Don't Look a Gift Airstrike in the Targeting Package

There is always a time when it is better to keep your mouth shut, and for the Americans this is one of those times.

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki of Iraq has told the BBC he supports an air strike on Islamist militants at a border crossing between Iraq and Syria.

Military and rebel sources say the strike took place inside Iraq, at the Qaim crossing, although Mr Maliki said it was carried out on the Syrian side.

I didn't find it in a quick look on the interwebs, but the US government has actually complained about Syria hitting ISIL/S  positions in Iraq, although it seems that it was a border position so it may or may not have been in Iraq proper.  Regardless, it doesn't mean that you have to (or want to) take sides with either Assad or Iran, but like it or not ISIL is by far the greater threat to all concerned. 

There was another interesting article (not surprising) about how cheap it is to mount a terrorist attack.  This was written in the context of ISIL having millions of dollars in cash (at least $82M) and the potential mayhem which could be financed with that.  Certainly this is of interest to pretty much everyone, and anything which attrits ISIL strength and resources is a step to the good.

What is not widely considered in this situation is that the US has other tools to use against trans-national entities, particularly the financial system.  I understand bombs and operations, but I confess ignorance as to the intricacies of tracking money movements, it suffices for me to know that unless you're moving bags of cash via courier computers can track you.

The "so what?" of this is that while America has a hard time picking a dog in this fight, they should walk softly and carry the big stick.  Time will come to start swinging said stick, but until then they should work in the background (as I hope that they are) throttling cashflows out of ISIL Iraq and let the local players sort each other out.

This approach pre-supposes a coherent foreign policy from the USA, and I haven't seen anything like that, at least not a functional one, during this administration.  Were I running the show, I'd backchannel Iran and set some Lines of Control, e.g. no Iranians west of X, no Americans east of X.  With some ground rules, you don't have to co-ordinate with your "enemies" and risk of escalation/expansion is greatly reduced.

Whatever.  Iraq looks to be devolving into provinces, but with the Ottomans no more whose provinces exactly is the question.  The obvious answer for rump Iraq (Shia) is Iran (most of the way there already), the Sunni area most likely a dysfunctional no-go area for the time being, but Kurdistan looks like it might just make it.  They already have trading relations with Israel (oil), which gives them the better part of an alliance with the most-effective and tech-savvy military in the region, and tourism and investment are both looking good.  The Kurds not being Arabs and having been kicked around by both Arabs and Persians have much in common with Israel, and there is some hope there.

It's an ill wind as blows no-one some good (as they say) so (mixed metaphor alert) let's hope someone makes lemonade from this mess.

Poles getting the shaft?

I just have to wonder if the Poles would have this (realistic) attitude had Mitt Romney won the last US election:

Poland's Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski called his country's ties with the US "worthless", a Polish news magazine says, giving excerpts of a secretly recorded conversation.

Mr Sikorski called Poland's stance towards the US "downright harmful because it creates a false sense of security", according to the new leak.

He has not denied using such language.

According to the excerpts, Mr Sikorski told former Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski that "the Polish-US alliance isn't worth anything".

Using vulgar language, he compared Polish subservience to the US to giving oral sex. He also warned that such a stance would cause "conflict with the Germans, Russians".  

Poland of course has centuries of experience on the shit-end of the Russian stick and will be grateful for any meaningful support against that threat.  It is a sign of the dire state of US policy toward Russia (and NATO; hell. everywhere) that the Polish Foreign Minister holds this opinion, but twice-bitten, thrice shy.

I don't believe that Russia needs to be "contained", as they are no longer a threat to whatever Western Civilization is.  It could be in fact argued that they are a bulwark against what it's turning into, but I won't go down that rabbit hole.  Russia is a regional power with certain prerogatives and the Americans are hypocritical to treat them any other way.  That said, invading your neighbours to consolidate the "volk" and/or reconstitute your Cold War-era glacis of western-border satellite states is not on, but the two things need to be kept in their lanes.

Back to the central point, the Poles are on the front line of any Russian revanchment of the USSR and history suggests (screams, really) that this needs to be taken seriously.  I have talked before about having "lines" and any members of NATO are behind ours.  In this context it includes former Warsaw Pact countries and SSRs (Poland, the Baltic States, Czech Republic, Roumania, Bulgaria) who are most exposed to, and painfully familiar with, anything Russia might do.

The Poles' concern is a practical one hinging more on deterrence than anything else, and it wouldn't have come up during W's time in the White House.  As Mr Sikorsky notes, the current US policy/posture has virtually zero deterrence value while aggravating the Russians and Germans simultaneously.  The Germans need Russian gas too badly to kick up much of a fuss about anything not on their doorstep and "demonizing" Putin and the entire country over the latest activity in Ukraine isn't useful to getting relations back on track.

There is a lack of subtlety in North American diplomacy vis a vis Russia and I admit the situation is tricky.  The carrot and the stick both need to be used judiciously, and that means letting your allies KNOW that you have their back while at the same time letting the other side know (when appropriate) that there are benefits for "good" behaviour.

Russia is NOT a threat to us as world communism was.  They are a regional issue, and our friends there require assurance that we take it seriously, which involves concrete action and appropriate language.  It also might require a Striker Brigade moved to Poland.  Canada is doing what it can (short of pulling the stops out for a war) but the US is the big dog in the ring.  When your allies have lost faith in your willingness to back them up you can imagine what the opposition must think.  In any event, Poland learned the value of Western promises in 1939 when action was (is?) at best too little, too late. 

Status of Farces

If Syria wasn't enough proof that there's no pleasing the Arab world, we have this:

Iraq's military is awaiting President Obama's decision on air strikes.
On Wednesday, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Martin Dempsey, warned that the US military still lacked sufficient intelligence to take action. He told a congressional hearing that pilots would have difficulty knowing who they were attacking from the air.

Asked if the intervention might come too late, Gen Dempsey said: "There is very little that could have been done to overcome the degree to which the government of Iraq has failed its people. That is what has caused this problem." 

ISIS has exploited deep resentment among Iraq's minority Sunni Arabs, who have long accused Mr Maliki of discriminating against them and monopolising power.

A spokesman for Mr Maliki's Dawa party, Zuhair al-Nahar, said the prime minister had met Sunni Arab and Kurdish leaders and that they had "come out in a united stand".
"My message from all the leaders in Iraq is that they feel abandoned, that they want America, Europe, the UN, to take immediate action to rectify the military situation," he told the BBC.

Context is important here.  Al-Maliki is of course the man the US propped up (before Iran took that over) as leader of Iraq, and the same man, likely under Iranian influence, who refused to ratify a Status of Forces agreement which would maintain a US military presence in Iraq.  When you sow the wind...

The situation in Iraq is immediately dire, but as shown in advance of the Anbar Awakening, Salafist groups like Al-Queda rapidly wear out their welcome through oppressive lifestyle rules backed up by summary maimings, executions and overall thuggish behaviour.  From all accounts this current version, ISIS/L is the worst of the worst of that ilk, but with a bunch of temporary allies who will likely splinter away before too long.

ISIS' recent successes are clear evidence of the superiority of morale in warfare.  While it may not be the 3-1 vs materiel of Napoleon's aphorism, the wholesale collapse of Iraqi Army forces shows that it is a factor.  In fact, all other things being even approximately equal, it is the dominant factor.  No amount or quality of armaments will win the day for you if you cut and run.

Where things are relatively equal, good troops will hold their ground and sharp commanders will exploit opportunities, as the Kurds have done in Kirkuk.  I have no dog in this fight, but as I've said before, if "we" should support anyone there it should be the Kurds.  The Kurdistan can of worms is already open, particularly since the Syrian civil war.  They and the Turks seem to be approaching some sort of stability, and overall look to be building a decent sort of country. 

A sensible American foreign policy would have them helping people who like them, particularly as countries like that are in short supply these days.  With that fantasy out of the way, what will Obama decide to do?  Leaving aside the internal constitutionality of the President unilaterally committing military forces to foreign wars (since that seems to be the defacto situation), This is NOT Syria, and there is a side to back.  As the Kurds are also looking after refugees from Mosul, helping them also has a humanitarian dimension.  I don't know what Obama's dithering will eventaully produce, but American forces would have secure bases in Iraqi Kurdistan.  I'd start with A-10s and Apaches with associated FACs (Forward Air Controllers) and develop the situation from there.  The time for that to start was last week but it's not too late to make a difference.

As for the "rest" of Iraq, Gotterdammerung approaches.  The Sunni minority is for the moment aligned, will they or nil they, with ISIS.  This at least is the perception of the Shia majority, and perception is reality in situations like this.  At this point the only real question is the magnitude of the bloodbath.  There is not anything realistic the international community can do to prevent that, but mitigation is certainly possible.

The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend, but at least a less-pressing threat; here I refer to Iran.  The US is talking to them, a good thing in general, but why do I just know that the US will not manage to improve the overall situation through these contacts and common interests?  I'd like to blame this on the hardliners in the Iranian government, but...

No-one can say what things would look like in the region had the US not overthrown Saddam Hussein, but without doubt Syria was at least an indirect result of that action.  The current Iraq situation is 100% due to the situation in Syria, including the fact that ISIS had run up against too much opposition in Syria.  The low-hanging fruit of the disgruntled Sunni minority in Iraq beckoned, and since nature abhors a power vacuum, in they swept. 

As mentioned earlier, the current ISIS/Baath/Sunni coalition likely has a short half-life, I'll go with my gut and say that it'll start to crack within the next month even without external intervention.  This will be affected of course by countervailing influences of a sectarian civil war with the Shia, so moderate (reasonable) Sunnis are between a rock and a hard place for sure.  What suggests itself to me from this is to carve out a safe area contiguous with the Kurdish area for Sunni refugees.  The Kurds are the linchpin of any kind of security/stability in the region and hopefully that is realized (not rocket science; I came up with it after all) and more importantly, acted on.

 

Know Your Enemy

I don't have anything really to add to this, but this is a particularly thorough (short-form) explanation of what makes modern political Islam particularly dangerous to what we consider civilization.  The irony is that it is most dangerous to those who consider themselves Muslims.

They call themselves the Army of God (Jund Allah) and claim to be fighting to unite mankind under the banner of Islam as “the only true faith.” To achieve that goal, they believe they should revive the Islamic Caliphate, the theocratic empire developed after the death of Prophet Mohammed in 632 AD.

An image from a propaganda video uploaded on June 8th shows ISIL militants firing near the Iraqi city of Tikrit.Photo: Getty Images

 Adepts of the caliphate movement are present throughout the world, including the United States, under different labels. In many places, from the Philippines to Nigeria, passing by Thailand, India, Afghanistan and Syria, they have taken up arms to capture a chunk of territory as the embryo of their dream empire.

 This is worth the 5-10 minutes it'll take you to read it.

Geopolitical whack-a-mole

I've let this languish for a while, but things are getting interesting again, so time to take a closer look.

Things are on "simmer" in the Ukraine with some signs that the Russians have decided that the low-hanging fruit has fallen (Crimea) and Donetsk has hit the point of diminishing returns.  Trends at this point look like Putin has withdrawn support, or at least most of it, from the militias in east Ukraine and will use them as a tacit bargaining chip with the new government.  In the meantime, NATO tries, still, to figure out what to do about the whole thing.

 Could be a good time for another "Reset" button; the US and Canada (especially Canada for some reason) are out of sync with our continental allies (and the French, not part of NATO) in terms of how to deal with Putin and Russia.  My prescription for the situation is to continue with the tripwire reassurance measures we are taking with our eastern NATO members, but cease the "containment" or expansion efforts into what Russia considers its' sphere of interest/near abroad. Russia these days should be a European problem, time for them to step up and shift some assets east.

Just as well that things are off the boil there, as things in both south-east Asia and the Mid-East are getting hotter.  China is really pushing its' egregious claims to the entire South China Sea+ and is not far from a shooting war with Vietnam over that oil rig in the Spratley Islands.  If there is a group who won't knuckle under to China in the region it's Vietnam; they've given their (much) bigger neighbour a bloody nose more than once and that's not the sort of thing China forgets.  That said, Japan remains the only regional power with a navy which can challenge the People's Liberation Army Navy, but only locally.  To really stand up to the PLAN the US Navy is essential to the regional players.

Pivot to Asia?  So far I don't see it or there'd be a couple of carrier groups cruising around the contested areas daring the Chinese to try something.

At this time of course arrives the whirlwind sown by the US when it knocked over Saddam Hussein.  ISIL, the Islamic State in the Levant, Al-Queda's bastard spawn from Syria, has routed the Iraqi army from Mosul, Tikrit and Falluja in the most embarrassing possible way and taken, at least temporarily those cities and some lesser ones beside.  The threatened march on Baghdad will be stopped, by Iran if need be, and this upsets almost every apple cart in the region, but it's an ill wind which doesn't blow anyone some good.  This exception, and the only probable (maybe even only possible) salvation for Mosul and northern Iraq are the Kurds. 

The possibility of apocalyptic (for the region) sectarian civil war is a distinct one, as this could be "warre to the knife" between Sunni and Shia.  The evaporation of the (Shia) Iraqi army in the north has allowed the Peshmerga to roll into and occupy Kirkuk, and it's unlikely that Baghdad will get it back.  The Kurds will likely build their Kurdistan while the Sunni and Shia Arabs kill each other.  If however it is necessary for the US to support a reliable party in the area, the Kurds are the only game in town.

Obama is again talking, but you can't claim that "everything's on the table" and then instantly say that there will be no US troops on the ground.  ISIL has no chance to create a caliphate out of their recent gains, but they have done a lot of damage and won't go down without a fight.  This isn't time for half-measures.  This is time for Green Berets and smart-bombs, with the Peshmerga as the new Northern Alliance; you have problems, I offer solutions.  Now we see what kind of half-assery Obama can come up with for all of these situations.