Assessing Al-Qaeda (merged thread)

[Bill Moore]

Bruce Reidel writes again - taking a global, strategic look - in a 'War of Ideas' commentary and concludes:

Link:http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-no-idea.html?

Bruce is clearly uninformed. Just because soft power efforts don't make headline news, doesn't mean they are a major effort. They would be less effective if they were advertised. Those pretending to be experts should at least have topical knowledge of the topics they like to preach to others about. It far beyond time to have a counter elitism movement.

[Bill Moore]

A negative development, at least in part due to our approach for targeting ISIL and an al-Nusra element planning to target western interests. Al-Nusra is affiliated with AQ, although there is some debate on how close al-Nusra is to al-Qaeda core in Pakistan. ISIL and al-Nusra have apparently agreed to work together, even if it is an uneasy partnership. This appears to be a balance of power decision for both organizations.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Ne...6#.VGVJh5t0zIU

Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS Reach Agreement in Syria

“Islamic State” (ISIS) leaders together with those of the Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra convened last week at a farmhouse in northern Syria to form an agreement on a plan to stop fighting each other and to join forces against their opponents, according to what a high level Syrian opposition official, together with a rebel commander, told to the Associated Press.

These two groups allegedly will combine to target U.S. backed rebels.

Our response?

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article..._syria_options


Rout of Moderate Rebels Leaves Obama With Vexing Syria Options

The Obama administration is edging closer to establishing a safe zone in northern Syria that will allow rebel fighters to remain in the country without being forced out by President Bashar al-Assad's regime and rival militant groups, according to analysts.

Setting up such safe zones inside Syria will also address a key demand by Turkey, which sees the Assad regime as a greater threat than the self-proclaimed Islamic State, and has been pushing the United States to set up such areas as a condition for fuller participation in the coalition against the Sunni militant group that is also known as ISIS and ISIL.

This is probably doable, and should have been done a long time ago IMO. It would have relieved the humanitarian crisis to some extent, and given our forces an achievable objective (not unlike the Southern and Northern no fly zones in between the Iraq wars). Can't recreate history, but if have done this first, and then targeted ISIL it all would have been in accordance with international law. Protecting innocent civilians from being targeted, especially since chemical weapons were used, and then targeting terrorists. Apparently Turkey wanted this, and like them or not, Turkey is key to the solution. It also would have maintained our credibility with the Syrian people who now feel betrayed. I don't know if removing Assad would be legal without some sort of UN mandate, but creating safe havens would have probably led to his fall over time with less blood shed.

It would also be nice if there was at least one other country besides the U.S. that would be willing to step up and take the lead.

[davidbfpo]

A long newspaper article to read in The Guardian, which on the first read covers many points and links on SWC. The key feature appears to be access to two Jihadist clerics, Abu Muhammed al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada, now both resident in Jordan:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...pled-al-qaida?

Here is a taster:

Now the man US terrorism analysts call “the most influential living jihadi theorist” has turned his ire toward Isis – and emerged, in the last year, as one of the group’s most powerful critics. ..... Maqdisi released a long tract castigating Isis as ignorant and misguided, accusing them of subverting the “Islamic project” that he has long nurtured.

As Qatada poured tea into small glass tumblers, he began reeling off images to better communicate the depth of his loathing for Isis. He likes speaking in metaphors. The group, he said, was “like a bad smell” that has polluted the radical Islamic environment. No, they were better described as a “cancerous growth” within the jihadi movement – or, he continued, like the diseased branch of a fig tree that needs to be pruned before it kills the entire organism.

Violent groups often reject their mentors IIRC. Now whether the two clerics can influence how ISIS develops is a moot point. At a minimum it may restrain those jihadists who have read their tracts not to go to join ISIS.

[omarali50]

Pinker has an article in the Guardian about decline in violence that triggered the following blog post. Tangentially related to this thread

http://brownpundits.blogspot.com/201....html?spref=fb

relevant extract:

by the way: I think the US has caused state failure in Iraq and contributed to it in Syria (and now has a supporting role in the attempted state failure in Yemen; in Yemen I think the Saudis are the prime movers of the idiocy. There is no reason to accept the Eurocentric Metropolitan Racist view that only White people have agency. The Subaltern may speak )
Why has the US caused these state failures? I dont think it was deliberate. But I do think it shows you that it is not just the SJWs/Postmarxist academics who don't appreciate how important the state is; even the decision makers of the most powerful state in the world don't seem to get it. Or rather, they don't seem to have sufficient grasp of where the asabiya or legitimacy of a state comes from: it comes from genuine fellow feeling, or it comes from colonial structures that happened to be this way and within which the necessary fellow feeling builds over time. EITHER can work. Both together are even better. But remove both, and the #### will hit the fan...
Which is also why groups like the Kurds can fight better than any fake army put together by US advisers alone. US advisers PLUS genuine national feeling (Afghanistan, if the US had not allowed us to mess it up) can work though