At least we have a friend in the Kurds. They will emerge as independent with an enlarged territory as Iraq cannot govern N Iraq.
The Sunni Iraqi provinces will also emerge as more autonomous with the creation of their own militias.
The central Iraqi army will be largely Shia to protect Shia dominated areas.
The Saudi's are saying that the US is gearing for a 10 year fight. The Jordanians and Saudi's are working together to train the Free Syrian Army. The Saudi's gave the Brits $100 million as seed money. The Brits will announce their involvement in the coalition as soon as the Scottish vote is over.
The French have cut a separate deal directly with al-Abadi to recon western Iraq and then air strikes. Iraq won't work with the UAR, but their new French allies are flying out of al Dafra AB. Guess where? That's right, the UAR.
"Full stop" is one of those phrases the Occupant uses when he wants to sound tough. This is such crap.....reeks of Obama propaganda.
Because Obama told him to rule out U.S. ground troops.
So, the U.S. plays second fiddle to Syria? We sure have fallen low on the rung of super powers, huh..
Iran says NO to US ground troops in their colony Iraq.
Iraq will not let the Kurd held land go, that is where most of the country’s oil revenue comes from.
Anything the muzzies run is an amazing mess.
Can we not just abandon the ME as a shiite-hole and just green light Israel to do whatever they need to and we won;t interfere. We have absolutely no business there.
Ahem. Countries we conquered and pacified do NOT give the USA orders. The Boy President might take their orders. . .
The Obama plan, which is a plan heartily backed by the GOP’s neocons and media outlets like the WSJ oped page editors, is calling for air strikes against ISIS inside Syria yes but (a) also seeks to somehow not do that to help the Syrian people generally, especially not when and where Assad may be the beneficiary [which, I think, managing our attacks on ISIS that way is dumb) and (b) upping support for the “Syrian opposition”, which is by all reports no longer dominated by “moderates” but now and since 2012 dominated by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. See WaPo May 2012.
The result from not limiting our activities inside Syria to ONLY trying to degrade ISIS, & with more intervention on our part on behalf of the “Syrian opposition”, will result in an expansion of the “Syrian” internal conflict to fully engage and engulf Lebanon and see expanded Russian, Iranian and Hezbolla support for Assad. The result will be a more extensive and extended conflict around Syria and more opportunity for ISIS in the more extensively fracturing region of Syria and Lebanon.
The answer? ONLY go after ISIS in Syria and do not up the ante of support for the “Syrian opposition” but instead work for military stalemate, and Assad and the opposition’s admission that stalemate will be all they’ll likely get, to be followed by getting them into a truce and political talks. That - the end point - is where some general’s on Assad’s staff might need to be recruited to that endeavor.
A mess indeed. The concept of a third party taking action against one of the sides in a revolution while simultaneously trying to claim it’s neutral is absurd. The only thing we’ll accomplish by not coordinating with Assad is blundering into blue on blue incidents. We need, at minimum, an operational understanding with the Syrian government if we’re going to bomb their country. Even the Iraqis have caught on to that.
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I wonder how many billions it cost us for Obama to get al-abaci to take this stand. ?
If we send ground troops, we play directly into their hand.
ISIL has all but begged for US ground troops to return. ISIL is relying upon historical Islamic warfare. First the jihad commits unspeakable crimes upon the civilian population. Their opponents respond by going into the Islamic controlled areas where they are eliminated by whatever means necessary. In the meantime, Muslims not involved in the fighting stay out of the way, but may take part in scolding the Muslim combatants. In this way they present the illusion of “moderate, or peaceful Muslims. This too is necessary as part of their conquest scheme.