Tag Archives: ISIS

Britain, Government, Iraq, Islamic State, Middle East, Military, Syria, United States

The intervention by the West in the Islamic State on humanitarian grounds is a right one…

ISLAMIC STATE

Intro: The West must do all it can to prevent the creation of an Islamist semi-state

The Islamic State has become a serious threat, and one that has to be confronted. Its outlook is based on foundations that are medieval, aims which include the destruction of all other faiths and the imposition of Sharia law. The establishment of a caliphate, under which Islamists are ruled, is an overarching objective.

The military successes of the Islamic State have been remarkable. Its campaign has spread across large swathes of Syria and Iraq like a plaque, threatening Baghdad as Iraq’s capital and pushing towards the Kurdish homeland in the north. This advance has caused chaos and anarchy and has driven thousands of religious minorities from their homes under the threat of ‘convert or die’.

The resultant effect is a humanitarian crisis in Iraq, a threat to the stability of a fragile Middle East and a challenge to Western security. Islamist hardliners speak of ‘humiliating’ the United States with a pledge of ‘raising the flag of Allah in the White House’. The ranks of this violent and barbaric army include around 3,000 who are said to hold European passports.

The immediate reason why the outside world has to intervene is to help those displaced people turned into refugees avoid the threat of execution. Many are trapped in the perilous and harsh geography of Iraq and will soon die if aid is not delivered. The worrying comments of General Sir Richard Dannatt, the former head of the British Army, that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 has helped to create the conditions for the rise of the Islamic State, suggest we also have a debt to pay.

There remains, too, a much wider task facing the West. Preventing the creation of an Islamist semi-state that both destabilises the nations around it and provides a safe haven for the plotting of terrorist attacks elsewhere is central to the US starting air strikes in Iraq and by halting the advance of the jihadis. Britain is providing logistical support.

This difficult operation has to strike a careful balance. Act too cautiously, and the West may fail to provide sufficient help to those in most need. Get too involved too quickly, and recent history will soon be repeated, with our military being sucked into an unwanted and protracted conflict which could potentially make the West an even greater target for terrorist outrages in the future.

President Barack Obama has indicated that he sees this military operation as being a ‘long-term project’. In military terms, the situation will have to be monitored very closely to decide whether what we are doing is working and, if not, what should be done instead. Mr Obama has said that Iraqis themselves must take a lead.

Where the West’s action should certainly be unstinting and unsparing is in the provision of humanitarian aid. The US and Britain will hopefully do their best to help bring urgently needed supplies – food, water and medical supplies. The Head of the Church of England, Archbishop Justin Welby, is right in his condemnation when he speaks of an ‘evil pattern around the world’ where religious minorities are persecuted for their faith.

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In response to the escalating situation in Iraq, three RAF Tornado fighter jets from RAF Marham in Norfolk have departed for the skies over Iraq. Their mission is to assist in the delivery of humanitarian aid to refugees who have fled in fear of the ISIS insurgents to the slopes of Mount Sinjar.

Technically, this is a humanitarian aid relief effort. No-one should be making the mistake of assuming this operation is in anyway routine. This isn’t an aid drop into a zone struck by a natural disaster, such as happens after an earthquake, but a relief effort that is dealing with the plight of retreating religious minorities. The military are dealing with a situation that is very much man-made.

The ISIS advance has demonstrated their brutality in the most sickening of ways. There are frequent reports of beheadings, crucifixions and the burying of people alive. Amongst those being targeted are the Yazidi, one of the most ancient Christian communities on Earth.

American air strikes against the militia of ISIS, and the UK aid operation that accompanies them, are aimed at saving thousands of lives that are in perilous danger.

Whilst the Islamic State is an organisation that is regarded by the West as the most deadly of destabilising forces in the region, we should also be clear that there are many who will see any US/UK involvement as a provocation. The RAF Tornados are fully armed, and have flown direct to a war zone.

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It will be curious for many Britons, that – given the political sensitivity of UK military involvement in the Middle East – a British deployment has happened without a debate having taken place in the House of Commons. Parliament may be in its summer recess, but military operations in a war zone are exactly the kind of circumstances that could justify a recall. The last time the Prime Minister thought he knew the will of Parliament on a sensitive matter in the Middle East (on support for the rebels in Syria) MPs swiftly disabused him of that notion. If air strikes had gone ahead against President Assad of Syria, the sworn enemy of ISIS, the jihadists could have now also been in control of Damascus. That embarrassing foreign policy reversal was perhaps the most damaging in modern British political history, and has certainly marked one of the lowest points in Mr Cameron’s premiership.

It is apt to point out that this is a tinderbox moment in Iraq, a country still a long way off from being a coherent and sustainable political entity. War zones are, by their very nature and definition, places where the unexpected happens. ‘Mission creep’ will always be an inherent risk.

The questions are real, and not subjective rhetoric. For example, what would happen if British warplanes came under attack? Would they be justified in returning fire? What exactly are the rules of engagement? Any military action – however limited – must have defined objectives, a time limit and a clear endgame.

This demonstrates why it is wise for our political leaders to ensure they have the full backing of the country, through its democratic representatives, before they make a commitment in a conflict situation. The Prime Minister has, so far, not sought that endorsement.

Air strikes against ISIS positions, humanitarian aid drops and even arming the Iraqi Kurds are all options that could be justified if Turkish anxieties can be assuaged. But, as recent history has shown, a full military intervention is bound to have unforeseen and potentially calamitous consequences.

It was ill-conceived foreign intervention that led to the situation we have today in Iraq. The West must avoid making it even worse.

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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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