Just a question for your consideration since it appears that you have operated in the Middle East.
In the Middle East and Iran belt where oil is produced appears to be predominantly populated by the Shia. Is that correct?
If so, what is interplay between geopolitics and geostrategy in these events that are unfolding and did they impinge on the earlier events and its fallout thereof?
My apologies for this rather large map. (If it could be made smaller, then it will be fine. I am not very computer savvy).
Last edited by davidbfpo; 06-14-2014 at 11:06 AM. Reason: Failed to shrink
Is that one liner a statement of fact or your failure to grasp the issue under discussion that elicited my post and the statement?
Apparently, you have missed the point. Or maybe, you wanted to state something but lost the chain of thought.
Indeed all countries are unique. Is there anything that is unique in that statement of yours that every country is has unique singularity? Forgive me, I must have missed the point.
However, if I can clarify, the point under discussion was why is Indonesia different from other Islamic countries in its interpretation of Islam and why it lacked the fervour that other had.
I merely indicated why so.
Now, if you have some enlightening discourse to set us on a course that is different and what I failed to understand, I assure you I shall be delighted if you can clear the cobwebs.
Last edited by Ray; 06-14-2014 at 01:56 PM.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-e...?homepage=trueTeetering on the edge
Meanwhile, the uncertainties in Iraq are causing international oil prices to rise, not least because hitherto accessible oil fields in the northern provinces could be cut off if fighting starts there. In sum, Iraq now faces a power vacuum which could be extremely dangerous, and although the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed his shock at the recent events, it is highly unlikely that any proposal for intervention will be put to the U.N. Security Council. Yet if the international community seems not to want to intervene, others will very probably take over, and Iraq now faces not only civil war but potential disintegration.
I figure in Pakistan we hit what the Pak Army/ISI allows us to hit, so that doesn't apply.
I would also be shocked into momentary catatonia if we had any kind of humint network or networks in Iraq. This latest thing came like a bolt from the blue. We do machines, not people. Humming is people. That doesn't mean we won't make drone strikes. It just means they will be blind and for PR.
The aim of sending a carrier is so the administration can say they sent a carrier. It makes them look fierce without having to actually do anything.
"We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene
carl----Joint Prioritized Effects List (JPEL) targeting list process including the nomination process. ... targeting packets, etc---it is the targeting process used at a joint level for nomination, selection and then physical targeting of a high value individual and or target either via non lethal or lethal means.
Lethal is kill or capture, non lethal could be simply a poster placed in town ---saying hey we know you are here so stop the crap down to hovering an Apache 30 feet directly over this house for 10 or 15 minutes.
Ray--reference the question concerning oil belts and the Shia---in Iraq the majority of the bigger fields were in the south of Iraq and yes in Shia areas, and in the north where they fall under Kurdish control which has led to a minor fight between Malaki and the Kurds because the Kurds released oil drilling contracts without Malaki approval and are shipping oil out of the Kurdish areas earning a solid revenue for the Kurds who are not sharing with Baghdad.
The Sunni triangle was for the most part oil empty and that led to the open disputes between the Sunni and Malaki over oil revnues the Sunni were not getting for their development.
Then surprise surprise for Malaki---several rather large oil deposits were located, drilled, and the results were extremely good which now could give the Sunni provinces an oil revenue stream they have been missing under Malaki.
What we do not discuss in this thread is not the oil but the good old Silk Road that runs from AFG through Iran, then over Mandali and through Baqubah on to Syria and from Syria into Lebanon.
A large under noticed fight between the Shia and Sunni is actually over control of the old Silk Road ie who controls the Road controls the ME.
Khomeini spoke often about the "Green Crescent" containment theory---meaning there are Shia ranging from AFG through Iran , Iraq , Syria and into Lebanon thus building a wall between the Shia and the Sunni' protecting the Shia.
During his lifetime he did everything possible to implement the Green Crescent theory. Actually if you go back and read just how the Hezbollah ended up in Lebanon there is something to the Khomeini concept.
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 06-14-2014 at 04:05 PM.
An interesting read on funding to ISIS.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...ding-isis.html
Sorry Outlaw,
during their history the SilkRout(s) were only useful when one country controlled a large chunk of them, their last height was when the Khans could maintain the Pax Mongolia. However, the Silk Routes became quite meaningless with larger ships and later railroads, it is nothing worth fighting for sice 1600 AD.
to the comment whether JRTN can control ISIS. Simple answer no. For the last four months ISIS and JRTN have been getting into gun fights in Salahaddin and Diyala over the Islamic State demanding their loyalty. JRTN has consistently denied that it has any problems with ISIS despite these clashes which to me is cowing in the face of the larger, more well armed and organized ISIS. Reports out of Iraq have ISIS organizing the assault upon Mosul with other groups including JRTN and then afterwards firmly asserting control. Gave JRTN 24 hrs to remove any and all pictures of Saddam from Mosul or else. ISIS is also setting up the administration of Mosul and giving orders to the other groups. For now the sweeping success have subdued the internal rivalries within the insurgency but they're sure to come back. The other groups are just far smaller than ISIS these days.
Yesterday Baiji oil refinery finally fell to pro-ISIS tribes. They have kept all the workers on line and Baghdad has not cut off the oil supply. ISIS also controls two small oil fields in northern Iraq. With the administration it's trying to set up in Mosul and its on-going experience in Syria we're seeing the expansion of an actual ISIS administrative unit being created in northern Iraq right now.
Ulenspiegel---then the virtual "control" via religion of a Shia global "community" stretching from AFG through Iran, thru Iraq and on to Syria and into Lebanon following the Silk Road means what exactly? Notice how the Silk Road follows the "Green Crescent" or global Shia "communities".
The following are comments from Khomeini which many in Europe and the US often do not read nor have see before;
“We have often proclaimed this truth in our domestic and foreign policy, namely that we have set as our goal the world-wide spread of the influence of Islam and the suppression of the rule of the world conquerors … We wish to cause the corrupt roots of Zionism, capitalism and Communism to wither throughout the world. We wish, as does God almighty, to destroy the systems which are based on these three foundations, and to promote the Islamic order of the Prophet … in the world of arrogance.”
“We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry `There is no God but God` resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle.”
“Establishing the Islamic state world-wide belong to the great goals of the revolution.”
These comments were the background comments in his concept of the "Green Crescent".
These are thoughts and ideas currently floating in the ME concerning the "Green Crescent".
The king of Jordan has worried aloud about the rise of a “Shiite crescent” in the Arab east that would ally with Shiite Iran and menace the traditional monarchies.
Amman worries that the new Shiite axis of Baghdad and Tehran will have natural allies in a Syria dominated by Alawis (an offshoot of Shiites) and in the Shiite Hezbollah Party of southern Lebanon. Shiites may now be over 40 percent of the Lebanese population, and they will likely form a majority of
the country within 20 years. A Shiite Iraq would also inevitably establish ties with the Shiite majority in Bahrain and the Shiite plurality in the oil-rich Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. (Ever wondered why the KSA is totally against an Iranian hegemony?)
The old sectarian balance in the eastern Arab world, with Sunni rulers and Shiite ruled, is coming unraveled as Shiite masses are mobilized into new forms of sectarian politics.
The Khomeinists were deeply disappointed that no Arab state adopted their new system, since their aspirations had been pan-Islamic. Until 2003, Iranian Khomeinist influences had been largely contained in the Arab world, although Tehran had a foothold in Lebanon through the radical Hezbollah
Party. With religious Shiite parties now operating freely in Iraq, and even influencing government policy and the wording of the new constitution, Khomeini’s ideas have finally entered a phase of wider practical influence.
Some in the ME will privately say that the overthrowing of a secular nationalist Sunni leader who was a buffer nation unleased a tidal wave that we are now currently seeing in the ME-there is some truth in this.
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 06-14-2014 at 07:08 PM.
Why is it that the media pundits and RAND never seems to "see" and "understand" the reality called Iraq and that when the US overthrew a secular nationalist Sunni leader who was acting however badly as a buffer state to Iran the tides of change and the dogs of war were unleased in the ME and it will take years for that tidal wave to work it's way through the ME and the Shia "crescent" or as Khomeini called it the "Green Crescent".
http://www.stripes.com/news/iraq-arm...uture-1.289017
Khomeini saw this coming in 1979. Why did we not see it coming?
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 06-14-2014 at 07:22 PM.
JWing---notice the similarities between how the IAI interacted initially with QJBR and then AQI after AQI had killed several IAI cell leaders---exact same fashion. They called a truce then celebrated together and went back to work still leery of each other. JRTN has deeper ties to the tribes thus in the end potentially more fighters if needed but right now remaining neutral is a game as ISIS has to fight a two front war and that will thin the forces over time especially if the Kurds move back into the disputed zones of the green line and into Diyala again. We still have to see how the Turks respond to ISIS taking Turkish prisoners especially if they cut the rat lines ISIS has built on the Turkish border.
We also have to see if the Quds Forces that are streaming into Iraq based on street rumors of about 10,000 eventually due into Baghdad after the first 150 have arrived---move into the Sunni triangle in full force which then makes it a true Shia/Sunni clash then one will have the KSA, Kuwait, and Qatar getting in deeper or do they remain and simply defend Baghdad.
The division of labor you mention is a common feature from the previous fighting years nothing new there. Suspect the old 1920 guys who were really just guns for hire will be joining into the JRTN---the old guard Ansar al Sunnah probably merged as well into JRTN has they due to combat loses in 2006 thru 2007 had to bring in more Arab fighters vs fewer Kurds.
Just guessing many of the tribal fighters, the old 1920, and Sunnah will eventually merge into JRTN who still has a healthy funding stream from al Duri and the KSA--many believed that the IAI was more secular due to the military officers and state security but they were not---many were hidden Salafists.
Do you know or have heard who is holding out well in the street to street fighting in Fulluja---ISIS or JRTN or the tribes and or a mix of all of the above?
Also who has moved into the Diyala river basin where the Thunder Runs occurred---Zarqawi's old stomping grounds.
Pretty sure JRTN can live without a few Saddam photos if the Shia are driven out of Sunni provinces.
Anything to the report of US contractors being trapped at Balad airbase?
http://www.inquisitr.com/1298366/rep...base-breaking/
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 06-14-2014 at 08:14 PM.
Outlaw09:Twitter has a few Tweeets from today, which suggests that 200 US civilian contractors for the Iraqi state are @ Balad AFB (due to be the home of F16s). The source is this:http://www.special-ops.org/200-u-s-c...ihadists-iraq/Anything to the report of US contractors being trapped at Balad airbase?
It appears that a few hundred staff were flown out earlier, leavinga smaller group behind. See:http://myemail.constantcontact.com/-...id=AXrVSkmPbCw
davidbfpo
Some grim photos of ISIS prisoners before and after execution on Twitter just. Earlier there were reports of over a thousand Shia ISF being executed, with a larger number of Sunni prisoners released.
Not unexpected given the history of ISIS.
1) transport pic.twitter.com/wlqrm1wTuF
2) pic.twitter.com/QhLW8G8mGf
pic.twitter.com/oSUiDh1K4X
pic.twitter.com/oK1hBJU9Lh
pic.twitter.com/Uo6V1hxn5B
pic.twitter.com/i1nZMPAxl7
davidbfpo
With that I agree, though isn't the guy's name Maliki, not Malaki?
I think we'd also do well to recognize that Saddam would have fallen sooner or later, to internal factors, external factors, or just plain age. All dictators do. Civil war along sectarian lines was going to be a probability in any post-Saddam scenario. The American mistake IMO was in embracing the illusion that this could be forestalled by "installing democracy". That was never going to work, and was a mistake from the start.
What "KSA and Russian private deal"? That supposed "deal" was anything but private, it was proposed last August and was never consummated.
Bollocks. As Ulenspiegel correctly points out, the "Silk Road" has been irrelevant for centuries.
The "Silk Road" doesn't follow Shi'a communities. That's one end of the Silk Road. The whole concept of the "Silk Road" was focused on land transport of trade goods from east to west. It was rendered irrelevant by maritime transport; in the age of the container ship it is long extinct.
What I see happening is something many people predicted in the early stages of the Iraq operation: the dissolution of Iraq into an Iranian-dominated Shi'a sector, a Sunni segment with militants and tribal leaders fighting for control, and the Kurds grabbing whatever they can hold. Given that Iraq was only ever held together by main force, that was always a lively possibility. I can't really blame the current administration for that, because I think the Iraq that was passed to them by their predecessors was simply not a sustainable entity. They had few options beyond patching the leaks with money and men and handing off the same unsustainable entity to their successors or pulling out and facing the inevitable.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”
H.L. Mencken
The insurgent situation today in Iraq is much different then before. It is much more homogenous. Serious analysts estimate that ISIS is responsible for anywhere from 75-90% of all attacks in Iraq. Some groups almost completely disappeared. The Islamic Army is an example. This week was the first time in 2-3 years that it claimed that it carried out an independent operation. 1920 Brigades, Hamas Iraq, etc. those groups are trying to make a comeback but were basically dead by 2011. ISIS by far is the largest, most well armed and effective group. It also controls large swaths of Syria which it administers like a state. After ISIS Ansar al-Sunna is likely the second biggest. It too sent fighters to Syria. It is closer to Al Qaeda central and a rival of ISIS. The Baathist Naqshibandi (JRTN) is third. It has cooperated with ISIS before but is really in its shadow as the constant attacks by ISIS upon its members over the last few months show. All these groups are trying to expand into the security vacuum but to say that they can make any serious challenge to ISIS is not possible right now. They are just very small compared to the Islamic State.
Dayuhan---really before you start making comments show me you fully understand Khomeini, his writings and his speeches--heck he even influenced AQI under Zarqawi and now the ISIS with his expansion of Islam speeches which many commenters/pundits have never taken the time to fully read and understand.
Have you even walked the Silk Road?, dug up the IEDs on the Silk Road or chased Sunni insurgents down the Silk Road ---sketch an outline of the road and then in turn sketch the outline of the Shia global community and then tell me they do not match---heck even trace the towns in Iraq it ran through starting in Mandali and now especially go back and sketch in the towns exactly today where the Sunni tribes, Sunni insurgent groups and ISIS are sitting.
Notice the sketched outline of the Road it in fact fit the towns of the Sunni triangle?
By the way if the rumor of Iranian Quds coming into Baghdad is correct in the numbers of say 10K--they are not going to be airlifted in rather they will come via a road---namely on the Silk Road out of Mandali over Baqubah and then into Baghdad from the east. That my friend is why the Road is relevant. It is roughly a six/seven hour trip if one is not dodging IEDs and depending these days on the quality of the roadway and any interference by ISIS.
This sentence below indicates you fully do not understand current events in the world especially the ME.
"Bollocks. As Ulenspiegel correctly points out, the "Silk Road" has been irrelevant for centuries."
See Dayuhna what you and Ulenspiegel "define" as irrelevant is in fact relevant for the conflict between two regional hegomonists the KSA and Iran.
Glad you at least admit that the "private" conversations between the KSA and Russia in protecting the Russian oil prices in turn for kicking out Assad did in fact occur---Russia did not accept simply because they feel Assad is now in a secure place and they get to keep their naval port in Syria.? What would the impact have been. You realize until I sent you the link into the discussion even you "knew" nothing about it.
Now Dayuhan admit you would have never known about the conversation as you rightly state it was private---just how much of the international media "knew" about it and say what if it had been "accepted"
See Dayuhan here is another problem---regardless of what the world thinks and or does not think about Saddam 1) he was a Sunni secularist, 2) he "held" Iraq together, and lastly from a geostrategic view 3) he was a "buffer" between the Sunni and Shia and via Iraq Iran was boxed in. Notice the word "secularist" critical these days in a "radicalized Salafist world.
The US with the overthrow of Saddam released the Iranian Shia to expand and rival the KSA within the Muslim world and the regional hegemony game began then notice how often the term "Shia Crescent" starts getting mentioned in the ME.
The US with the 2005 elections "allowed" the first global democratically elected Shia government to take control of a major former enemy/ME country AND again back to the Silk Road fit the missing link of the countries the Road runs through ie Iraq.
Again you need someday to walk the Road especially from Mandali on the Iranian border over Baqubah, Fulluja and then up to the Syrian border---then walk it from the Syrian border to Lebanon and then at the end of the Road look back and tell me you do not "see" Shia in the AFG at one end of the Road and the Shia in Lebanon at the other end of the Road.
It amazes me that mention/Ulenspiegel state "the Road is irrelevant and there is nothing to the Green Crescent" when the King of Jordan says just the opposite.
Who should we listen to?
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 06-15-2014 at 08:17 AM.
JWing---here is where we differ in views--spent way to much of my time in Iraq interrogating Ansar al Sunnah types in the Baqubah area especially after we rolled up the single largest group in late 2005 which had been there since our coming into the area in late 2003. At that time and up through late 2006 after they were weakened from the constant fighting-- yes they maintained a close working relationship with their "religious neighbor" AQI, but what was more interesting even closer ties to the IAI as the IAI provided a high level of new technology for the IED fight to the ASA cells.
The AQI while yes far more aggressive in nature did not "control" territory in Diyala while they could not count on the tribes but surprisingly the tribes accepted ASA and IAI. Territorial control was always in the hands of the IAI/ASA and 1920 with heavy funding flowing from al Duri who had three safe houses in Diyala and regardless of what the US IC thought was coming and going with ease from Syria.
The working relationship for the groupings was AQI provided the intel tips/funding for a specific attack to the IAI who then conducted the intel collection and planning, then the IAI approached ASA as the lead strike unit and the IAI in turn contacted the 1920 for the foot soldiers. At the same time AQI was far more into the suicide bombing side and the IAI and ASA felt it was a waste of good manpower---much as is going on now with the car bombings in Baghdad which seem to be more VBIED attacks mixed with key suicide attacks which seems to indicate ISIS learned from their past mistakes. Independent of the AQI campaign plan the IAI/ASA had their own campaign plans which at times gave an impression of a far larger insurgency and often misled the IC on actual strengths.
Did they "argue" and on occasions kill each other yes, were some or less religious than others-yes they were--but did they fight for a common cause --yes they did. That was never fully understood by the US IC. Why---because of the common enemy the Shia and then the US or vice versa depending on what day of the week it was or what messaging video had been released.
My understanding of the IAI is based on a very long number of weeks of talking to the leader of the IAI who we "accidently" picked up in a sweep near Abu Ghraib---we had his 500 page handwritten journal which started three days after we arrived in Baghdad up to mid 2006, all of their core media release videos and a 15 minute interview with him and a Finnish journalist. He knew I had recognized him and I knew he knew---but did the national IC help out---not a single response in multiple messages out to them. From the lack of support one could today state it seemed as if they did not care and or were interested in allowing him back out.
I could never get the IC or national IC interested, nor interested in doing a formal translation of the entire document, nor a biometric study of his face and the journalist interview which by the way was a perfect match-- he walked out of Abu G three months later to never been seen again. Spent hours with my interpreter going over that journal and it was an eye opener in how the IAI had functioning since 1991.
And by the way he had a PhD in western Hebrew, spoke a beautiful Arabic, was really tall for an Arab, and had been an Iraqi Intelligence officer trained at the University of Baghdad and anyone knowing Iraqi ISI history knows the one cannot study the language of the "enemy" without approval from someone higher---by the way he still spoke a great Hebrew.
He walked just by the way as did the current ISIS leader did from Bucca in 2009 after we picked him up in Mosul in 2005. And we had no idea who the ISIS leader really was other than he had be picked up by JSOC.
IMO the same problem exists for the ISIS that existed in 2005/2006 for the AQI ---yes they were/are aggressive--but they still must control territory both in the triangle and in Syria which requires manpower so they will share the load and while it appears they control they will share much like they did in 2005 through 2008 especially in Diyala.
Especially if the Kurds get more aggressive around the perceived old green lines, the Qud Force comes in force and the Turks cut the rat runs to Syria and dodging drone strikes.
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 06-15-2014 at 08:54 AM.
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