ISIS – IRAQ - KURDISTAN : NEWS THREAD

[Anthea]

Fox News

Syria, Iran slam US strategy in fighting militants, while opposition welcomes airstrikes

Syrian and Iranian officials criticized the Obama administration on Thursday for excluding them from an international coalition coming together in the battle against the Islamic State group, while a state-run Syrian daily warned that unauthorized U.S. airstrikes on Syria may trigger the "first sparks of fire" in the region.

Syria's main Western-backed opposition group, meanwhile, welcomed President Barack Obama's authorization of U.S. airstrikes targeting — for the first time — the extremists inside Syria, saying it stands "ready and willing" to partner with the international community to defeat the militants.

But the Syrian National Coalition said that airstrikes need to be coupled with a strategy for ultimately toppling President Bashar Assad.

Kurdish politicians in Iraq similarly praised Obama's announcement of wider airstrikes and assistance to Iraqi forces.

"We welcome this new strategy," said Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurdish politician and one of Iraq's newly-appointed deputy prime ministers. "We think it will work with the cooperation of the indigenous local forces like Iraqi Security Forces, the Kurdish peshmerga and other forces."

"There is an urgent need for action. People cannot sit on the fence. This is a mortal threat to everybody," he told The Associated Press.

The U.S. began launching limited airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq earlier this summer at the request of former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, in a significant boost to the Iraqi forces, including the Kurdish peshmerga fighters, battling to win back land lost to the militant group.

The Sunni extremists seized roughly a third of Iraq and Syria in their rampage this summer, declaring a self-styled caliphate in areas under their control where they apply their strict interpretation of Islamic law.

In a prime-time address to the nation from the White House late Wednesday, Obama announced he was authorizing U.S. airstrikes inside Syria for the first time, along with expanded strikes in Iraq as part of "a steady, relentless effort" to root out Islamic State extremists and curb their reign of terror.

He also again urged Congress to authorize a program to train and arm Syrian rebels who are fighting both the Islamic State militants and Assad's forces.

Obama did not say when U.S. forces would begin striking at targets inside Syria.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem had last month warned the U.S. against carrying out airstrikes on Syrian territory without Damascus' consent, saying any such attack would be considered an aggression.

Obama, in his speech, ruled out any partnership with Assad in the fight against the Islamic State militants, saying the Syrian leader will "never regain the legitimacy" he has lost.

"I wonder how an international coalition can be formed and Syria, which is targeted by terrorism in depth, is shunned aside?" Sharif Shehadeh, a Syrian lawmaker, told The Associated Press in Damascus. He said violating Syrian sovereignty will have "negative repercussions on regional and international security." He did not elaborate.

The state-run al-Thawra newspaper warned in a front-page editorial that Obama's authorization of airstrikes in Syria might be "the first sparks of fire in the region."

Syrian officials have always insisted that the uprising in Syria which erupted in March 2011 and eventually escalated into civil war was carried out by armed "terrorists" — using the term as shorthand for all rebels.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, whose country is a staunch ally of Assad, also said Thursday that regional and international cooperation will be vital — even though Tehran has not been invited to join the international coalition against the Islamic State group. Rouhani spoke on an official visit to Tajikistan.

In Tehran, foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said the coalition against the Islamic State group has "serious ambiguities," the official IRNA news agency reported Thursday. She added that Iran has doubts about the seriousness of the coalition, accusing some unnamed members of supporting terrorism in Iraq and Syria.

The new U.N. envoy to Syria, meanwhile, said "the top priority now is to fight terrorism." Speaking on his first visit to Damascus following a meeting with Assad on Thursday, Staffan de Mistura said he will strive "with a renewed energy" to move toward a political settlement to the Syrian conflict.

The Swedish-Italian diplomat is stepping into a mission that has frustrated two high-profile predecessors: Finding a resolution to a conflict that has killed more than 190,000 people and has driven a third of Syria's population — some 9 million people — from their homes.

A year ago, Obama gave a speech to the nation in which he was widely expected to announce the U.S. would be launching punishing airstrikes against Assad's forces, after blaming them for a deadly chemical weapons attack near Damascus. Obama backed down at the last minute.

Ironically, the U.S. president is now authorizing airstrikes not against Assad, but against a group committed to his removal from power. In doing that, the U.S. runs the risk of unintentionally strengthening Assad's hand, potentially opening the way for the Syrian army to fill the vacuum left by the extremists.

Hadi Bahra, chief of the Syrian National Coalition opposition group, said mainstream Syrian rebels desperately need the kind of support that would enable them to form a reliable and well-equipped force to fight the extremists.

"Today, we are one step closer to achieving that goal," he said.

He said the Syrian Coalition "stands ready and willing to partner with the international community," not only to defeat the extremists, but also "to rid the Syrian people of the tyranny of the Assad regime."

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/09/11 ... d-equally/

[Anthea]

Good thinking - give the Syrian Coalition/Free Syrian Army yet more weapons and wait for another well armed splinter group to break away and attempt world domination

Most of the so-called Syrian Coalition/Free Syrian Army are NOT born and bred Syrians or Kurdish Syrians - and it is because of them and the havoc and violence they have caused that Assad was LEGALLY voted in as leader a few months ago

We have known for the past few YEARS that many of the Syrian Coalition/Free Syrian Army fighters have no connection with Syria - many seem to have gone there for a sort of fighting holiday

Then we have the mad PYD in the north who have actually DIVIDED the Kurdish lands in the north of Syria - ignoring MOST of the Kurdish occupied lands and only being interested in areas it deems to offer a wealthy return for ti's efforts

Giving the Syrian Coalition/Free Syrian Army yet more weapons is sheer MADNESS

[Anthea]

Posted by tab in: YPG in Sinjar and around
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=15453

Rudaw

Peshmerga and Syrian Kurdish Forces Agree to Fight Together for Shingal
By YÛSİF EHMED

DUHOK, Kurdistan Region – Kurdistan’s Peshmerga forces have agreed to fight together with the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in the push to retake the Yezidi town of Shingal from Islamic State (IS/formerly ISIS) jihadis, a commander said.

Qasim Shesho, the commander of Peshmerga forces on Mount Shingal, announced that an agreement had been reached with the YPG, after representatives came to apologize for incidents that had raised tensions.

One of those acts, which had been harshly criticized by Shesho, was a YPG attempt to raise the flag of their Democratic Union Party (PYD) at the tomb of Sheikh Sherefeddin, the second-most sacred site for Yezidis.

http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/100920141

Below is an excellent comment:

All Kurdish regional armed defence forces should be united in general and act only in full and direct coordination with the military headquarter of the National Peshmerga Army of Southern Kurdistan. And certainly there should be only the appropriate Kurdistan's national flag in all parts of the geographical and historical Greater Kurdistan as the symbol of the national and cultural integrity and solidarity, which is extremely necessary today first of all to support the people of Southern Kurdistan in its struggle for freedom, sovereignty and independence from Iraqi pseudo federative islamic state. All political parties shall use their flags only for their own internal purposes, but never negatively for destructive propaganda reasons.

[Anthea]

Rudaw

Britain Ready with First Batch of Arms For Kurdish Forces

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Britain is ready to deliver its first batch of weapons, including heavy machineguns and ammunition, to Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State (IS/formerly ISIS or ISIL), Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said.

“This will give the Kurdish Peshmerga forces additional firepower in order to help them defend the front line, protect civilians and push back ISIL advances,” Fallon said in a statement on Tuesday.

The British government has so far only provided non-lethal aid to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). The Royal Air Force (RAF) has helped transport arms to Kurdish forces on behalf of other governments.

“The RAF continues to transport military equipment and ammunition on behalf of other countries as well as providing UK non-lethal military equipment including body armor, helmets and ration packs. Today a flight flew into Erbil in northern Iraq carrying the latest support package,” Fallon’s statement said.

Britain is among a 10-nation, US-led coalition that has pledged to help defeat the IS in Iraq and Syria. Later today, US President Barack Obama is to unveil his strategy to push back the militants.

“ISIL militants are guilty of shocking brutality. So I am pleased that we will supply weapons to the Kurdish forces who are at the front line of combating their violent extremism,” Fallon said.

Empowered by US air cover, Kurdish forces have been able to forestall jihadist territorial gains. Over the past two weeks, Peshmerga forces have pushed back the radicals from several major towns and strategic locations in Salahaddin and Mosul.

The UK considers IS as a strategic threat to its national security, British Prime Minister David Cameron said last month.

“This (IS) is a clear danger to Europe and to our security,” Cameron said, while appointing a Special Representative to the KRG to consult and coordinate security and diplomatic affairs with London.

PLEASE follow link to read comments

http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/10092014

[Anthea]

A Bad Idea: Using the 2001 AUMF as Legal Rationale for Striking ISIS

The Obama administration doesn’t have the strongest legal footing to go to war against ISIS in Iraq.

Back in March of this year, long before the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS, ISIL, or the “Islamic State”) was the global crisis, I argued that it was time for the United States to reconsider the utility of the mandate granted to the executive branch by the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF)–the law Congress passed following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. homeland by Al Qaeda.

My argument at the time was spurred by comments made by Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Lumpkin. The law, written in the flurry of rage and emotion that gripped the United States after the attacks, cleared Congress with but 1 nay vote amid 535 legislators. Since then, its turned into a blank check for the U.S. executive branch. S

hortly after President Obama outlined his strategy against ISIS on September 10, 2014, on the eve of the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, it became clear that his administration would use the AUMF as the president’s legal justification for ordering the strikes against ISIS.

Spencer Ackerman, for the Guardian, received an email from a senior U.S. official who clarified that the 2001 AUMF was indeed the administration’s legal rationale:

Based on ISIL’s longstanding relationship with al-Qa’ida (AQ) and Usama bin Laden; its long history of conducting, and continued desire to conduct, attacks against U.S. persons and interests, the extensive history of U.S. combat operations against Isil dating back to the time the group first affiliated with AQ in 2004; and Isil’s position – supported by some individual members and factions of AQ-aligned groups – that it is the true inheritor of Usama bin Laden’s legacy, the President may rely on the 2001 AUMF as statutory authority for the use of force against Isil, notwithstanding the recent public split between AQ’s senior leadership and Isil.

Putting aside the merits of the declared strategy and the broader normative issue of whether this is the United States’ fight, the 2001 AUMF is a prima facie absurd reason to go to war against ISIS. The 2001 AUMF states that “the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.” Simply put, the president of the United States is free to pursue, with military force, any individual, group, state, or other institution affiliated with al-Qaeda.

ISIS, as it happens, is no friend of Al Qaeda’s. Yes, the group was an off-shoot from Al Qaeda, but today, in September 2014, it is a strategic foe for Al Qaeda. The two groups have a deep philosophical disagreement about the priorities of global jihad (as even the official in the above email notes).

To oversimplify, Al Qaeda sees its first target as Western governments and others who prop up secular Arab dictators, Israel, and other non-Sunni leaders in the Muslim world. ISIS, meanwhile, has focused its efforts on establishing a caliphate first and using its strength to directly fight the governments it deems unfit for rule (this includes Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Iraq’s deeply Shia-dominated government).

Yes, ISIS was at one point known as “Al Qaeda in Iraq,” but in September 2014, it is an entirely separate entity that is diametrically opposed to Al Qaeda in many ways–even engaging in skirmishes with Jabhat al-Nusra, Al Qaeda’s wing in Syria. It is simply not an “associated force” in terms of the 2001 AUMF.

The 2001 AUMF is a delightfully expansive law if you’re a member of the U.S. Executive Branch looking to swiftly implement strategy in a far-flung land. Whereas under normal circumstances, Congress has to declare war or authorize the use of force, the executive is free under the AUMF to carry out this action provided that it is actively targeting an Al Qaeda affiliate. Just take a look at the United States’ remotely piloted aircraft strikes against targets in Yemen and Pakistan.

The reaction from American legal scholars and commentators, understandably, has been one of equal parts indignation, confusion, and shock. The administration’s decision to use the 2001 AUMF might simply be an example of following the political path of least resistance (at least when it comes to Congress).

Obama has repeatedly emphasized his interest in making decisions on international intervention with the acquiescence of Congress (even if he doesn’t formally need it, like last year in Syria). Indeed, in his speech, he said as much about the current plan to fight ISIS. With the 2001 AUMF backing the executive in this case, any problems that may arise in Congress will not be relevant legally for the administration.

Realistically speaking, little will come of the fact that the 2001 AUMF is a flimsy legal justification for going to war here. In all likelihood, should the campaign against ISIS grow into a protracted quagmire (which isn’t out of the realm of possibility), Congress will simply stitch together a supplementary AUMF treating ISIS as a discrete case. What’s more, this is almost a necessity under the War Powers Resolution. Some in Congress, notably Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), are on the task already.

Last year, in a speech at the National Defense University, Obama told an audience that looks forward to “to engaging Congress and the American people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF’s mandate.” His current actions do not suggest that his administration is ready to let go of the generous latitude that law grants the executive branch. On the one hand, it is the legislature’s responsibility to step in here to check executive power.

After all, it makes good sense from the administration’s perspective to pick whatever legal rationale would allow for the swiftest implementation of kinetic action on the ground in Iraq. If nothing else, the administration’s current call to action against ISIS should be a wake up call for Congress and the American people that the mandate of the 2001 AUMF has outstayed its welcome.

http://thediplomat.com/2014/09/a-bad-id ... mat+RSS%29

[Anthea]

Guardian

Obama's legal rationale for Isis strikes: shoot first, ask Congress later

For expanded Isis strikes, president relies on legal authority he disavowed only a year ago

In the space of a single primetime address on Wednesday night, Barack Obama dealt a crippling blow to a creaking, 40-year old effort to restore legislative primacy to American warmaking - a far easier adversary to vanquish than the Islamic State. Obama’s legal arguments for unilaterally expanding a war expected to last years have shocked even his supporters.

Ahead of Wednesday’s speech the White House signaled that Obama already “has the authority he needs to take action” against Isis without congressional approval. Obama said he would welcome congressional support but framed it as optional, save for the authorisations and the $500m he wants to use the US military to train Syrian rebels. Bipartisan congressional leaders who met with Obama at the White House on Tuesday expressed no outrage.

The administration’s rationale, at odds with the war it is steadily expanding, is to forestall an endless conflict foisted upon it by a bloodthirsty legislature. Yet one of the main authorities Obama is relying on for avoiding Congress is the 2001 wellspring of the war on terrorism he advocated repealing only last year, a document known as the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) that few think actually applies to Isis.

Taken together with the congressional leadership’s shrug, Obama has stripped the veneer off a contemporary fact of American national security: presidents make war on their own, and congresses acquiesce.

The constitution envisions the exact opposite circumstance. A 1973 reform, the War Powers Resolution, attempted a constitutional restoration in the wake of the Vietnam war, ensuring that the legal authorisation for conflict deployments were voided after 60 days. Yet its restrictions on military action have proven far less durable in conflicts like Grenada, Kosovo, Libya and now the 2014-vintage Iraq war.

For the Obama administration, an allergy to congressional authorisation is enmeshed with the president’s stated desire to end what he last year termed a “perpetual war” footing. It has led Obama in directions legal scholars consider highly questionable.

Some of Obama’s legislative brushoffs are straightforward. The administration did not seek legislative authority for its 2011 Libya air war, something Congress was unlikely to grant. Scepticism also mounted in Congress last year when Obama proposed attacking Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Secretary of state John Kerry told the Huffington Post that Obama could bomb Assad even if Congress voted against it.

But not only has Obama rejected restrictions of his warmaking power, he has also rejected legislative expansions of it - a more curious choice.

In 2010, shortly after the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives, the incoming chairman of the armed services committee, Buck McKeon of California, endorsed passing a new congressional authorisation for the so-called war on terrorism. McKeon reasoned that a mutating terror threat had pushed the legal boundaries of the brief 2001 AUMF and that a new generation of legislators had not granted their endorsement.

Yet when McKeon’s committee invited the administration’s thoughts, its representative rejected the effort. Jeh Johnson, then the Pentagon’s chief lawyer and now secretary of homeland security, said the 2001 law - passed before al-Qaida’s contemporary affiliates in Yemen, Somalia and north Africa existed, let alone the emergence of Isis, which is no longer part of al-Qaida - provided “sufficient” legal authority for contemporary US counterterrorism.

According to several administration officials over the years, Obama has been wary that Congress will offer up new laws that entrench and expand an amorphous war that, in his mind, he has waged with the minimum necessary amount of force. Obama last year advocated the eventual repeal of the 2001 authorisation - as well as the 2002 congressional approval of the Iraq war - to aid in turning a page on a long era of US warfare.

Yet on Wednesday a senior administration official told reporters that the 2001 authorisation covered the war against Isis. Legal scholars have already debated its coverage of al-Qaida affiliates that did not exist in 2001. Isis, however, is not an al-Qaida affiliate, having been specifically disavowed by al-Qaida’s leader, Ayman Zawahiri. Ken Gude of the liberal Center for American Progress, a thinktank close to the administration, tweeted that he was “utterly shocked” the administration would contend the 2001 authority applied - an argument he had earlier in the day called “laughable.”

Asked to explain the administration’s reasoning, a different senior US official acknowledged the “split” between al-Qaida and Isis but indicated the administration considered it legally immaterial. In an email, using the administration’s preferred acronym for Isis, the official wrote:

Based on ISIL’s longstanding relationship with al-Qa’ida (AQ) and Usama bin Laden; its long history of conducting, and continued desire to conduct, attacks against U.S. persons and interests, the extensive history of U.S. combat operations against Isil dating back to the time the group first affiliated with AQ in 2004; and Isil’s position - supported by some individual members and factions of AQ-aligned groups - that it is the true inheritor of Usama bin Laden’s legacy, the President may rely on the 2001 AUMF as statutory authority for the use of force against Isil, notwithstanding the recent public split between AQ’s senior leadership and Isil.

Obama’s read on Congress has merit. Legislators who endorse congressional authorisation of war against Isis have offered packages that already look beyond the group. Representative Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican, would give Obama and his successors power to attack all groups sharing “a common violent extremist ideology” - not defined - with Isis and contemporary al-Qaida affiliates. A bill from Senator James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, would empower the president to confront Isis “and any successor terrorist organisation.”

However, the prevailing view in Congress driving a deferral of legislative authorisation for the Isis war is political. Neither Republicans nor Democrats wish to introduce a wild card into the forthcoming congressional elections. Representative Jack Kingston, a Georgia Republican who favours a vote, observed to the New York Times that many of his colleagues reason: “We can denounce it if it goes bad, and praise it if it goes well and ask what took him so long.” Explanations like those contextualise Congress’s diminishing dissatisfaction with violations of the War Powers Resolution over the course of four decades.

Still, that confluence of interests between Obama and the legislature has left Congress on the margins of what might be considered the Third Iraq War. Members of the US public who do not want a return to war in Iraq, nor an expansion of war into Syria, are left without a mechanism to prevent it.

While Obama may think of himself as a bulwark against perpetual US war - and while his political adversaries consider him insufficiently martial - his actions tell a different story. Obama’s foreign-policy legacy is marked by escalating and then extending the Afghanistan war beyond his presidency; empowering the CIA and special-operations forces to strike on undeclared battlefields in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya; the 2011 Libya war; and now returning US warplanes to the skies above Iraq, and, soon, expanding their mission to eastern Syria.

Though Obama typically forswears conventional ground combat in his wars, a factor that tends to blunt congressional outrage, the new war Obama unveiled on Wednesday looks like a different test case. His ostensible prohibition on US ground “combat” forces in Iraq elides the 1,100 ground troops he has ordered back into Iraq since June, a figure certain to expand once the US military revitalises training for its Iraqi counterparts and Syrian anti-Isis rebels. Administration officials anticipate a years-long war against the well-financed Isis, and any vote Congress will cast will come after it has begun, making legislative rejection unlikely. All that creates a precedent for future presidents: shoot first, ask permission later, if at all.

The American and global publics can reasonably ask what 13 years of US war have durably achieved. One answer, unlikely to have been anticipated by the architects, caretakers and practitioners of this conflict, is the hobbling of legislative restrictions on war enshrined in the constitution, and the expansion of a legal authority Obama said last year kept the country on an unacceptable footing of perpetual war.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/s ... l-argument

[Anthea]

Rudaw

President Obama Announces Greater Efforts Against ISIS
By DAVID ROMANO

I write this week’s column just a few minutes after U.S. President Obama’s speech to Americans regarding the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS). Sometimes it is better to put one’s reaction to pen and paper before reading the opinions of others or watching all the talking heads on television pontificate.

First, those of us concerned for the people of Iraq, Syria and the wider Middle East should salute Mr. Obama for now recognizing the threat that ISIS poses and wanting to take more serious action against it. Even after the ISIS takeover of Mosul and most of Western Iraq last June, many of us remained unsure whether or not the U.S. President really “gets it.” Although it took more time than many would have liked, he does seem to get it now. In his speech he stated that “At this moment, the greatest threats come from the Middle East and North Africa.” For a president who wanted to extricate the United States from the Middle East as much as possible, this is an important admission.

The plan Mr. Obama laid out to the American people has several elements. First, America is working with partners in the West and the Middle East to cut off ISIS’ financing, hamper movement of its people and delegitimize the group. Aid to unnamed Syrian opposition groups fighting both ISIS and Assad will be increased. Especially now that “an inclusive Iraqi government in Baghdad has been formed,” Mr. Obama said that the United States will “stand with people who fight for their own freedom.”

He might have added at this point “unless they’re affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), in which case we will ignore them no matter how well they fight against ISIS, no matter how secular they are, and no matter how many civilians and minorities they provide shelter to,” but I suppose that goes without saying.

Most importantly, the U.S. President announced an expansion of air strikes against ISIS as well as the likelihood of these air strikes occurring in Syria as well as Iraq. In other words, the American air bombing campaign is entering an offensive phase. Second, he announced that another 475 American military personnel will be heading to Iraq to join those already there. They will take up advisory and support roles rather than combat positions. Mr. Obama again promised that American troops would “not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq.”

The president cited operations in places like Yemen and Somalia as examples of how much the United States could do without combat forces on the ground. He thus stressed that this effort will be different from previous wars the U.S. waged in Iraq and Afghanistan – the U.S. will rely on air power and working with partners on the ground rather than its own infantry.

The problem is that one can hardly count Yemen and Somalia as examples of American policy success. Both countries are still in dire straits and the al-Qaeda affiliated groups there remain strong and active. ISIS represents a much stronger army in control of more weapons, territory and finances than any al-Qaeda affiliate in the region.

In Iraq under U.S. General Petraeus, it was only the combination of U.S. ground troops, air strikes, local allies and political wooing of the Sunni Arab population that defeated the insurgency of 2003-2008. If air strikes, local allies and very uncertain political offers to Sunnis from the new Abadi government in Baghdad prove insufficient to the task, as seems likely, the U.S.

President may have to take to the podium again soon. In Syria the problem appears even greater, especially if the U.S. continues to refuse to even contemplate working with the Syrian Kurds.

Anthea: Kurds in Syria do not want to be connected to the PKK - they were already involved with the FSA before the PKK/PYD joined in and tried to take over - I am sure they would much rather join in the fight against the Islamic State in conjunction with the latest American lead collation rather than being left as outsiders

All the same, it seems quite reasonable for the American president to first attempt more cautious, less costly strategies to roll back ISIS. That includes remaining against Kurdish independence. If it all comes to naught, leaders in Washington may find themselves finally forced to seriously reassess their policy towards ISIS, Iraq, Syria and the Kurds. As Winston Churchill famously said, “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing -- after they’ve tried everything else.”

David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since 2010. He is the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and author of The Kurdish Nationalist Movement (2006, Cambridge University Press) and co-editor (with Mehmet Gurses) of Conflict, Democratization and the Kurds in the Middle East (2014, Palgrave Macmillan).

http://rudaw.net/english/opinion/11092014?keyword=isis

[Anthea]

Guardian

Assad, Moscow and Tehran condemn Obama's plan for air strikes against Isis

Claims that strikes would violate sovereignty, as Syrian rebels welcome move and other Arab states offer 'appropriate' support

The Syrian government and its close allies in Moscow and Tehran warned Barack Obama that an offensive against Islamic State (Isis) within Syria would violate international law yesterday, hours after the US president announced that he was authorising an open-ended campaign of air strikes against militants on both sides of the border with Iraq.

Syrian opposition groups welcomed Obama's announcement and called for heavy weapons to fight the "terror" of Isis and Bashar al-Assad. Saudi Arabia and nine other Arab states pledged to back the US plan "as appropriate".

Hadi al-Bahra, head of the western-backed Syrian National Coalition, said the group "stands ready and willing to partner with the international community not only to defeat Isis but also rid the Syrian people of the tyranny of the Assad regime". In Reyhanli, on the Turkish-Syrian border, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army (FSA) said that moderate anti-Assad forces urgently needed anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

But long-standing international divisions over Syria were starkly highlighed in the hours after the speech. Iran's foreign ministry said that "the so-called international coalition to fight the Isil [Islamic State] group ... is shrouded in serious ambiguities and there are severe misgivings about its determination to sincerely fight the root causes of terrorism."

Russia said it would not support any military action without a UN resolution authorising it. "The US president has spoken directly about the possibility of strikes by the US armed forces against Isil positions in Syria without the consent of the legitimate government," said a spokesman. "This step, in the absence of a UN security council decision, would be an act of aggression, a gross violation of international law." China said that the world should fight terror but that national sovereignty must be respected.

In Damascus, the Assad government warned against US raids. "Any action of any kind without the consent of the Syrian government would be an attack on Syria," said the national reconciliation minister, Ali Haidar. Analysts believe, however, that Assad would be likely to ignore strikes on Isis targets – and even seek to quietly cooperate with western efforts.

In a meeting with Staffan de Mistura, the new UN envoy for Syria, Assad stressed his commitment to fight "terrorism" but he made no mention of the US president's speech on Wednesday night.

"As long as air strikes only hit Isis they will be condemned as a violation of international law but won't be dealt with as aggression that requires retaliation," Jihad Makdissi, a former Syrian diplomat, told the Guardian.

Obama used a long-heralded address on the eve of the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks to lay out his response to the appearance of an aggressive jihadi insurgency in the heart of the Arab world. US polls show growing support for military action since Isis fighters captured large areas of northern Iraq and eastern Syria and beheaded two American citizens in the past month.

He compared the campaign to those waged against al-Qaida in Yemen and Somalia, where US drones, cruise missiles and special operations raids have battered local affiliates without, however, notably improving the stability of either country or dealing decisive blows.

Obama's new strategy won swift if vague support from America's Arab allies, with Saudi Arabia agreeing to train Syrian rebel fighters. John Kerry, the US secretary state, held talks in the port city of Jeddah with ministers from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and six Gulf states. After the meeting, participants said they had agreed "as appropriate" to "many aspects" of the military campaign against Isis, to stop the flow of funds and fighters and help rebuild communities "brutalised" by the group. Support was also expressed for the new, more inclusive Baghdad government – seen as vital to persuade Iraq's disaffected Sunnis not to support Isis. MPs in Jordan, warned, however, that they would not tolerate any participation in US action.

"We welcome this new strategy," said Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurdish politician and one of Iraq's newly appointed deputy prime ministers. "There is an urgent need for action. People cannot sit on the fence. This is a mortal threat to everybody."

There was confusion over Britain's role after Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, said the UK would not take part in air strikes. But Downing Street quickly announced that UK participation had not been ruled out. Germany said it would not participate. Both countries have sent weapons and ammuniction to the Iraqi Kurds – part of the overall anti-Isis strategy.

The Pentagon is currently working on identifying suitable targets in Syria, according to White House officials. The US will also deploy a further 475 troops to Iraq, where they are expected to help identify targets.

US officials said that Kerry would be seeking to pressure Kuwait and Qatar to stop their citizens financing al-Qaida and Isis. The Saudis, stung by accusations of support for the jihadis, have already worked to crack down on funding and announced the arrest of scores of alleged terrorist sympathisers in recent weeks.

Obama said the air strikes were a necessary counter-terrorism measure to prevent the group from becoming a future threat to the US and therefore did not require fresh congressional approval. But he is expected to receive overwhelming congressional support for separate authorisation to provide military support to rival Syrian rebels like the FSA, a vote that some Republicans fear could help boost Democratic chances in this November's midterm elections by providing political support for his tough new foreign policy.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/s ... trike-plan

[Piling]

So logically, PKK and PYD should condemn also if they are stilling following Iranian positions.

[Anthea]

Russia said it would not support any military action without a UN resolution authorising it. "The US president has spoken directly about the possibility of strikes by the US armed forces against Isil positions in Syria without the consent of the legitimate government," said a spokesman. "This step, in the absence of a UN security council decision, would be an act of aggression, a gross violation of international law." China said that the world should fight terror but that national sovereignty must be respected.

They are 100% correct - Obama is a power crazy bully who is taking the law into his own hands

Being invited into Iraq by the Iraqi government and asked to help protect defenceless Yazidis, the inhabitants of other small isolated towns and dams is one thing - entering into another country uninvited is another thing entirely

It is up to the UN security council to make such a decision NOT bully boy Obama

If America and other countries had not been so happy to support the FSA the Islamic State would not have had the arms it needed to get a foothold in Syria and would never been able to branch out into Iraq

In fact if the UN had helped the Iraqi Sunni population when they were being victimised by the Shiite Iraqi government - the Sunnis would not have allowed the Islamic State to gain access to such vast swathes of Iraq and been so supportive of them

[Anthea]

TIME

Obama’s Anti-ISIS War in Syria May Be Illegal
Massimo Calabresi

Obama is relying on questionable legal authority in his pursuit of terrorists, but that never stopped George W. Bush. If truth is the first casualty of war, law is apparently the last, at least for President Barack Obama.

Obama came to office declaring his determination to reimpose legal limits on the American effort to defeat al Qaeda. He swore to close Guantanamo Bay, abolish torture, tighten rules for the treatment of terrorist prisoners and rein in the broad executive power President George W. Bush had claimed in the global hunt for terrorists.

But after five-and-a-half years of near-constant terrorist brush fires in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, and a Congress that remains largely unwilling to update key counterterrorism legislation, Obama appears finally to have surrendered to a very loose legal definition of where and when he can use military force against terrorists.

In his prime time speech Wednesday evening, Obama told Americans he was expanding attacks against the group calling itself the “Islamic State”, also known as ISIS or ISIL, by targeting its fighters not just in Iraq but also in Syria. “I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria as well as Iraq,” Obama said, “This is a core principle of my presidency: If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.”

Strategically, that makes sense. Speaking to reporters before Obama’s speech, a senior administration official explained, “ISIL is moving with impunity back and forth from Syria to Iraq, and vice versa, each time and from each place gaining arms, gaining manpower, gaining fuel, literally and figuratively, for their fight.”

Legally, however, Obama’s authority to attack ISIS in Syria is on shaky ground. Under the Constitution, Congress decides if and when the U.S. goes to war. In 2002, it authorized President George W. Bush to attack Iraq. That authorization, broadly interpreted, can be read to include the threat ISIS now poses there. But it doesn’t apply to Syria, at least not easily. And the Obama Administration announced this summer that it was no longer using the 2002 authorization to justify its actions.

Instead, Obama claims he has authority to bomb ISIS in Syria under the Sept. 14, 2001 authorization from Congress following the 9/11 attacks. In the call with reporters, Obama’s senior administration official said, “We believe that he can rely on the 2001 AUMF [Authorization for Use of Military Force] as statutory authority for the military airstrike operations he is directing against ISIL.”

That joint resolution gave the president the power to “use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”

A variety of legal scholars on the left and the right, including Obama himself, have argued that authorization is too broad and needs to be rewritten so it doesn’t give eternal war-fighting power to all future presidents. And as Jack Goldsmith writes for TIME today, it’s a stretch for Obama to claim it applies to ISIS, given that ISIS and al Qaeda split earlier this year.

According to a 2012 speech by Jeh Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security who previously served as Obama’s top lawyer at the Department of Defense, there are two characteristics that a group must have to be considered an “associated force” with al Qaeda under the 2001 authorization. First they must be “an organized, armed group that has entered the fight alongside al Qaeda,” and second, the group “is a co-belligerent with al Qaeda in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.” The White House has yet to release to Congress or the public any detailed analysis of their determination that the Islamic state meets these standards.

If Obama is breaking the law, don’t expect much to come of it in the short term. The consequences of Obama’s legal interpretation, beyond his own discomfort, are not likely very great. The Bush administration showed the bar for legally constraining presidential counterterrorist actions is high, and even when it is surmounted there are little or no penalties. Politically, the president has nothing to fear: no matter how angry they are about the new effort against ISIS, the left wing of Obama’s party isn’t going to impeach him, and the right won’t either, at least not for going after Islamic extremists.

In the long term, perhaps Obama’s legal legerdemain will boost those who want to come up with new, clearer legal frameworks for international counterterrorism operations. But for now Obama, like Bush before him, seems determined to act without them.

http://time.com/3328080/isis-syria-aumf-obama-law/

[Anthea]

Oil Voice

Islamic State's ultimate goal: Saudi Arabia's oil wells

For the terrorist group known as the Islamic State, Syria and Iraq were a good place to start their campaign, but in order to survive and prosper it knew from the outset that it had no choice but to set its sights on the ultimate prize: the oil fields of Saudi Arabia.

It is in that direction that the battle for control of the world's largest oil fields is currently heading.

Islamic State -- which has its origins in al-Qaeda - knows fully well that in order to sustain itself as a viable and lasting religious, political, economic and military entity in the region, it has to follow the same objectives established by al-Qaeda when Osama bin Laden broke off his relations with the Saudi monarchy and vowed to bring down the

House of Saud.

Bin Laden's ire at the Saudi monarchy stemmed from the fact that Saudi King Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud invited the American military to use Saudi Arabia as a staging area to build up forces to take on the then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein after Iraqi troops occupied Kuwait in August of 1990. Bin Laden objected to the presence of "infidels" in the land of the two holy mosques, and asked the king to allow his outfit to tackle Saddam Hussein's troops.

Similarly, IS knows that it will only feel secure once Saudi Arabia is part of the Caliphate, and its oil fields are under IS control -- which is why the group has two logical next steps.

First, to capture and secure the most important country in the Muslim world: Saudi Arabia.

If the battle for Syria and Iraq attracted tens of hundreds, (some say tens of thousands) of young Muslims, the battle for control of Islam's two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, are very likely to attract many more fighters into the ranks of the Islamic State.

And second, to take on the United States -- the one remaining superpower that could stop its march on the oilfields of Saudi Arabia, and ultimately the rest of the Gulf.

After much hesitation, it now appears that the Obama administration has come around to realizing the true danger posed by IS. Washington, along with some of its NATO allies, is now formulating a plan to defeat IS.

However, it may be wise to point out that Washington's track record in dealing with

Middle East problems has not been something to crow about. As a point of reference, one need only mention Iraq and Afghanistan -- both prime examples of how not to do things.

Even if the U.S. can defeat IS militarily, any victory would only be temporary since eventually, U.S. troops will pull out and the remnants of IS would emerge from their respective hiding places, as they did after Saddam Hussein's capture and death. Indeed, a U.S. intervention -- through its massive air campaign -- will foment even greater animosity toward the West in general, and the United States, in particular. It's all deja vu.

The one power that can effectively move against IS in a manner that would appear legitimate to other Muslims is Saudi Arabia, as Nawaf Obaid, a fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and Saud al-Sarhan, research director at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies pointed out in a joint opinion piece published Sept. 9 in the New York Times.

The authors dispute the widely believed notion that Saudi Arabia created IS and is funding it. "Saudi Arabia is not the source of ISIS -- it's the group's primary target," they write.

As Obaid and al-Sarhan put it, "The Saudi leadership has a unique form of religious credibility and legitimacy, which will make it far more effective than other governments at delegitimizing ISIS's monstrous terrorist ideology."

What makes IS powerful today is the fact that they laid out their military strategy based on where oil fields are located. The fact that they went after northeast Syria and northern Iraq is not coincidental by any means. Islamic State may be ruthless and brutal, but it is first and foremost a terrorist organization with an astute business plan.

The capture of oil wells in Syria and Iraq has made the group financially self-sufficient. Now it's all or nothing.

http://www.oilvoice.com/n/Islamic-State ... 58f8f.aspx

[Anthea]

BBC News Middle East

Islamic State fighter estimate triples - CIA

The CIA says the Islamic State (IS) militant group may have up to 31,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria - three times as many as previously feared.

A spokesman said the new estimate was based on a review of intelligence reports from May to August.

IS has seized vast swathes of Iraq and beheaded several hostages in recent months, leading to US airstrikes.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is visiting Turkey, seeking more support for action against IS.

On Thursday, 10 Arab countries agreed to help the US attack the group in both Iraq and Syria.

The CIA had previously believed that IS had about 10,000 fighters, spokesman Ryan Trapani said.

"This new total reflects an increase in members because of stronger recruitment since June following battlefield successes and the declaration of a caliphate, greater battlefield activity, and additional intelligence", he added.

The revision comes a day after President Obama outlined a plan to "degrade and destroy" IS and to increase military support for allied forces engaged in fighting the group.

For the first time, he authorised airstrikes against the group in Syria.

In recent months IS has expanded from its stronghold in eastern Syria and seized control of more towns, cities, army bases and weaponry in Iraq.

The US has already carried out more than 150 air strikes against IS in Iraq. It has also sent hundreds of military advisers to assist Iraqi government and Kurdish forces, but has ruled out sending ground troops.

Other countries, including the UK, have contributed humanitarian assistance to Iraqis displaced by the group's advance.

Mr John Kerry secured the cooperation of several Arab countries during a meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Thursday.

Nato member Turkey, however, refused to sign a communiqué calling for countries to join the US in the fight against IS.

Analysts say this may be because the group currently holds 49 Turkish citizens, including diplomats.

Mr Kerry downplayed the move, saying the important US ally was dealing with some "sensitive issues".

He is due to travel to Turkey on Friday to try to secure more cooperation from the government.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29169914

[Anthea]

The Guardian

The sad legacy of 9/11: Isis and al-Qaida are stronger than ever
Ali Soufan

We haven’t been fighting a 13-year war. We’ve been fighting a new one-year war, 13 times. What now?



In the years leading up to the attacks of 11 September 2001, the west saw al-Qaida rising but didn’t address the threat in time. My colleagues and I in the FBI and over at the CIA had been focused on al-Qaida since the mid-1990s. The true threat, however, came from the ideology, not the group.

In the first years after 9/11, the west focused too much on Osama bin Laden and not enough on the bin Ladenism he spawned. We mistook killing the messenger for killing the message. The tactics were understandable – repeated targeted strikes at key individuals to keep al-Qaida off balance – but our strategy was based on just that: “our” understanding of “them”, rather than “their” understanding of “us”

Thirteen years later, al-Qaida central is an organization on the decline – there have been undeniable successes – but the so-called Islamic State (Isis) is on the rise. The arithmetic is tragic: Despite untold trillions of dollars and thousands of lives spent across the globe countering the threat, there are more extremists espousing the ideology of bin Laden in September 2014 than there were in September 2001.

Thirteen years later, it’s becoming clear that we have not fought a 13-year war so much as a one-year war, 13 times. It is the sad legacy of our tactic-driven response to 9/11 that bin Ladenism has spread far beyond Osama bin Laden’s wildest dreams.

The incredible success of Isis in both Syria and Iraq has more to do with the Syrian civil war and Iraq’s divisive politics than anything else, but the core ideology of the group is straight from the bin Laden playbook. Isis is al-Qaida’s greatest rival, but its message – and its unfortunate but undeniable appeal to a target audience of disaffected youth – is bin Ladinism on steroids. Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s rhetoric of liberation, of a return to some imagined glory from the past, is exactly the same as bin Laden’s propaganda almost 20 years ago.

What unites the two violent extremist groups – their embrace of terror through modern weapons and modern media, while rejecting true modernity – is greater than what divides them. Collectively, the ideology of Isis and al-Qaida enters the 14th year probably stronger than at any point since 9/11.

The same cannot be said for the international response to bin Ladenism. In the chaotic aftermath, ad hoc counterterrorism tactics reigned supreme; to a degree, they still do. Focus and morale have been strained as much as budgets and manpower. And the underlying issues – of education systems rooted in indoctrination and the suffocation of critical discourse, corruption so pervasive that it has become endemic, oppression of women that has robbed society of their contributions, and an absence of political representation that has served as the fuel of extremism – have been ignored by most governments across the near east, making it inevitable for any spark to cause a conflagration that would prove impossible to extinguish. The various revolutions of the Arab Spring succeeded in upending the old order but failed to deliver a credible alternative, leaving bin Ladenism to fill the void from Libya to Syria. All the while, sporadic counterterror campaigns kept the worst from happening while ensuring that little else would.

Instead of addressing the extremism, the series of one-year, tactic-driven wars has morphed into regional powers using religious extremism as little more than a tool against their rivals. These governments sought to use extremist groups as proxies in their battles for regional hegemony, or as a sectarian tool pitting Shia against Sunni and Sunni against Shia. Whether it was countering increased Iranian influence or its fierce regional proxies, the brute menace of the divisive prime minister Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq or the despotic rule of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, to tolerate and supporting violent extremist groups inevitably meant to tolerate Isis, al-Qaida affiliates and other like-minded groups.

The results have been catastrophic; now everyone is losing except for the extremists. It’s similar to what I saw when I was investigating al-Qaida following the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, when we knew the clouds were building but didn’t know where the storm would hit or just how hard. Arab regional governments – and even Iran – have belatedly seen their own storm clouds of extremism, but there is tremendous work required to undo what has been done.

President Obama has now outlined details of his strategy that calls for increased US military effort to knock down the immediate threat posed by Isis and extremism, along with a renewed international approach. But the real work starts where it should have in 2001, with true grassroots opposition – a true comprehensive strategy – that is managed by regional powers and supported by the international community. This will work if regional governments don’t co-opt Obama’s plan to advance their own divisive agendas.

There will indeed be a military role – words alone won’t defeat Isis and its heavy weaponry – but there can be no purely military solution, and it cannot be carried on by the West. When Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Turkey and, yes, even Iran, finally act as if the future stability of their region is at stake, only then will the tide turn. Only when the world – and specifically the region now plagued by bin Ladenism – is vested in the outcome will we prevent Isis from making bin Laden’s rhetoric more of a reality.

Even extreme people reject bin Ladenism – whether it flies under the banner of Isis, al-Qaida or some other militant group – but they need real alternatives. It is these strategic alternatives, more than any tactics, that will be what finally defeats Isis and all other groups that embrace the ideas we overlooked 13 long years ago.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... a-13-years

[Anthea]

Reuters

The Great Debate

Obama is picking his targets in Iraq and Syria while missing the point

“We are now living in what we might as well admit is the Age of Iraq,” New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks recently wrote. There, in the Land of the Two Rivers, he continued, the United States confronts the “core problem” of our era — “the interaction between failing secular governance and radical Islam.”

Brooks is wrong. For starters, he misconstrues the core problem — which is a global conflict pitting tradition against modernity.

Traditionalists, especially numerous in but not confined to the Islamic world, cling to the conviction that human existence should be God-centered human order. Proponents of modernity, taking their cues from secularized Western elites, strongly prefer an order that favors individual autonomy and marginalizes God. Not God first, but we first — our own aspirations, desires and ambitions. If there’s a core problem afflicting global politics today, that’s it.

This conflict did not originate in nor does it emanate from Iraq. So to say that we live in the Age of Iraq is the equivalent of saying we live in the Age of Taylor Swift or the Age of Google. The characterization serves chiefly to distract attention from more important matters.

To the limited extent that we do live in the Age of Iraq, it’s because successive U.S. presidents have fastened on that benighted country as a place to demonstrate the implacable onward march of modernity.

For the 20 years between 1991 and 2011 — the interval between Operation Desert Storm and the final withdrawal of U.S. forces after a lengthy occupation of Iraq — Washington policymakers, Republican and Democratic, relied on various forms of coercion to align Iraq with American expectations of how a country ought to run.

The effort failed abysmally.

Now here is Barack Obama, elected president in 2008 largely because he promised to end the Iraq war, back for another bite at the apple. A small bite — since Obama’s aversion to large-scale intervention on the ground will largely restrict the U. S. effort to aerial bombardment supplemented with a bit of advice and equipment.

Whether the president will make good his promise to “degrade and ultimately defeat” Islamic State militants will depend less on the accuracy of U.S. bombs and missiles than on the effectiveness and motivation of surrogate forces fighting on the ground. Identifying willing and able proxies is like to pose a challenge.

The Iraqi security forces, created by the United States at such great cost, have shown neither fight nor skill. Though the Kurdish peshmerga have a better reputation, their primary mission is to defend Kurdistan, not to purge Iraq as a whole of invaders. The Syrian army is otherwise occupied and politically toxic.

The countries that ought to care more than the United States simply because they are more immediately threatened by Islamic State fighters — Iran, Turkey, Egypt and even Saudi Arabia — have not demonstrated a commensurate willingness to act.

The best hope of success may lie in the possibility that Islamic State militants will overplay their hand — their vile and vicious tactics alienating erstwhile collaborators and allies, much as the behavior of al Qaeda in Iraq alienated Sunni warlords during the famous U. S. surge of 2007-2008.

This much is certain, however: Even if Obama cobbles together a plan to destroy the Islamic State, the problems bedeviling the Persian Gulf and the greater Middle East more broadly won’t be going away anytime soon.

Destroying what Obama calls the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant won’t create an effective and legitimate Iraqi state. It won’t restore the possibility of a democratic Egypt. It won’t dissuade Saudi Arabia from funding jihadists. It won’t pull Libya back from the brink of anarchy. It won’t end the Syrian civil war. It won’t bring peace and harmony to Somalia and Yemen. It won’t persuade the Taliban to lay down their arms in Afghanistan. It won’t end the perpetual crisis of Pakistan. It certainly won’t resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

All the military power in the world won’t solve those problems. Obama knows that. Yet he is allowing himself to be drawn back into the very war that he once correctly denounced as stupid and unnecessary — mostly because he and his advisers don’t know what else to do. Bombing has become his administration’s default option.

Rudderless and without a compass, the American ship of state continues to drift, guns blazing.

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2 ... the-point/