ISIS/ISIL

[Chad]

Because the warmongers seem to get the most airtime and ink. Here is an article about a moderately different strategy.

http://m.vice.com/read/the-anti-war-con ... -state-909

Here is a really good podcast on, what on its face appears to be a ridiculous strategy, but might be good option.

http://www.dancarlin.com//disp.php/csar ... Iraq-Sunni

[Riggerjack]

This is what i love about Liberals. Having no clues about how things work, they are completely unrestrained in finding creative solutions.

This may sound unnecessarily critical, and it is. But take it for what it is. Conservatives, knowing what works, by way of observing what has worked, will not be coming up with any new ideas.

Honestly, what this area needs, is a lot more pistols, and far fewer westerners.

[Spartan_Warrior]

This is what i love about Liberals. Having no clues about how things work, they are completely unrestrained in finding creative solutions.

This may sound unnecessarily critical, and it is. But take it for what it is. Conservatives, knowing what works, by way of observing what has worked, will not be coming up with any new ideas.

Honestly, what this area needs, is a lot more pistols, and far fewer westerners.

More pistols and fewer westerners?

So like, providing weapons and support, but allowing the Arabs to supply their own ground troops?

As in, exactly the creative solution that the liberal who has no idea how things work proposed in the article?

[JohnnyH]

It took over a decade of occupations, bombings, torturing and meddling but we finally created what we were told Al Qaeda was in 2001.

[Chad]

It took over a decade of occupations, bombings, torturing and meddling but we finally created what we were told Al Qaeda was in 2001.

Sadly, true. Though, how dangerous they will ultimately be is still in question. Dangerous to the region, yes. Dangerous to the US? Maybe, but that remains to be seen.

[GandK]

I agree with Riggerjack. I don't think this situation calls for U.S. intervention. We stick our noses in way too many situations where our noses ought not be.

[Ego]

Strategy. Toward what goal? Is it possible that this was the goal all along? The fertile crescent is now the crescent of chaos.

Here's a quote from a reporter talking to a White House aide in 2002.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magaz ... .html?_r=0

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

That aide was Karl Rove.

It is tempting to study the apparent tactics and try to discern a grander strategy. It is tempting to assume that because we appear to be ruled by the election cycle that all of our goals are four-years or shorter.

The Boogie Man has been used for centuries to frighten children into submission. ISIS is a new and fabulously successful boogie man. Be afraid (and devote rapt attention) at your own expense.

[JohnnyH]

I agree with Ego. There must be cynical elements of the "intelligence" community that are thrilled actual terrorists have been fomented and they no longer need to goad unfortunates into creating headlines.

[Chad]

A "Kurdistan" should be our main focus. Though, not an overt focus.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2 ... /15360241/

Strategy. Toward what goal? Is it possible that this was the goal all along? The fertile crescent is now the crescent of chaos.

I think you are giving far too much credit to the decision makers, and I'm not just talking about the Bush administration. I don't think any of them think that far ahead and not just because of the 4 year election cycle.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

It's embarrassing this man had any power at all. Talk about not understanding anything.

[Ego]

In a world that has commoditized fear we must look skeptically at anything unnatural that creates it.

[jennypenny]

I wouldn't assume that the goals of the intelligence community reflect any particular administration. Most administrations don't wield enough power to influence strategic intelligence planning. I also think referring to the "intelligence community" as one entity with unified goals is not entirely correct. Those agencies compete for resources and their goals are often conflicting.

The overriding goal for any administration is to only enter into conflicts that they can win. As it stands now, the ISIS problem is a lose-lose situation, hence Obama's paralysis on the matter. Word is the administration is waiting for a trigger event before acting. If one doesn't happen by the election, there is speculation that they would then announce an escalation in force to distract the public from any executive action on amnesty.

[Chad]

In a world that has commoditized fear we must look skeptically at anything unnatural that creates it.

I agree completely. We should always be skeptical of calls for war. I don't agree that this chaos was the intent. The intent was to eventually get into Iran. ISIS/ISIL makes us allies. Uncomfortable ones, but still allies. The interesting part of this is they our the our (US) most natural ally in the region.

[Chad]

I wouldn't assume that the goals of the intelligence community reflect any particular administration. Most administrations don't wield enough power to influence strategic intelligence planning. I also think referring to the "intelligence community" as one entity with unified goals is not entirely correct. Those agencies compete for resources and their goals are often conflicting.

This is very true . DHS hasn't done much but place another layer of powerless bureaucracy over all the agencies that already existed.

[jennypenny]

I wouldn't assume that the goals of the intelligence community reflect any particular administration. Most administrations don't wield enough power to influence strategic intelligence planning. I also think referring to the "intelligence community" as one entity with unified goals is not entirely correct. Those agencies compete for resources and their goals are often conflicting.

This is very true . DHS hasn't done much but place another layer of powerless bureaucracy over all the agencies that already existed.

Ah, but DHS falls under the Executive Branch and, as a Cabinet-level agency, answers directly to the President. DHS is more easily tapped to support an administration's policies than other agencies. It is the Palace Guard as compared with the military and intelligence community.

[jacob]

I blame postmoderism which combined with idealism creates a potent form of unintentional stupidity (unintelligent decisions). Frankly, I think it's the deliberate habbit of delusion in order to fit perceptions to ideology that's creating all the problems the West has with the ME. That and short-term linear thinking. The optimism of presuming that all solutions are helpful probably hurts too.

Just like reality-philosophies wherein people believe that "you can have whatever you want as long as you visualize it hard enough" leads to personal failures in the long run---because objective reality just doesn't work that way, [Western] governments who operate on the same intellectual basis seem to move from one trainwreck to another.

I used to partake in armchair "discussions" with government idealists, but I gave up after delivering one too many "See, I told you so". Figuring this stuff out is rather easy if only people are willing to let go of what their ideology says should happen.

For example, lets start with the Iraq bungle. It's divided into Shias (majority) and Sunnis (minority). Saddam was Sunni and had a stranglehold on the country in that all the admins were Sunni too. When the US took over, all Sunni positions were replaced with Shias.

Iran happens to be Shia too.

Lets proceed to the Syria bungle. Initially, the US was interested in getting rid of Assad. As direct invasions were unpopular at the time, US+EU support was limited to training insurgents in how to establish control of the country once Assad had been defeated.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/m ... els-jordan

Whoops! Seemed like a good idea at the time, especially when the potentially unintended consequences were ignored.

In particular, killing Bin Laden caused Al Qaeda to exist without a unifying force. The particular trouble with the way AQ is presented in the Western mind is that of "an army with a command structure" that can be fought and defeated with convential army. However, it's more of an "idea". It's rather hard to defeat an idea. In particular fighting it only makes it stronger as it sets up the Muslim vs West t-shirt color system. The Abu Graib scandal with its own torture pics certainly didn't help.

At this point, we had a split AQ without leadership and a bunch of splintering while the West unintentionally is building the "idea". Furthermore, we had Maliki making life suck too much for the Sunni as part of the intra-tribal tensions---probably some historic "now it's our turn to take revenge"-thinking as well. The Sunnis would be the previous office holders and high military leaders. The previous organizational structure of country.

Now lets pull out the US troops because that's part of US domestic election promises. The US voters are simply tired of the mess and unfortunately their actions have world-wide repercussions. Lets see where the chips actually falls. Hint: They certainly didn't fall in the direction of a freedom-loving democracy. Too much historic baggage combined with external forces for a fragile newborn society resist.

We have all the major ingredients now
1) AQ without a unifying ledership.
2) Frustrated Sunnis with military training/experience and local knowledge.
3) A foothold in Syria.
4) Western training of Syrian rebels on how to set up a new country.
5) US ground troops leaving Iraq.

And bingo, a cascading set of consequences leads to ISIL/ISIS or IS as I think they're called now. It's also clear why they're so effective at what they do.

If this was a chess game, the West just lost their entire center square following several apparently unrelated but really dumb moves that took the pressure off the opponent.

In particular, the West now finds itself in the strange situation of having to ally themselves with Assad and/or Iran insofar they don't want pay the full cost of a unilateral invasion. Especially wrt Iran this is contridictory to long-standing policy, so... yeah.

Of course there's another solution, but we like "action" so "we must do something" even if "inaction" is probably the better solution at this point.

Ideological blindness is the only reason I can come up with for how people [in the government] whose job is supposed to be to see such things coming in fact did not see this coming and in several ways contributed to creating it.

Compare to the Ukranian situation where the Western strategy is actually working to gain control over a country/area that used to be under the Russian sphere of influence. That's working [Russia is losing] because Russia is a country with a command structure [this seems to be a 21st century weakness]. Not an idea. It also works the situation only has two players (binary choices) instead of three or more. While Russia says it can easily turn to India and China, it's not that easy. Finally Ukraine is easily parted. It has no unknown-players that can turn or turn-up if central/unifying control is lost. It's far more conventional. Also it's far closer to the linear/intellectual framework rather than the systems theoretic/5th generation issues of the ME.

[jacob]

Also

6) The strengthening of the Muslim vs West split (various human rights violations on either side all add to this. Meticulously avoiding the "crusade"-word is not enough. It's what people do. Not what they say that matters.).

It seems that the Western perception is that the sole problem is that Sunnis were frustrated by Maliki. So the proposed solution is to fix this with a new Iraqi leader (already done) and otherwise continue the strategies that created the other five conditions.

I would be surprised if this works out because it fails to take the systemic problem into account. As the saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

As jp mentioned, the West is in/has maneuvered itself/been manuevered into a lose-lose situation. The optimal solution to lose-lose games is not to play and contain the problem. Don't raise the stakes and make the game any bigger than it is. [The cold war was of course the ultimate lose-lose game.]

The fail-safe (as opposed to fail-not-safe) option would be prevent whatever genocides need prevention and get the tribes out and otherwise allow the formation of IS. Contain it like North Korea. Then wait about 20 years for the oil in the ME to run out. The main reason there's so much "interest" in this area is whose government gets to tax which oil companies get to drill or pipeline the oil underground. It's the exact same problem in Ukraine btw.

Basically the uneven geological distribution of oil created a scale-free network (think of how airlines are connected) of energy distribution that the West relies very strongly on. This means that in order to import more oil than it has access to by drilling domestic territory, it HAS to control the few hubs in other countries. These hubs tend to lie under areas that ARE NOT compatible with western ways of thinking and managing. That is the source of all the problems. My suggestion is to change the nature of the energy network to a random network (think of how the interstate/roads are connected). If this strategy is pursued, a random network can easily have a few connections cut away and survive just fine. The cut-off section goes off on its own. In this outcome the IS will likely turn out to look something like Afghanistan under the Taliban. It'll offend Western sensibilities but it will be externally "safe". The West might even trade oil just like they traded drugs with Afghanistan.

This [containment] will happen naturally if we wait until ME oil runs out. Or we could work actively to make oil less relevant.

The main issue here is that Russian, European, and US oil companies has a lot of money at stake here. And they influence governments. My point is that if western governments can get over the idea that their particular oil company sponsors should be the ones to drill and not those of the other guys, we can still have the energy... more or less. It would be a whole lot less costly than fighting over it. The problem is that the oil companies are not directly paying for the war effort. It's an external cost paid for by the rest of us.

[jennypenny]

The main issue here is that Russian, European, and US oil companies has a lot of money at stake here. And they influence governments.

They (oil companies and other corporations) also support intelligence efforts, which buys them influence there as well.

... which brings us back to the discussion of corporations being more effective, and subsequently influential, than nation-states.

[Tom Young]

The voices that created the Project for the New American Century are back... louder, less idealistic, more directly connected with the MIC.
An obvious new slant on "news" programs and a full court press to influence the voters who have no clue as to what their government is responsible for, and what the capabilities are... never mind having any understanding of what current actions will bring forth, and even worse considering history and the expected time of extraction.

[Riggerjack]

More pistols and fewer westerners?

So like, providing weapons and support, but allowing the Arabs to supply their own ground troops?

As in, exactly the creative solution that the liberal who has no idea how things work proposed in the article?

No. Just the opposite. In a modern military, pistols are for officers and tankers. Soldiers who are never supposed touse them. Pistols are better than clubs, but not much more serious.

Conversely, a civilian with a pistol is an armed citizen. He is much more capable of dealing with a civilian threat. An armed society is much less subject to the whims of tyrants. Whether that tyrant is a dictator, or a company commander.
Arming 10% or more of the civilian population, and leaving, would be the best move we could make.

[Riggerjack]

The formula for creating a democracy from the outside is simple.

Step 1. Kill or maim the majority of men between age 12 to 65.
Step 2. Choose the form of government to impose on the survivors.
Step 3. Leave an occupying force to enforce your will for years/decades.

This formula has worked every time. Japan, Germany, and Italy.

Skipping step 1 has failed every time, Cuba, Argentina, a variety of CIA fiascos in central America, Iraq , afganistan.

If your goal is peace, empower the citizenry. If your goal is just enough stability to lower the cost of resource extraction, then pick a local strongman, and pay him to keep the population under his
The Shaw, the Saudi and Kuwait royalty, Saddam Hussein have all had western support.

More of the same will get more of the same. So no, I don't think picking more local strongmen, giving them guns, tanks and artillery is a new approach, or a viable solution.