Iraq: Out of the desert into Mosul (closed)

[OUTLAW 09]

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-e...?homepage=true

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.

[OUTLAW 09]

An interesting read on funding to ISIS.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...ding-isis.html

[Ulenspiegel]

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.

[OUTLAW 09]

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.

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.

[OUTLAW 09]

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?

[Dayuhan]

We need to stay of this fray as anything we do right now will be viewed by the Sunni to be proof of our open ended support for Malaki and the Shia and in the end if we assist we still will have no long term influence.

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.

Bill---there is though a second option the KSA and Russian private deal meaning we hold your oil/gas prices high in exchange for dropping Assad fell through again privately---just maybe the KSA released the dogs of war to both rearm the Syrian fighters when the West did not and to send a hello back to Russia.---just a thought.

What "KSA and Russian private deal"? That supposed "deal" was anything but private, it was proposed last August and was never consummated.

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.

Bollocks. As Ulenspiegel correctly points out, the "Silk Road" has been irrelevant for centuries.

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 "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.

[JWing]

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.

[OUTLAW 09]

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.

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.

[Firn]

---------------

Dayuhan and Ulenspiegel are correct that the Silk Road will never regain it's relative importance. It ran mostly on luxury goods which had a long life span and an attractive bulk/value ratio for slow, land-based transport. Think drugs and diamonds today. The current era is dominated by vast global value chains integrated by huge container ships on the physical side.

I will leave it there.

------------

[OUTLAW 09]

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.

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?

[Dayuhan]

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.

I've walked the other end... the end where the silk came from. Stop and ask yourself how it got the name "Silk Road". Where does silk come from? Hazard a guess. It's not anywhere in the Middle East.

The Silk Road was a conduit for the trade of goods from east to west. It is irrelevant because there is no more land based transit of goods from east to west, nor is there any reason for such transit or practical potential for such transit. No matter who controls the western end of what was once the "Silk Road" there still won't be any goods moving through. No silk, no spices, no mobile phones or tools or computers or cranes or any other thing. There's just no reason for them to move by land.

That territory may be strategically and economically significant in other ways. The roads are of course tactically and strategically relevant: roads always are - but as a Silk Road - as a conduit for the traffic of goods from east to west - it's meaningless. There aren't any goods to move. They're all on ships. There may indeed be some potential for intra-regional commerce and movement along portions of the old "Silk Road", but that's not a "Silk Road" any more. The whole identity and function of the "Silk Road" was in moving the products of the east to the markets of the west... and that's gone elsewhere, never to return.

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"

You mean this "secret" conversation?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...ops-Syria.html

I know you've seen that article, because on another thread you cut/pasted directly from it in reference to the supposedly "secret" deal, though without citing it. That "secret" was leaked almost immediately, and the deal stopped on the spot.

The KSA doesn't "protect Russian oil prices", they protect their own price. Of course that means the Russians also benefit, but that's not the purpose. The Saudis will do all they can (quite a bit) to keep oil above $100 a barrel, because that's where they want it to be, for their own reasons. That of course keeps the price up for the Russians too, but that's not about "secret deals", that's just the Saudis lookin' out for #1.

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.

Yes, I know that. It's one of the reasons I thought the Iraq war was a bad idea from the start. Of course Saddam would eventually have fallen, if only to old age, and civil war and dissolution would be a strong possibility in any post-Saddam scenario. We just blundered in and jump-started the process, fired by the illusion of "installing democracy".

[OUTLAW 09]

I've walked the other end... the end where the silk came from. Stop and ask yourself how it got the name "Silk Road". Where does silk come from? Hazard a guess. It's not anywhere in the Middle East.

The Silk Road was a conduit for the trade of goods from east to west. It is irrelevant because there is no more land based transit of goods from east to west, nor is there any reason for such transit or practical potential for such transit. No matter who controls the western end of what was once the "Silk Road" there still won't be any goods moving through. No silk, no spices, no mobile phones or tools or computers or cranes or any other thing. There's just no reason for them to move by land.

That territory may be strategically and economically significant in other ways. The roads are of course tactically and strategically relevant: roads always are - but as a Silk Road - as a conduit for the traffic of goods from east to west - it's meaningless. There aren't any goods to move. They're all on ships. There may indeed be some potential for intra-regional commerce and movement along portions of the old "Silk Road", but that's not a "Silk Road" any more. The whole identity and function of the "Silk Road" was in moving the products of the east to the markets of the west... and that's gone elsewhere, never to return.



You mean this "secret" conversation?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...ops-Syria.html

I know you've seen that article, because on another thread you cut/pasted directly from it in reference to the supposedly "secret" deal, though without citing it. That "secret" was leaked almost immediately, and the deal stopped on the spot.

The KSA doesn't "protect Russian oil prices", they protect their own price. Of course that means the Russians also benefit, but that's not the purpose. The Saudis will do all they can (quite a bit) to keep oil above $100 a barrel, because that's where they want it to be, for their own reasons. That of course keeps the price up for the Russians too, but that's not about "secret deals", that's just the Saudis lookin' out for #1.



Yes, I know that. It's one of the reasons I thought the Iraq war was a bad idea from the start. Of course Saddam would eventually have fallen, if only to old age, and civil war and dissolution would be a strong possibility in any post-Saddam scenario. We just blundered in and jump-started the process, fired by the illusion of "installing democracy".

Dayuhan-- I have physically fought from the end of the Road starting in Lebanon in the 80s to the towns of Khalais, Muqdadiyah, Baqubah and Mandeli in 2005/2006/2007 up to the Iranian border itself.

Never once if you check my comments did I mention trade did I?

So let us get back to the significance of the Road with or without the word Silk and focus on the Sunni/Shia global clash that does in fact concern the "Road".

Comments I made to Firn concerning this misconception of trade follow for you to read and think about.

Then we need to get Khomeini to redefine his statements concerning the "Green Crescent" and the King of Jordon to redefine his statements on the "Shia Crescent" and we then need to get the top Commander of the Quds Force to redefine his statements concerning the Shia global community he made two years ago in a rally in Tehran concerning the "Road".

Never did if I recall my comments state it had relevance for trade but it does have extreme significance for the concept of the "Green Crescent". It is though one heck of a smuggle route these days and always has been since 1600 by the way.

NOTE: Dayuhan check the symbols carried on Shia "battle flags" by the way that were carried into the Bakka Valley when the 3000 Iranian Shia "volunteers" who came to fight in Lebanon somehow never made it to the fighting, but are still there. Those battle flags had the only symbol "Green Crescent" on them---and I am betting you understand the significance. By the way those "volunteers" left Tehran after their were blessed by none other than Khomeini personally---any significance to that? Notice the same type of "Green Crescent" flags carried by Shia into the Spanish Sahara.

That is often the problem--some individuals hear and or read words and then jump with comments having never been there nor actually ever physically walked the Road nor know the names of towns along the Road that have significance say with the fighting now between the ISIS and Baghdad in say the town of Muqdadiyah.

Those towns of the Road that make up the Sunni triangle have relevance to those fighting there ---believe me and history makes up a lot of that significance.

Google the town name Muqdadiyah ---scenes of heavy fighting 2005 through 2009 between Shia, Sunni and on occasions Kurds with the US Army in the middle---check the significance of the town historically between the three groups and historically in Islam and Mohammed.

Google the historical Islamic significance of Mandeli, Muqdadiyah, Baqubah, Balad, Tikrit, and Mosul both from a Shia perspective and then from the Sunni perspective and then on top of it from a Kurdish/Arabic perspective. The Silk Road became the preferred AQI and Sunni insurgency rat run out of Syria and into the Sunni triangle and that has no relevance? When we began to block it they just created rat runs parallel to it.

Example of poor American understanding of that area and "ME history"---there was a historical figure from Muqdadiyah that if one looks at his name appears to be Shia but in fact was historically Arab Sunni tied to Mohammed ---in early 2006 a new insurgent group was setup in Baghdad, using that name as their new logo for recruiting purposes and pushed from there into Baqubah and when we captured their leader in Baqubah I had a hard time convincing the national level IC that in fact the group was Sunni not Shia based on the name and the significance of the name as tied to Muqdadiyah.

Now go back and trace the heavy US/Sunni/AQI/Shia fighting in those towns from 2004 through to 2010 and now with ISIS taking them over and then tie them to the comments of Khomenei and you will understand why I did not talk trade relevance.

Sometimes what we define as irrelevance has in the eyes of those that currently reside there a far deeper relevance.

Again trade in 1600 has nothing to do with the current geopolitics of the Sunni/Shia global clash and the various players in that clash and believe me religiously the Road has significance to those players.