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Title: Why Iran Believes ISIS is a U.S. Creation
Source:
Time (yeah, it still exists in dental offices)
URL Source: http://time.com/3720081/isis-iran-us-creation/
Published: Feb 26, 2015
Author: Kay Armin Serjoie
Post Date: 2015-03-01 08:09:05 by Tooconservative
Keywords: None
Views: 19262
Comments: 91
Iran has taken a lead role in defending the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad and strengthening the Baghdad government in the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS). But that doesn’t mean Iran views the United States as an ally in that war, even if they share a common enemy in ISIS. Abdullah Ganji, the managing-director of Javan newspaper, which is believed to closely reflect the views of the government and the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guards, says that U.S. support for ISIS is in fact a way of ensuring Israel’s security and disrupting the Muslim world in the cause of advancing Western interests. “We believe that the West has been influential in the creation of ISIS for a number of reasons. First to engage Muslims against each other, to waste their energy and in this way Israel’s security would be guaranteed or at least enhanced,” says Ganji. “Secondly, an ugly, violent and homicidal face of Islam is presented to the world. And third, to create an inconvenience for Iran.” Iran’s relations with the U.S. have been strained since the 1979 Islamic Revolution ousted the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran and negotiations are currently underway between Iran and Western nations, including the U.S., to ensure the Islamic Republic does not produce nuclear weapons. Ganji went on to say that much of ISIS — its propaganda, structure and weapons — were all the work of the West. “A group that claims to be an Islamic one and has no sensitivity towards occupied Muslim lands in Palestine but is bent on killing Muslims as its first priority, it’s not a movement with roots in Islamic history. Not only many of its weapons but its methods of operation, its propaganda methods and many of its internal structures are Western, that’s why we are distrustful of the roots of ISIS,” he says. “As the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Khamenei] also said, [the coalition forces] have on a number of times even made weapon drops for ISIS. How is it that they have laser-guided precision munitions and bombs but drop weapons for the wrong people? And not only once but at least a number of times,” he says, referring to incidents when weapons dropped from U.S. aircraft landed in ISIS-controlled areas rather than the intended Kurdish-controlled areas. “Iran cannot cooperate with the United States against ISIS because it doesn’t trust America, it doesn’t believe in their honesty in combatting ISIS. Iran can’t trust the U.S. to begin something and to continue to the end. It acts patronizingly and will change its path whenever it feels it is justified. We are also worried that the U.S. is using ISIS as a pretext to return its troops into Iraq,” Ganji says. “I believe that the U.S. prefers a weak ISIS that cannot be a major threat but will still cause inconvenience for Iran, Iraq and Syria and generally what they themselves called the Shiite crescent.” Poster Comment: I've read other reports that, across the Mideast, it is the majority view that ISIS is an American creation. Here, the Iranians make those accusations their official position.
"We believe that the West has been influential in the creation of ISIS"
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#12. To: A Pole (#9)
Always have. A famous fake quote attributed to various Brit pols was "Britain has no permanent allies, only permanent interests". This is a shortened misquote of a speech by a lesser-known pol of the 19th century British empire, Henry Temple, Third Viscount Palmerston. Palmerston was the closest thing to a Churchill type in Britain through much of the nineteen century: Wise words. But his attitude toward certain rebellious current and former colonies should curb our admiration for him: Cold-blooded bastige. : ) I like Lord Acton much more.
Unfortunately, from the perspective of the average Iraqi, it's been a long slide downhill in security and prosperity and confidence that your neighbors, regardless of sect, aren't just going to murder you suddenly. Saddam was brutal but he kept the peace in Iraq for a long time. Maybe people are starting to better understand why he was so utterly ruthless with the woodchippers. Tell me, if you captured some of these known ISIS killers of other Muslims and Christians and Westerners as well as Vandals of the rare artifacts and antiquities of ancient empires and their cults (which have been gone for many centuries), would you be tempted to do the same as Saddam did if there was a handy nearby woodchipper? I know I would. Let them pass over to Paradise and their 72 virgins in 7200 separate bloody pieces. And even that is too good for these scum. The Mideast is a very brutal place. Sometimes you can't have a civil society with any human rights if you don't have an ultra-hardass running the country, willing to be every bit as brutal as his government's internal enemies.
The Southern cotton which made its way to Northern looms would have become in import had the South broken loose, subject to tariffs. There is no way the South could have taken Northern markets for granted if she was no longer in the Union, and in the long run she would have lost protected access to the greatest market on Earth, for free trade where she had a commodity to sell in competition with other producers. She would have been like the nations who's prosperity rises and fall on the price of commodities, such as the West African producers of peanuts. Northern industry may have even financed the expansion of cotton cultivation to other regions such as Brazil and Egypt to supply the needs of the remaining United States. The tariff system may have also encouraged the production of flax and hemp instead of cotton. The South would have ended up trading away two birds in the hand for one in the bush. And a United States looking to settle scores with Britain may have cast its eyes north.
Since we are quoting British statesmen: “Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites—in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity;—in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption;—in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there is without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.” (Edmund Burke, A Letter From Mr. Burke To A Member Of The National Assembly, 1791.) As we can see, people in these places are incapable of placing moral chains upon their appetites. Therefore there are guys like Saddam and Assad who must impose the chains.
Ah, the Might Makes Right argument. Let's all sing now, boys and girls: Here we go around the merry go round, the merry go round the merry go round.........
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
All good points. I was mostly trying to show that these adages we all quote and which inform our most fundamental ideas about history and foreign policy often have a checkered and even garbled history. And that even when we admire the thinker who originated them, all such persons are inevitably products of their own era and culture and political/economic system and their opinions proceed from those first assumptions. He was a fiery old bastard and very smart, very ruthless. Worth noting at any rate.
Even so, I notice that Egypt seems much more content with their new general/president. Al-Sisi is the new Mubarak. And it looks like another long-term marriage to me. Unless the hotheads manage to just shoot him. No doubt, they'll try and he knows what happened to Sadat. Isn't that the lone happy outcome from any of these miserable Arab Spring debacles our president and our secretaries of state and our precious neocon pundits and major publications sang the virtues of so thoroughly before those countries went down in flames to Islamic fundamentalists? Seriously, Bush and Obama do deserve to be prosecuted at the Hague. I'd toss in Hitlery to boot but Lurch Kerry isn't guilty enough to join them in the docket. He's just stupid and insufferably arrogant, not a war criminal.
It is a good example of why Christianity always urged lawfulness to its subjects. In the Roman empire and under oppressive governments such as those found in the modern Mideast, it proved essential to their survival.
Maybe. These people recall the Crusades with the kind of resentments and suspicion that you would think they had occurred a generation ago. It's a region where they don't just hold grudges, they nurse them lovingly. Much the same is true of large swaths of eastern Europe and Russia. Sometimes remembering too much the tragedies of the past lead to new tragedies in a cycle of violence.
Sometimes remembering too much the tragedies of the past lead to new tragedies in a cycle of violence. Once again, let's all sing now, boys and girls: Here we go around the merry go round, the merry go round the merry go round......... This insane cycle never ends. So if it comes down to them or us, I choose us. If sanity cannot prevail among Mussie fanatics then I what us to use our might to make right. Let God sought them out.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
There is no doubt in my mind that the only reasonably viable solution to the current ISIS version Islamic stir-up short of an all out modern version of an East-West Holy War is a decisive Civil War within Islam in which those on the side of modernity triumph. Unfortunately there is not much doubt in my mind that the preferred victor in that Civil War would not be much more tolerate of other religions and would still pursue Islamic dominance over the world. So the $64,000 question is, what to do about nationalistic Islamic fundamentalism? There seems little basis for peaceful coexistence.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
Yeah, but I had a great tangential quote on Anglo-Saxon racial supremacy. As well as a true expression of Brit attitudes toward Germans and especially Irish persons. : )
As it turns out in the three to five years leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Uday and Qusay Hussein were more in charge than Saddam. He spilt the security of Iraq in half between his sons. Where Qusay was more like his father in understanding the inner workings of external and internal security, Uday entertained high level Jihadi front men. Uday knew Saddam would leave Iraq to his more sane and satisfying brother. So he started years before OIF reaching out to Sunni groups who could challenge his brother or at least provide some protection for him if Qusay decided his torture happy megalomaniac brother got out of hand. In the mid 90s Uday formed and trained the Fedayeen Saddam. The secret police guerilla unit grew to such an importance that Saddam replaced Uday with his brother fearing his son was becoming too powerful. As we saw in the weeks leading up to OIF the Fedayeen Saddam were placed in strategic locations throughout Iraq especially in Shia southern Iraq. What started out as a unit of Iraqi Sunni loyalists expanded to expat Palestinians and foreign fighters. The tats on some of the FS we captured painted the picture to confirm this. Then they melted in the background to become the Sunni insurgency and most folding under AQI by 2004. A messy deal indeed. So much can be said if an aging Saddam really had full control of Iraq's military at the time of the invasion. That his sons were struggling control of the various pieces Saddam usually had sole control of. The key to all these despots is the Praetorian Guard or in this case the Republican Guard. Most good analysts of Saddam knew he would never let his RG turn tail and run. The confusion of who was in charge (Qusay?) of deploying the RG is still somewhat of a mystery. But it is no mystery why coalition forces prioritized Saddam's sons capture/kill before Saddam.
"Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." (1 Timothy 6:6-7)
It is a bit narrower than that. ISIS represents a brutal Sunni caliphate, fully ready to wage offensive war to subdue new lands to Sunni Islam (Wahhabism, Salafism, the harsh Islam of conquest and forcible conversion). So no Christians, no Shi'a or others meaning no Druze, no Alawites (Assad's sect), no Ismailis (the formerly majority version of Shi'ia Islam), no pre-Islamic Yahzidi (ethnic Kurd) mountain tribesmen (whose ancient pagan symbols adorn the Islamic flag of the Kurds, unique to Islamic states). And not even the other varieties of Sunni Muslims are safe from ISIS. For instance, it is hard to imagine they have any warm regards for Sufism which is the kind of Islam most compatible with the West. So Wahhabist/Salafist (Sunni) ISIS is never going to have much in common with the far more philosophical Sufi sects who have good claims to a philosophy that is Islamic but with pre-Islamic elements. And as bizarre as that dizzying recitation of historical, cultural, sectarian and tribal litany was, I actually only mentioned some of the better known groups from the region. My list is quite abbreviated. Just figuring out ethnicity and religion in the Mideast and understanding the history to try to understand them all is quite a job for anyone. It's a crazy jumble of religion, ethnicity, nationality, much as Reformation Europe became for a few centuries. It does seem unfair we have to learn so much about these unimportant pissants of the Mideast. So little redeeming quality remaining of the ancient empires of the region who at least managed peaceful trade and relative domestic tranquility and a stable social order. If I didn't get those mostly straight in my accounting, perhaps redleghunter could offer corrections. The oil patch just is not a simple place. We ain't in Kansas any more, Toto.
Royalist usurpers turning traitors who ended brigands and rebels against occupation forces and against Shi'a majority rule in Baghdad. And now they've become the multinational ISIS. I've read of this before but you have a great recall of the details. I recall thinking that Saddam was trying to find a way not to have to kill his son. But we also recall the execution of a minister in the palace by Saddam or the execution of Saddam's son-in-law after he defected to Jordan but sought pardon and returned, only to be killed immediately. Understanding Saddam and his reliance on his wife's family, the Tulfah family, is essential to understanding how much a clannish family operation Saddam's Iraq was. Including a lot of intermarriage from people who came from the Tikrit area, Saddam's hometown. To find a comparison, you might think of JFK and his prominent import of Harvard intellectual types into his administration. Or Jimmuh Carter who brought a small army of Georgians to Washington D.C. with him. Even Obama has his Jarrett. Saddam's clannishness went way beyond that of any modern presidents.
They need to start with a Sunni-Shia version of the Thirty Years War, three decades of war that leaves the Middle East like Germany in 1848, with a quarter of the population when the war began in 1618. We should do nothing that would interfere with such a beautiful outcome.
There are the Senussi in Libya. One thing about Islam is that it is very prone to have a schism, some guy claims to be the Mahdi and a bunch of guys follow him. I believe the Baha'i started out that way. Saudi Arabia is the worst, if we're really serious about dealing with Islam we need to deal with our own ruling class that acts in league with the house of Saud.
I know I left a lot of them out of my list, I was just trying to go mostly from memory. The Mideast is a crazy quilt of ethnicity/nation/sect/tribe and has been since long before Muhammad. Even after Islam conquered them all, it did not extinguish the tribal/ethnic hatred and having the British general staff draw lines on a map and declare them countries didn't help one bit. Thanks a lot. Now I have to read some crap about the horribly unimportant Senussi sect in Libya. What a rotten trick for a Sunday afternoon! : ) Ah, I see now that the Senussi are the Libyan Sufi sect. No surprise, I read about Libya's Sufis and their conflict with the Salafists before. Ghaddafi kept them from any open conflict for decades.
You are correct. A lot more Shia variants out there. Also some of the lesser groups like the Sabeans and Mandaeans. Interesting history for both. One or both institute full immersion baptism.
"Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." (1 Timothy 6:6-7)
I'd only heard of Sabeans in Yemen and never heard a thing about these gnostic Mandaeans until you mentioned them. But it looks like Uncle Sam managed to import some Iraqi/Iranian gnostics with the rest of the hordes: And trying to understand all those nutty tiny remnant Zoroastrian cults and the various cults that synthesize more than one major religion is completely beyond me. Even a cultural anthropologist would get dizzy.
Not all in the patch are equally endowed. And the riches of oil are a very new phenomena in your recitation of the history of the region. Who actually owns what? Why? It appears that ISIS would not be the force that it is without its access to the cash that oil brings them. But more to your point - which IMO elaborates on the reason(s) why the Middle East will be a world of sh*t and therefore an existenail threat to the West for the foreseeable future. The Islamic culture for the most part is alien to Western thought and experience. The prosecution of its grudges are beyond any comprehensible measure of rationality, even to Siclians and Albanians. Its view, if not its hope for the future, is that of looking backwards. It rejects much of the civilized world's embrace of modernity and improvement thereof. I used to believe that the answer to peaceful coexistance, other than at the ends of two bombs of similarly armed cultures that aimed at the other's each core existance, was simply to sincerely believe and tell each other that "I want for your children the same things that I want for mine." I really believed this up until it became apparent the Islam doesn't want for its daughters what I want for mine. Nor does it want for its sons as I would want for mine. Perhaps both East and West are corrupt beyond redemption. Perhaps neither pursue the betterment of mankind that strives for a future where liberty, freedom, compassion, justice and tolerance are the overarching values of the society. But as I said, if it comes down to a matter of survival between them or us, I choose us. Once Iran obtains nukes the world will change forever, and IMO not for the better. I still advocate that if Iran gets nukes the West should proivde the same to every country in the region, and I do mean every one. If your description of the major distrust and animosities among the well delineated tribes in the region it is likley that they would use the nukes to settle ancient scores in their backyard before striking out to gain additional territory. I am becoming increasingly more of a fan of China for managing to sit on the sidelines and watch the death struggle within the MidEast and between the Mideast and the West play out. China seems to be in the best position to pick up the pieces after the demise of both Mideast and Westerns economies and cultures, whether swiftly by a big boom or evolutionary by economic and cultural degradation. In any evernt, I don't believe that we ave to learn much, if anything, about the important and unimportant pissants of the Mideast. It is incumbant upon them to clean out those that foul in there regional nest - much in the same way the U.S> dealt with the KKK. IMO the West doesn't need to choose sides among the regional players as all will eventually turn on us. IMO the West should do everything in its power to precipate and fuel a major Civil War in the region even if that means aiding and abetting those that we already know are not our friends but are yet not presently aggressive enemies. I do not see any other way or outcome, other than an overt act of God, to resolve what is an ancient problem being fought with modern weapons. The West will eventually have to deal with nationalistic Islam in a most violent way. "So little redeeming quality remaining of the ancient empires of the region who at least managed peaceful trade and relative domestic tranquility and a stable social order." I remind you that this so called peaceful trade and relative tranquility and a stable social order came at sword point of a very empirial Islam which literally destroyed some cultures in its pursuits.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
Yes it is called the land of Babylon for a reason:)
"Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." (1 Timothy 6:6-7)
You've recognized what Ronald Reagan called the fundamental irrationality of Mideast politics and diplomacy. A game where the only way to win is not to play. History has rigged it for disaster and tragedy. Brits and Americans have only made it worse.
The article inquired why Iranians believed the West/ ISIS was created by the U.S. “We believe that the West has been influential in the creation of ISIS for a number of reasons. Iran has experienced a coup run out of the U.S. embassy and war by Iraq funded by the U.S. They are likely to consider that the U.S funded al Qaeda, and that ISIS is derived from al Qaeda, and discount any claims of the U.S. The alleged acts of ISIS are so outrageous that they scream for a U.S. military involvement in the area. Cui bono? To whose benefit?
I was watching FNC tonight and they mentioned that, after cancelling the leaked plan to go on offensive against Mosul, now the Iraqis have announced that they will be making a preliminary attack on Tikrit, Saddam's hometown and a hotbed of Ba'athist revanchists and former top members of Saddam's regime (his wife's relatives). And who is joining these Shi'a militias and the 20,000+ Iraqi army soldiers? Iran's Quds artillery units. So Iran is going to have boots (or at least artillery) on the ground in assaulting Tikrit. Which leaves me wondering if the plan might be to leave Tikrit in the same shape as Vlad Putin left the Chechen capital, Grozny. IOW, a lifeless moonscape, flattened like a pancake. And in other news of our ongoing glorious victories, you may recall how we were going to train and arm the "secular Syrian rebels" (actually another bunch of Sunni suspect militia), and we had one specific militia with thousands of fighters signed up for arms and training. Well, they suddenly disbanded today and completely disappeared. And al-Nusra swooped in a scooped up the (old) weapons we had already provided them with. It's just one happy victory after the next for Commander Barky and his faithful butler, Lurch. I can only hope that Bibi takes a moment to congratulate Barky and Lurch on these triumphs of their policy during his speech tomorrow. Some withering sarcasm would be epic.
Valid point. I was pursuing the more general charges we hear from the conspiracy-minded that bin Laden was always a CIA asset and that 9/11 was a Bush-directed massacre. As I said, we often ally with unsavory characters against a common enemy and, once that enemy is dispatched, our former ally fills the power vacuum and then turns into our new enemy because they were never our friends to begin with, merely other enemies of our enemy. So I was debunking the usual conspiracy mongering.
Quds artillery is interesting. The Quds have been in Iraq since the late 80s providing training and assistance with a now and then assassination squad. But rolling out their own artillery is something I have not heard of before.
"Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." (1 Timothy 6:6-7)
Please use the honorific of Putin the Great. Also, Iran is now inside Iraq as an invited armed force. In olden days Europe such a fiasco by George Bush would be an occasion for an aide-de-camp to give him a hand gun with one bullet, a glass of sherry and an unoccupied room.
Reported on Greta's FNC show tonight. One of the old generals (or colonels) was talking about it. And how America was disinvited from participating or planning for the operation. Which is why they needed the support of Iranian artillery. Of course, Iraq's government and military have to be eager to show they can defend the country and do something on their own. Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam and so many of Saddam's top officials, is naturally a hotbed of Sunni/Ba'athist revanchism. Baghdad may have decided to make an example of Tikrit and what Sunni towns who cooperate with ISIS can expect to happen to them. And they won't want us close by to observe their actions too closely.
I agree. Sounds like they want to do some "extra-LOAC" activities here. Which means they won't want US UAS nor manned air support there to record the event. Goes back to a past discussion we had...How the Iraqi Shia government is still seeing the Baath party boogeyman. They still believe the phantom Baath is behind all evils.
"Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." (1 Timothy 6:6-7)
It isn't irrational. Many of the commanders who left the Iraqi military suddenly in a lurch and led to the huge ISIS advance and the loss of Mosul were the remaining Ba'athist elements of the military. Baghdad was in a bad place with this situation. The Shi'a officers thought the Sunni Ba'athists were getting special treatment for promotions. But the Ba'athists were also the most professionalized and capable leaders (and also the most directly connected to Saddam's regime). This is a major element of why I constantly mention Ba'athist revanchism. I think Baghdad will be taking a Iraq-love-it-or-leave-it attitude. Being the Mideast, this will work out in practice as Iraq-love-it-or-leave-it-or-we'll-kill-throw-you-and-your-family-into-a-woodchipper. Or do the equivalent using artillery and bombs. The recruiting of the Shi'a militia to work alongside the Iraqi army is not a good sign for the ISIS rebels but especially for the Sunni towns they are occupying which mostly welcomed them in. I wouldn't be surprised if Tikrit is a flat smoking pile of rubble when they get done with it.
Quds with artillery is interesting. Quds in Iraq is not so interesting. They have been there since after the Iranian revolution.
"Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." (1 Timothy 6:6-7)
Could be. However, the Shia know that just about every one of their Shia shrines will now get special VBIED attention. If they level Tikrit, the Sunni (not ISIL) will level the Shia 'holy' places. And that is exactly what ISIL wants to happen. They want what is left of the Sunni fence sitters to willingly come over to them.
"Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." (1 Timothy 6:6-7)
Shi'a mosques, maybe. But those are already taken for the Sunni. Tikrit is apparently a Sunni area anyway so the only mosques or shrines would be Sunni. I'm not sure how many Shi'a shrines or mosques have survived in the Sunni towns, especially those in ISIS's hands. Probably none from what we see of their vandalism. Most of the shrines of any sectarian flavor are in the south and are pretty safe. And the local townsmen value any shrine for the pilgrim traffic they draw in, just like people in Rome like having their big local tourist trap to draw the pilgrims. Tikrit was a small town in the Ottoman era and apparently grew to 250K after Saddam made it prominent and prosperous. Although Saladin was born there, he didn't live there and he is buried in Syria. I can find no list of shrines there. They have (or had) a university and a museum and a stadium for 10K. The museum has been wrecked and the 8th century Assyrian church destroyed. Baghdad may be in the mood for some payback in Tikrit. On 25 September 2014, Islamist militants destroyed the Assyrian Church there that dates back to 700 AD. Notice the particular mention of the Ba'athist revanchists in Tikrit.
ISIS is claiming an American jihadi carried out a truck bomb attack on Iraqi troops at Tikrit.
What I meant was Shia shrines in Shia areas will be leveled. The Sunnis know how to infiltrate and conduct these terror attacks..Trust me.
"Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." (1 Timothy 6:6-7)
Watch and wait...I think it won't go well for the Iraqi army again in Tikrit.
"Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." (1 Timothy 6:6-7)
Samarra is another fault line city. It was the golden mosque bombing in Samarra (Shia mosque) which ignited the 2006 sectarian war.
"Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." (1 Timothy 6:6-7)
Yahoo is reporting: Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, who has helped coordinate Baghdad's counter-attacks against Islamic State since it seized much of northern Iraq in June, was overseeing at least part of the operation, witnesses told Reuters. His presence on the frontline highlights neighboring Iran's influence over the Shi'ite fighters who have been key to containing the militants in Iraq. In contrast the U.S.-led air coalition which has been attacking Islamic State across Iraq and Syria has not yet played a role in Tikrit, the Pentagon said on Monday, perhaps in part because of the high-level Iranian presence. Iraqi military officials said security forces backed by the Shi'ite militia known as Hashid Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) units were advancing gradually, their progress slowed by roadside bombs and snipers. Unfortunately, I don't see any better photos than these but that last one might interest you. Looks like a tank-sized gun but I'm not seeing very many shells at hand. I think the Iraqis only got the Shi'a militias onboard by agreeing to let the Iranian commander run most of the show, or at least the parts the Shi'a militia are involved in. Which is why they knew better than to invite us. Apparently, they are trying to encircle Tikrit and some outlying villages and seal them off so no ISIS fighters escape from there.
I'm thinking they will persevere and win. At some point, Iraq has to stand up for itself or it will lose the confidence of the populace. Which is why I mention that they might level Tikrit. Even that would be far better than losing again. And only the Ba'athists would really miss Tikrit anyway. All of the most hated regime figures came from there. And the Iranians don't? They do pretty well at it around the region.
I think the Iraqis only got the Shi'a militias onboard by agreeing to let the Iranian commander run most of the show, or at least the parts the Shi'a militia are involved in. Which is why they knew better than to invite us. Apparently, they are trying to encircle Tikrit and some outlying villages and seal them off so no ISIS fighters escape from there. Bottom pic looks to be one of the M198 155mm howitzers we sold them a few years ago. Given the flat elevation of the tube they are probably firing the howizer in the direct fire mode. Which is a waste of an effective indirect fire weapon system. Interesting use of a modified M63 rocket launcher for the 120mm rockets (as confirmed by my Intel expert sitting next to me BTW). Know those well from the receiving end. Insurgents used car jacks to launch them against our FOBs. Here's some vid:
"Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." (1 Timothy 6:6-7)
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Are you denying the Doctrine of Exceptionalism?
#13. To: redleghunter (#10)
It's a lot more untidy over there than many want to admit.
#14. To: TooConservative (#12)
...that if the Southern union is established as an independent state it would afford a valuable and extensive market for British manufactures...
#15. To: TooConservative (#13)
Saddam was brutal but he kept the peace in Iraq for a long time. Maybe people are starting to better understand why he was so utterly ruthless with the woodchippers.
#16. To: nativist nationalist, TooConservative, All (#15)
As we can see, people in these places are incapable of placing moral chains upon their appetites. Therefore there are guys like Saddam and Assad who must impose the chains.
#17. To: nativist nationalist (#14)
The Southern cotton which made its way to Northern looms would have become in import had the South broken loose, subject to tariffs. There is no way the South could have taken Northern markets for granted if she was no longer in the Union, and in the long run she would have lost protected access to the greatest market on Earth, for free trade where she had a commodity to sell in competition with other producers.
#18. To: SOSO (#16)
Let's all sing now, boys and girls: Here we go around the merry go round, the merry go round the merry go round...
#19. To: nativist nationalist (#15)
As we can see, people in these places are incapable of placing moral chains upon their appetites. Therefore there are guys like Saddam and Assad who must impose the chains.
#20. To: SOSO (#11)
Tres Orwellian.
#21. To: TooConservative (#20)
These people recall the Crusades with the kind of resentments and suspicion that you would think they had occurred a generation ago.
#22. To: TooConservative (#18)
Isn't that the lone happy outcome from any of these miserable Arab Spring debacles our president and our secretaries of state and our precious neocon pundits and major publications sang the virtues of so thoroughly before those countries went down in flames to Islamic fundamentalists?
#23. To: nativist nationalist (#15)
Since we are quoting British statesmen:
#24. To: TooConservative, GarySpFc (#13)
Tell me, if you captured some of these known ISIS killers of other Muslims and Christians and Westerners as well as Vandals of the rare artifacts and antiquities of ancient empires and their cults (which have been gone for many centuries), would you be tempted to do the same as Saddam did if there was a handy nearby woodchipper? I know I would. Let them pass over to Paradise and their 72 virgins in 7200 separate bloody pieces. And even that is too good for these scum.
#25. To: SOSO, redleghunter (#22)
So the $64,000 question is, what to do about nationalistic Islamic fundamentalism? There seems little basis for peaceful coexistence.
#26. To: redleghunter (#24)
Then they melted in the background to become the Sunni insurgency and most folding under AQI by 2004.
#27. To: SOSO (#22)
There is no doubt in my mind that the only reasonably viable solution to the current ISIS version Islamic stir-up short of an all out modern version of an East-West Holy War is a decisive Civil War within Islam in which those on the side of modernity triumph.
#28. To: TooConservative (#25)
It does seem unfair we have to learn so much about these unimportant pissants of the Mideast. So little redeeming quality remaining of the ancient empires of the region who at least managed peaceful trade and relative domestic tranquility and a stable social order.
#29. To: nativist nationalist (#28)
There are the Senussi in Libya. One thing about Islam is that it is very prone to have a schism, some guy claims to be the Mahdi and a bunch of guys follow him. I believe the Baha'i started out that way. Saudi Arabia is the worst, if we're really serious about dealing with Islam we need to deal with our own ruling class that acts in league with the house of Saud.
#30. To: TooConservative (#25)
#31. To: redleghunter (#30)
(Edited)
Also some of the lesser groups like the Sabeans and Mandaeans.
I see on the Mandaean wiki page a mention of two more obscure ethnoreligious groups, Roma and Shabaks. What the heck...? In 2002 the US State Department granted Iranian Mandaeans protective refugee status; since then roughly 1,000 have emigrated to the US, now residing in cities such as San Antonio, Texas. On the other hand, the Mandaean community in Iran has increased over the last decade, because of the exodus from Iraq of the main Mandaean community, which used to be 60,000–70,000 strong.
#32. To: TooConservative, redleghunter (#25)
The oil patch just is not a simple place. We ain't in Kansas any more, Toto.
#33. To: TooConservative (#31)
#34. To: SOSO (#32)
I used to believe that the answer to peaceful coexistance, other than at the ends of two bombs of similarly armed cultures that aimed at the other's each core existance, was simply to sincerely believe and tell each other that "I want for your children the same things that I want for mine." I really believed this up until it became apparent the Islam doesn't want for its daughters what I want for mine. Nor does it want for its sons as I would want for mine.
#35. To: TooConservative, redleghunter, Pericles, Deckard, Vicomte13 (#4)
I take this as a given. While we can always claim our former allies have suddenly betrayed us, the international arena is full of various players, many with bad intent, with whom an American president may ally himself and which later comes back to bite us in the ass.
Abdullah Ganji, the managing-director of Javan newspaper, which is believed to closely reflect the views of the government and the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guards, says that U.S. support for ISIS is in fact a way of ensuring Israel’s security and disrupting the Muslim world in the cause of advancing Western interests.
#36. To: redleghunter, SOSO, tomder55, sneakypete (#10)
#37. To: nolu chan (#35)
The article inquired why Iranians believed the West/ ISIS was created by the U.S.
#38. To: TooConservative (#36)
#39. To: TooConservative, redleghunter, SOSO, tomder55, sneakypete (#36)
(Edited)
So Iran is going to have boots (or at least artillery) on the ground in assaulting Tikrit. Which leaves me wondering if the plan might be to leave Tikrit in the same shape as Vlad Putin left the Chechen capital, Grozny. IOW, a lifeless moonscape, flattened like a pancake.
#40. To: redleghunter (#38)
But rolling out their own artillery is something I have not heard of before.
#41. To: TooConservative (#40)
Reported on Greta's FNC show tonight. One of the old generals (or colonels) was talking about it. And how America was disinvited from participating or planning for the operation. Which is why they needed the support of Iranian artillery.
#42. To: redleghunter (#41)
How the Iraqi Shia government is still seeing the Baath party boogeyman. They still believe the phantom Baath is behind all evils.
#43. To: Pericles, TooConservative (#39)
Also, Iran is now inside Iraq as an invited armed force.
#44. To: TooConservative (#42)
I wouldn't be surprised if Tikrit is a flat smoking pile of rubble when they get done with it.
#45. To: redleghunter (#44)
Could be. However, the Shia know that just about every one of their Shia shrines will now get special VBIED attention. If they level Tikrit, the Sunni (not ISIL) will level the Shia 'holy' places.
On 11 June 2014, during the Northern Iraq offensive, the Islamic State took control of the city aided by the Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order. Hours later the Iraqi army made an attempt to recapture the city, which resulted in heavy fighting. On 12 June, the Islamic State executed at least 1,566 Iraqi Air Force cadets from Camp Speicher at Tikrit. At the time of the attack there were between 4,000 and 11,000 unarmed cadets in the camp. The Iraqi government blamed the massacre on both ISIS and members of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region. By July 2014, government forces had withdrawn from Tikrit.[21][22]
#46. To: redleghunter (#44)
#47. To: TooConservative (#45)
Shi'a mosques, maybe. But those are already taken for the Sunni. Tikrit is apparently a Sunni area anyway so the only mosques or shrines would be Sunni. I'm not sure how many Shi'a shrines or mosques have survived in the Sunni towns, especially those in ISIS's hands. Probably none from what we see of their vandalism.
#48. To: TooConservative (#45)
Notice the particular mention of the Ba'athist revanchists in Tikrit.
#49. To: TooConservative (#46)
Pro-IS social media accounts said the attack was carried out Monday near Samarra, the other main city in Salaheddin province, and released a picture they said was of Abu Dawud al-Amriki
#50. To: redleghunter (#44)
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Thousands of Iraqi soldiers and Shi'ite militiamen sought to seal off Islamic State fighters in Tikrit and nearby towns on Tuesday, the second day of Iraq's biggest offensive yet against a stronghold of the radical Sunni Islamist militants. 
The cannon looks like Iraqi regulars to me but the pic is just too small to be sure.
#51. To: redleghunter (#48)
(Edited)
Watch and wait...I think it won't go well for the Iraqi army again in Tikrit.
The Sunnis know how to infiltrate and conduct these terror attacks..Trust me.
#52. To: TooConservative, GarySpFc, *Military or Vets Affairs* (#50)
The cannon looks like Iraqi regulars to me but the pic is just too small to be sure.
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