Tag Archives: Iraq

Britain, Foreign Affairs, Government, Iraq, Islamic State, Politics, Uncategorized, United States

The bloody shambles in Iraq…

IRAQ

Amid the despicable violence and rising tide of horror stories emanating from Iraq, there seems to be little constructive thought emerging from Western politicians on how to solve the political and humanitarian issues that are directly confronting the country.

Politicians have become like panic-stricken rabbits caught in the headlights of an oncoming motor vehicle. What is more, they do not appear to know which way to go.

The one thing that they do know is that something must be done in curbing the barbaric savagery and advances of the Islamic State (IS). Developing a viable and effective strategy, however, against the brutal campaign of the IS has, so far, clearly been beyond their competence.

Many military commentators and strategists will strongly believe that military intervention must be instigated only as a matter of last resort. Many of them did oppose the invasion of Iraq in 2003, but the cold-blooded murder of an American photojournalist, James Foley, this week, along with the Islamic State’s continued genocidal attempts to extinguish religious minorities, will have made many to believe that there is now a powerful and practical moral case for intervening against the insurgents of IS.

What the world is witnessing is the terrible and awful consequences of the so-called Arab Spring, so naively celebrated by almost all Western leaders just a few months ago.

Many people who have watched and read news reports from this embattled and disintegrating region will be aghast and mortified as events have unfolded. Intervention must now be given a high political priority to protect the lives of Iraqis and to restrain the rising and rapacious tide of the Islamic State.

Some western interventions in the past have proved highly successful and were no-doubt of an enormous benefit to civilians caught up in war torn countries. For any intervention to succeed there must be clear direction from the politicians. Sadly, though, this is distinctly lacking within Iraq as the West’s leaders seem to stumbling over themselves as they try to configure exactly what they want to achieve.

Given our recent involvement in two bloody and costly wars in Afghanistan and Iraq we should have grave fears that western politicians do not have a clear idea of what form such military intervention should now take. For it is imperative that before we even consider sending so much as one British soldier back to Iraq, our government strategists must decide with absolute clarity and precision the objective of the mission.

They must commit sufficient resources to ensure the job is done with as little risk as is possible to the lives of those who are sent to a land that is fraught with danger. If our intervention is based on half-thought-through plans and weak intelligence, this risks not only further treasure being plundered in terms of financial resources and human lives expended but could embroil us in another almighty mess of a war.

Any ill-conceived plan would be both dangerous for our already depleted military and, in the longer term, precarious for Britain’s standing on the world stage.

Crucially, any cogent plan must involve our intelligence services providing the information on which highly-targeted and heavy air strikes can be launched. The success of these should mean that few boots will be required on the ground and that our involvement be over in a matter of months.

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As the situation deteriorates in Iraq, the country where the current unravelling of security across the Middle East started with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, we owe it to the Iraqis to halt the advance of extremists and then help to restore peace and order.

Furthermore, our credibility in the West depends on us doing something more than just launching pin-prick air strikes or dropping bags of rice to help the thousands of innocent people caught up in this appalling civil war.

We have faced similar problems before, most notably in Afghanistan in 2001 when the Americans, supported by the British, launched a highly successful campaign against the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist group that had ruled the country for five years.

At the time, the Taliban were as brutal and powerful as the Islamic State are today and they, too, wanted to drag the country back to 7th Century-style rule.

But, within just six weeks, the US-led invasion, which had the simple objective to eliminate the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, had been successfully completed.

The strategic key to this successful campaign was that much of the fighting on the ground was not done by Western forces but by Afghans themselves.

The U.S. and UK restricted their military involvement to providing intelligence, air power and Special Forces on the ground, who worked alongside local people.

Unfortunately, military success in toppling the Taliban was not followed up by any coherent plan, and President George W. Bush transferred his attention, along with most military and economic resources, away from Afghanistan to Iraq.

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Following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein we must learn from our failings.

In 2007, an insurgency by Sunni extremists threatened to overwhelm the country. Washington realised that the only way to prevent civil war was to gain the support of the country’s Sunni minority by making the Shia-run government include them in Iraq’s political process.

And so, with that bipartisan approach, the U.S. cleverly set about winning the support of the Sunni tribal leaders and helped to arm their militias.

Yet, today’s Western leaders seem unable to learn from that experience nor understand the basic principles that could lead to any kind of stability in Iraq. Unless the Sunnis feel involved in the political process, there will never be peace in the country.

With this in mind, the key to any solution now is for the West to offer military support to the Sunni tribal leaders, who, in return, must dissociate themselves wholesale from the Islamic State. This could well materialise as the majority of Sunnis have been alienated by the organisation’s fundamentalism and extreme brutality.

The fact is that the Islamic State, which is tactically exposed and lacks both sustainability and popular support, is no match for a combination of U.S. intelligence, close combat air support and Special Forces operating on the ground, who would work with local militias.

As we see, the present, albeit somewhat limited, U.S. military intervention is already demonstrating what can be done in the north of Iraq. Not only have the insurgents been halted in their advance towards the Kurdish capital of Irbil but the strategically important Mosul Dam and several villages have now been recaptured by the Kurdish Peshmerga with the help of U.S. air strikes.

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The question for strategists is whether Barack Obama and David Cameron can get their act together by setting clear objectives – and, most crucially promise the Iraqi people that they won’t be abandoned in the same way the Afghans were in 2001. If such objectives can be set then there is every chance that the terrorist organisation running amok in Iraq can be destroyed.

But, we should fear, the signs are not good.

It was, for example, extremely unwise of the prime minister to limit his military options by declaring that he will never have ‘boots on the ground’ in Iraq. By saying this, he was excluding the possible involvement of our own Special Forces, who have worked tirelessly and successfully with their U.S. counterparts in similar situations before.

Sadly, also, any combat air support provided by the RAF is likely to be only token, given the disastrous defence cuts that have so significantly reduced the number of combat squadrons.

In any case, military action by itself cannot solve the underlying problems of Iraq.

The election of a new prime minister probably does bode well for Iraq’s future than what it did under his predecessor, Nouri al-Maliki, who deeply divided the country.

Elsewhere, neighbouring countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan and Kuwait will universally support the return of the Sunnis to the political arena. They were never comfortable with the idea that the Shias should permanently rule Iraq.

Some of these countries may, indeed, have once backed the Islamic State in the hope that Iraq might one day be ruled by the Sunnis. But as events have shown they now don’t have any proper control of an organisation that has become savagely inhuman in its actions.

Ultimately, it will not be the extremist Islamic State which decides the future of Iraq. That will be for the Iraqi people themselves and for their neighbouring countries.

After the turbulent years following the negligent and wrong decision of George W. Bush and Tony Blair to invade their country, that’s the very least the Iraqis deserve from the two men’s successors in Washington and London.

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Economic, Financial Markets, Government, Politics, Society

The global economy and the threats it faces…

FLASHPOINTS AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

Never has the world been subject to a constant flux of shifting alliances as it is in modern times. The world is once again in turmoil, from Iraq to the West Bank and from the Ukraine to the South China Sea. The geographical stakes and risks are extraordinarily high leading some strategic thinkers to compare the global landscape to that which preceded the First World War a century ago.

When the International Monetary Fund (IMF) produced its April 2014 forecast of 3.6 per cent global output for the current year it added an important caveat. It warned that geopolitical factors, at the time mainly thought to be the turmoil in Ukraine, posed a potential threat to its projections.

There are, however, five major geopolitical flashpoints which currently pose a threat to economic stability:

  • The ISIS advance in Iraq

That a small ragtag of some 30,000 jihadists born out of Syria’s civil war could be a threat to Iraq, with its American trained forces and weaponry, would have seemed inconceivable just a few weeks ago.

But ISIS is well funded, as a result of wealth created from kidnappings on the Turkish border, secret donations from Sunni Gulf states and the seizure of bank deposits in Mozul. It is also battle hardened from Syria.

Its seizure of refineries in Northern Iraq threatens the country’s oil production of 3.4m barrels a day or 11 per cent of the world’s current supply.

Brent Crude has exceeded, once again, $113 a barrel. So far the valuable fields of Baghdad, including those operated by BP, remain in operation. But that cannot be guaranteed even with any form of US-led intervention.

  • Middle East peace process

The recent unification deal between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas led to deadlock with Israel over future negotiations. Then came the kidnapping of three Israel youths from a bus stop on the West Bank; murdered in haste after being wrongly identified as Israeli soldiers. Tit-for-tat followed which has ultimately led to high level tensions in the Middle East with the Government of Binyamin Netanyahu amassing 40,000 troops who appear ready for a land invasion and incursion into the Gaza Strip.

The risk now is of Israel escalating the current difficulties into a much wider conflict with the threat, for example, to Middle Eastern oil lanes and production.

  • Iran nuclear talks

The July 20 deadline set for Iran to relinquish its nuclear ambitions fast approaches.

Despite some rather conciliatory language from President Rouhani of Iran, intelligence suggests little ground has been given on vital issues such as reducing the numbers of centrifuges and ending experiments with intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The US tilt at diplomacy with Iran has been met with heavy resistance in Congress. President Obama has been finding it hard to persuade Capitol Hill to ease the financial and economic sanctions that brought Tehran to the bargaining table in Geneva.

Western oil and banking interests are champing at the bit for an end to sanctions that could re-open Iran as a lucrative market.

  • Ukraine-Russia

Flashpoints continue on the borderlands of Western Europe. President Putin shows no signs of backing down from his efforts to infiltrate and recolonize Russian speaking enclaves in Eastern Ukraine.

The so-called ‘Putin doctrine’ – the idea that Moscow is planning to retake areas of vital Russian interest reaching into the Baltics – is almost certainly a myth because that would mean directly confronting NATO.

But the threat to gas supplies following cut-offs to Ukraine is a clear and present danger that will become worse as time moves on.

The crisis already has led to a Russian pivot towards Asia in the shape of the Chinese natural gas deal in which London-based Glencore is involved in financing.

Creating a secure environment in Ukraine, in which Western assistance is co-ordinated by the IMF (where monies can be released), is proving extraordinarily difficult to enact.

  • South and West China Seas

Many strategic experts see this as the theatre for the next great strategic rivalry with China and the US – that has moved much of its navy into Pacific waters – eventually clashing.

At present the dispute is manifesting itself in proxy stand-offs between Japan and China and Vietnam and China.

There are overlapping claims to islands such as Senkaku in the Okinawa Sea that are claimed by both China and Japan.

Similarly, South Korea and Japan have clashed following large scale Korean naval operations in the region.

There are fears that a collision of war ships, an attempt to run blockades or guns fired in error could provoke an all-out war.

The tensions, serious as they are, could be unexpectedly good news for BAE Systems and other defence firms as surplus Asian nations rebuild their rundown defences.

Nevertheless, a conflict in the region – the locomotive of manufacturing output – could be devastating for Western economies.

General Western Outlook

The immediate highest risks for Western economic output come from an interruption of oil supplies in the Middle East and gas supplies from Russia via the Ukraine.

However, America’s increased oil and gas fracking activities together with new gas finds – such as those off the coast of Israel – make the world a little less vulnerable than it was after the Yom Kippur war in 1973 and the first Iraq war of 1990-91.

More serious long-term threats come from the China seas where a battle for hegemony, not dissimilar to that which caused two world wars, looks to be underway.

Globalisation has produced rich rewards in terms of fast economic development, industrialisation and prosperity.

But it has also brought with it profound new strategic concerns that could damage confidence and crush output at a time when the West is still recovering from the financial and Eurozone crisis.

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Government, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Society, United Nations, United States

Israeli/Palestinian conflict: A need for restraint…

MIDDLE EAST

Intro: It must surely be in the interests of both sides in this missile strewn battle not to let their actions spiral out of control

In the first three days of its air offensive against the Palestinian militant group Hamas – to which Islamic Jihad is affiliated – the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) struck more than 780 targets in Gaza, including leaders of the organisation, rocket-launchers and missiles which have been deliberately hidden and concealed among the territory’s civilian population.

In response, Hamas has been firing hundreds of its own rockets at Israel from shifting launch-sites in the Gaza Strip.

What makes this latest outbreak so terrifying in the endless tragedy of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is the extraordinary intensity of both the provocation from Hamas, and the response from Israel: Hamas for the first time in years has been directly targeting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. As a result, nearly three million people in these cities have been forced into bomb-shelters over recent days.

In the past week, Hamas rockets have also been fired at targets as far away as Hadera and Haifa in northern Israel, and at the heavily-protected Dimona plant where Israel’s nuclear weapons are made and assembled.

Hamas’s military wing, the Army of Al-Qassam, has only been able to display such ambition because it has recently added a formidable new weapon to its armoury of more than 11,000 missiles – a clutch of Syrian-made M-302 rockets with a range of 100 miles. Before now, the maximum range of their rockets had been in the region of 50 miles.

With this dramatic escalation in Hamas’s ability to strike deep into Israel, the IDF is poised for a ground invasion of Gaza.

It is no understatement to say that the inevitable bloodshed and carnage that would follow such a development could inflame tensions throughout the Middle East, especially if Hamas manages to incite a general Palestinian uprising or intifada.

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Given the horrific chaos that already exists in Syria and Iraq, it is little wonder that world leaders are deeply anxious and calling for restraint on both sides.

Ever since the Israeli state was created in 1948, and carved out of land that used to be Palestine, there has always been a sense of grievance among Palestinian Arabs, many of whom were dispossessed when Jewish settlers moved in.

Although 1.7 million Palestinian Arabs still live in Israel, huge numbers left their land and moved to Gaza – a strip of territory 25 miles long by seven miles at its widest – which is now home to 1.5 million people and one of the most densely populated areas on Earth.

Whatever the rights and wrongs – and there are wrongs on both sides – it is perhaps understandable that their descendants feel resentment towards Israelis who live on land they believe is rightfully theirs.

This resentment has resulted in continual attacks on Israel by Palestinians, and the latest cycle of violence started after Hamas kidnapped three Israeli schoolboys on June 12 in a bid to boost its popularity among Palestinians in the run-up to elections in less than six months time.

The militant group coldly murdered its teenage captives – possibly in panic after discovering they were not Israeli soldiers who could be used as bargaining chips to swap for released Hamas prisoners.

Even President Mahmoud Abbas, who governs the Palestinian Authority in coalition with Hamas, reluctantly condemned the atrocity – although cynics said this was to ensure continued US and EU financial aid.

But in swift retribution, Israeli vigilantes kidnapped a Palestinian teenager and killed him. He was almost certainly burnt alive, for it has been reported that soot was found in his throat and lungs.

The Israeli government of Binyamin Netanyahu condemned the vigilante killing in the strongest terms, saying those responsible for the crime would be met with the full weight of the law.

Nevertheless, the Israelis felt so violated by the callous murder of their own three teenagers, that Netanyahu had to act in response to his people’s demands that something had to be done to smash the Hamas terrorist network.

Yet, this was almost certainly what the ruthless strategists of Hamas had cynically intended. For incurring the wrath and anger of Israel is a vote-winning move for them – particularly since they now possess their new long-range missiles to hit back with. Indeed, as soon as Israel launched its revenge offensive, the Syrian made M-302 missiles were wheeled into action – even though Hamas does not have proper guidance systems. As a result, some of the rockets either ended up in the sea or exploded harmlessly in open countryside.

How many of these long-range missiles Hamas have in total is not clear, but it is likely to be in the low tens. Most likely they came from Iran.

A blog on the IDF website recently suggested a ship carrying them was intercepted by Israeli commandos in March in the Red Sea, off the African coast. It stated that the ‘Iranian weapons’ on board were ‘destined for Gaza terrorists’. The ship was due to drop them off in Sudan, from where they would be delivered overland to Gaza via Egypt.

The Israelis, too, have brought into action their own state-of-the-art weaponry – not least their extraordinarily effective US -financed Iron Dome defence system. This instantly detects any missile launch from Gaza, and computers in a command truck calculate the trajectory and target destination, enabling a Tamir interceptor missile to destroy the rocket high in the air.

The ingenuity of the Iron Dome is that it can work out if the missile is likely to hit a populated area, in which case it is demolished. If it is heading for the countryside or the sea, it is left to explode.

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In Hamas’s last massed rocket assault, in 2012, Iron Dome had an 84 per cent success rate against 426 incoming missiles. This partially explains why, despite missiles being fired by both sides, there have been no Israeli deaths so far, compared to more than 85 Palestinian fatalities.

While IDF warplanes and drones pound Hamas targets, Netanyahu has called up 40,000 reservists to signal to Hamas that he is serious about a ground incursion into Gaza.

Mr Netanyahu will be reluctant to send in his ground troops, however, because the civilian casualties will be considerable. He will not want to risk such action being broadcast across the world with howls of anti-Israeli sentiments flowing back.

Netanyahu has to tread a very fine line. While many of his people are desperate for revenge against Hamas, he will not want to wipe them out altogether. If he did so, he might open the way for another and more extreme terrorist group to take over. It is known that a branch of the brutal and elusive militant group ISIS – which is causing Iraq and Syria to run with blood, having declared its own caliphate in northern areas of the two countries – already has an outpost in Gaza.

Israel does not need a bloody campaign of attrition, with all the negative publicity that would give rise to.

It is particularly concerned about neighbouring Jordan, a volatile country where local support for ISIS is growing and which is having to combat the terrorist group on its border with Iraq.

For its part, Hamas is under pressure, too. Its paymasters and chief weapons suppliers, Iran and Syria, are preoccupied with other matters – not least ISIS.

And the advent of the new Egyptian quasi-military government of President Sisi, who is hostile to all Islamist organisations, has led to a shutdown of the underground tunnels that Hamas uses to move arms and goods into Gaza from neighbouring Egyptian Sinai.

Iran has now cut off the $14million it gives Hamas each month because of the organisation’s backing for the Sunni rebels in Syria.

It must surely be in the interests of both sides in this missile strewn battle not to let their actions spiral out of control.

 

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