhbar (pro-resistance Lebanese newspaper), 22
Feb 2017
ADDENDUM I
Comments of Alain Chouet, former Chief of the
French Security Intelligence Service, in response to questions. (Chouet is also the author of
the widely acclaimed historically informed interpretative account of political
Islam: Au Coeur Des Services Speciaux La Menace Islamiste – Fausses Pistes
Et Varias Dangers (Paris:La Decouverte 2013)
1. Was there any direct consultation
&/or coordinated action between Erdogan and the Saudis up until 2013 - or
after, for that matter?
There are continuous links and
consultations between their Intelligence services: GIP and the MIT, but in this
particular case it was not of great importance. Each party has its own goals
and aims which naturally converge. KSA needs solutions in Iraq and Syria that
exclude Shi’a power, Iranian influence and any prospect of democracy. Erdogan
and the AKP need solutions in Iraq and Syria that establish Turkish influence
and extend its presence across the whole region, and especially precludes any
idea of Kurdish independence or autonomy and any concept of non- Sunni or
non-Islamic based democracy. Hence, Riyadh-Ankara cooperation was natural
and didn’t require formal accords. The Turks bring know-how and human
resources, KSA brings money. It continues to this day.
Private donations from KSA, Koweït and
Qatar still irrigate jihadi groups in Iraq and Syria. US Department of Treasury
publishes each year a list of private donators (mainly Saudis) to these groups.
No reaction in the media nor in the concerned administrations. USTD repeatedly
congratulates the Kingdom for its “remarkable efforts” in refraining from
financial sponsoring of violence and sincerely hopes that next year will be
better than the past one…...
At the beginning, in August 2012, Prince
Bandar sponsored creation of Jabhat al-Nusra to confront the expansion of ISI
(soon becoming ISIS) more and more supported by Qatar. It was presented to the US
(Petraeus at CIA) and the French (DGSE) as a smart operation able to replace
the inconsistent Syrian Free Army and to undermine both the Syrian regime and
ISIS. According to him, claimed submission to Al-Qaïda was “faked” and only
designed to divert foreign volunteers from ISIS as well as to aggregate the
Sunni militants embedded in the thousands of Islamic mini-groups in Syria.
At the end of the day the operation was supposed by Western governments
to give the “moderate Islamic opposition” all its political credibility. The
entire West (and specially the French…) bought the concept which they still
adhere to.
(MB: In Washington, the implication is
that this snake oil was swallowed as well by Obama, Hillary Clinton, Donilon,
Rhodes, et al).
4. Since the Saudi obsession with Iran
has been constant, and Assad's fall a derivative commitment, who has been their
stalking horse - with what support?
The master card in the Saudis’ hand remains Erdogan in controlling the North of Syria and Iraq and. Thereby, being able to preclude any global political resolution or the restoration of any non-Sunni state control in the region. But the situation is less dramatic for the Saudis than it was from 2015 until this January since Trump and Netanyahu (and the French…again…) seem more sensitive to the “Iranian threat” and are all demonstrating strong support to the Saud family.
ADDENDUM II
History of
ISIS | PBS Documentary
The PBS’ FRONT LINE
documentary “The History of ISIS,“ which aired early this year, is a template
for the creation and propagation of “the narrative.” We are offered a made for
television dramatization: “The Life & Times of Abu Musab Zarqawi” instead
of a sober, instructive history. Its distinctive features include these.
1) The words al-Nusra, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar do not appear
2) Barack Obama is blamed for withdrawing American troops from Iraq
at the end of 2011 – thereby permitting the uncontested advances of ISIS. In
fact, the withdrawal was a decision made at the end of the Bush administration
when al-Maliki set conditions for the retention of a residual force which he
knew were unacceptable to Washington – subjecting Americans to the jurisdiction
of Iraqi courts. Our negotiators: Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General Petraeus
did not see it coming.
3) PBS quotes Crocker as saying that the Obama administration washed
its hands off Iraq politically and diplomatically, too. This is a lie: the
1,000 + Embassy force was fully engaged as were Washington officials.
4) On Syria, PBS offers no explanation as to how ISIS was financed
and supplied with military equipment and recruits while geographically isolated
through 2013.
5) PBS criticizes Obama for not equipping the “moderate” opposition
in the early days on the mistaken premise that they, rather than
al-Qaeda/ISIL/al-Ahram etc were leading the fight.
6) PBS blames Obama for not sending American troops to fight in Syria
despite its recounting of how the invasion and occupation of Iraq gave birth to
al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia. They ignore as well the fact that Syria is a legally
recognized sovereign state.
7) PBS makes no mention of the CIA’s failures in not identifying the
al-Qaeda and ISIL threats in Syria, in underestimating them, and in knowingly –
if indirectly – supplying the former.
8) The PBS documentary offers no explanation of where ISIS obtained armored
cars, other vehicles and guns that it is shown transporting from one front to
another across hundreds of miles in its offensives of 2013 and 2014. It does
not pose the question. This is the off-shoot of an AL-Qaeda in Mesopotamia
which just a few years earlier had been reduced to 37 men and thrown out of
Iraq by the revolting tribal forces.
9) PBS presents the entire story, from beginning to end, as a
political biography of Al-Zarqawi who is portrayed as being the mastermind and
controller of the entire Sunni insurgency against the United States in Iraq,
and the mentor for Bakr al-Baghdadi: “The Life & Times of Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi.” In truth the majority of fighters were not adherents to
al-Qaeda and did not accept its authority even before the tribal revolt. Moreover,
Zarqawi’s relations with al-Qaeda Central waxed and waned. There are
authoritative statements to the effect that al-Qaeda provided the Intelligence
that led to his killing by an American air strike in February 2006.
The New York Times on June 8, 2006 treated
the betrayal by at least one fellow al-Qaeda member as fact, stating that an
individual close to Zarqawi disclosed the identity and location of Sheik Abu
Abdul Rahman to Jordanian and American intelligence. Non-stop surveillance of Abu
Abdul Rahman
quickly led to Zarqawi. [150] On
July 4, 2006, the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad Zalmay
Khalilzad, in an interview with the BBC,
stated: ”the
bounty would not be paid because the decisive information leading to Zarqawi's
whereabouts had been supplied by an al-Qaeda in Iraq operative whose own complicity
in violent acts would disqualify him from receiving payment.[citation needed"
In
terms of the level of violence, it (the death of al-Zarqawi) has not had any
impact at this point... the level of violence is still quite high."
ADDENDUM III
Making the Zarqawi Myth
On April 10, 2006, The Washington Post
reported that the U.S. military conducted a major propaganda offensive designed
to exaggerate Zarqawi's role in the Iraqi insurgency.[116]
Gen. Mark
Kimmitt says of the propaganda campaign that there "was no
attempt to manipulate the press". In an internal briefing, Kimmitt is
quoted as stating, "The Zarqawi PSYOP Program is the most successful
information campaign to date." The main goal of the propaganda campaign
seems to have been to exacerbate a rift between insurgent forces in Iraq, but
intelligence experts worried that it had actually enhanced Zarqawi's influence.[116]
Col. Derek
Harvey,
who served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq and then was one of the
top officers handling Iraq intelligence issues on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
warned an Army meeting in 2004, "Our own focus on Zarqawi has enlarged his
caricature, if you will – made him more important than he really is, in some
ways."[116]
While Pentagon spokespersons state unequivocally that PSYOPs may not be used to
influence American citizens, there is little question that the information
disseminated through the program has found its way into American media sources.
The Washington Post also notes, "One briefing slide about U.S. 'strategic
communications' in Iraq, prepared for Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr.,
the top U.S. commander in Iraq, describes the 'home audience' as one of six
major targets of the American side of the war."[116]
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