... to be the most prominent rebel group in Syria over the course of 2013, coming to control large amounts of Syrian territory and growing dramatically in size and power; it was this year when the group began calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Baghdadi increasingly clashed with al-Qaeda’s leadership over tactics and aims, leading to a formal split between the two groups in early in 2014; just a few months later, ISIS would use its power base in Syria to launch a major invasion ...
... gained a lot in Ukraine by annexing Crimea; he has shown that if his interests are not considered in a final settlement in Syria that he is prepared to use military means to secure them; if Putin would just deescalate in Ukraine and start focusing on ISIS in Syria, there is a very real chance that both sanctions relief could be on the table and that a final peace deal that removes Assad would see Russian strategic and arms trade interests preserved. Yet if he continues down his current path, he risks destroying ...
... how to react to this horrific terrorist attack—one following on the verily likely terrorist downing of a Russian airliner in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula—it is important to take a breath. This could very well lead to massive escalation in Syria by France (and maybe Russia, in relation to the airliner attack) and maybe even by others if it turns out ISIS had something to do with it; Yemen could be a focus if the attack involves the al-Qaeda affiliate operating there. Whatever moves are made, it is important to keep a clear head and ask what the likely results are to be of any such escalation, whether ...
... Civil War, continuing through the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War, through the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and now through conflict in Yemen and Syria.
Recruits are coming from all over the world—even young girls from the West—to join ISIS in Syria (some 30,000 over the past few years, according to a recent major report). Some of the older people involved in this will have been veterans of the conflicts in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Iraq. All of those conflicts lasted about a decade; almost ...
... tamed could be a starting point for peace and a new future for the Syrian people. What is happening now is a starting point for nothing but death and destruction.
While the U.S. may be significantly and substantively stepping up the fight against ISIS in Syria, having now been directly striking ISIS targets inside Syria with a respectable-sized coalition of air power for some time (and reportedly maybe indirectly communicating with Assad’s regime about those strikes), and while talk of creating ...
... soldier and an ISIS fighter, prompting an immediate and severe reaction from Ankara, which bombed ISIS positions from both ground and air. This marks the first time that the Turkish army has been involved in a direct cross-border confrontation with ISIS in Syria. All this came in the midst of the July 23 decision of the Turkish authorities to allow the United States to use two of its military air bases, including the NATO Incirlik Air Base in the south of the country – the culmination of several months ...
... response from Team Obama has diminished the prestige of and respect for the office of the presidency, not to mention Obama himself.
*****
That’s it for Part I, in the next two parts: first the Obama Administration’s policies on the Syrian Civil War, then (overall) Arab Spring, ISIS, reducing America’s dependency on Mideast oil, and Iran (saving the more positive for last). If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content please do not hesitate to reach out to me! Please feel free to share and repost ...
... Arabia, Qatar, and other Gulf states comes back to haunt us: though Joe Biden recently got in trouble for saying so, support for ISIS and other Islamic extremists and terrorists from very wealthy individuals motivated by the Saudi state-sponsored and ever-present-throughout-the-Gulf ... ... situations like in Egypt, for many years one of the top recipients of U.S. foreign aid, Obama and Americans, as was/is the case in Syria and Iraq, seems to prefer a “don’t do stupid shit” (to quote the president) approach.
Obama has—correctly—realized ...
... to be made on Iraq confronting Obama: one for intervention, one against intervention, with the Administration considering both.
In the for column, the former al-Qaeda in Iraq/Mesopotamia groups calling themselves first the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/the Levant/al-Sham (ISIS or ISIL) and now just Islamic State (IS) might possibly have been the worst, most brutal, most powerful terrorist organization in the history of the world at that point. The group now controlled huge swaths of Syria and had taken over huge swaths ...
1. More cohesion in NATO?
According to the balance-of-threat assumption the lack of unambiguous threat decreases cohesion of military alliances, whereas the free-rider problem increases in inverse proportion. Even if one doesn't consider the geostrategical mischief of NATO eastward expansion there is nevertheless another problem. It seems to be clear that the Europeans reducing their military expenditures as well as Uncle Sam tired of his burden are not able and willing to pay for worries...
