The Middle East Bereft the United States

When President Barack Obama entered the White House in January of 2009 the United States had already begun its reduction in forces in Iraq with aims of having a residual force remaining to assist in training the Iraqi forces and assisting with security if required and were starting to shift the nation’s and military’s attentions to Afghanistan. This presumably fit well with the new President’s announced intentions as President Obama stated that Iraq, being a war of opportunity, was being the wrong war and Afghanistan was the real war which required the full attention of the United States. The real intentions of President Obama became evident early on as while announcing his intentions to apply a tactic which had worked well in Iraq, a surge of troops to turn the tide of battle, he announced an actual date when the additional troops used for the surge would be redeployed outside Afghanistan. At some point President Obama began to hold secretive negotiations with the Taliban in the hope of arranging an agreement where the Taliban would share power in a future Afghanistan after the United States had pulled up stakes and gone home. Two things resulted from these negotiations; first the Taliban realized that if they simply bide their time the United States would depart and leave Afghanistan ripe for the plucking and second Afghanistan President Karzai eventually discovered President Obama’s perfidy and entered into negotiations of his own with the Taliban and great distrust grew between the United States and the Afghan leadership. This eventually led to the refusal of the Afghans to sign another continuing resolution allowing the United States forces to remain in country and instead made plans to continue forward in concert with the Taliban. Whether any agreements and arrangements between President Karzai and the Taliban will hold up or if the future will simply result in another civil war in the Middle East, this time between the Afghan military and their current leadership and the Taliban and their allies. Should the result of the United States forces departing result in an Afghan civil war, it will be yet another civil war directly resulting from the actions of the United States and their adventurism which has set the entire Middle East on fire from Syria to Yemen, Tunisia to the Sinai, Libya to Iraq and even the possibility of generating a nuclear arms race should the Iranians develop nuclear weapons spurring similar developments in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and who knows where else.

 

There have been additional ramifications of decisions made in foreign affairs under the current administration. Because of the perception that President Obama has less than forthright intentions to actually prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia has taken steps to find additional allies other than the United States suspecting that there may have been a dramatic shift in the foreign intentions of the United States some of which may be at the expense of Saudi Arabia. Due to President Obama’s outspoken support for the Muslim Brotherhood even to the extreme of demanding that the Egyptian military stand down and return elected Muslim Brotherhood supported President Morsi to power after the military removed him in a coup they claimed was necessitated by the will and massive displays of opposition demonstrated by the people of Egypt. The continued pressure from President Obama and his administration for returning power to the Muslim Brotherhood and the protestations over the use of force, mass arrests and trials and other tactics considered to be overt and anti-democratic by the Egyptian military has driven the Egyptians to seek other allies as they perceived an unreliable and antagonistic United States President and Administration. Then there has been the egregious and unremitting pressure President Obama has inflicted on Israel demanding they surrender on virtually every demand and go to great extents to placate any and all complaints raised by the Palestinians. This included President Obama personally making uniquely demanding and previously unexpressed demands of the Israelis including but not limited to their withdrawal to the pre Six Day War borders, initiate an open-ended building freeze throughout Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem and more recently continue to negotiate with the Palestinians despite their inclusion of the terrorist groups of Hamas and Islamic Jihad into their new unified governance. Israel has remained just as trustworthy and steadfast ally of the United States with the Israeli government providing assurances and justifications for their continued trust and attempts to continue their friendly relations with the United States. Still, the Israelis have also signed scientific research agreements with the Europeans, expanded trade relations and opened additional areas of trade with both China and India and sent out feelers to initiate more open relations with Russia. All of these changes, shifts, recriminations and manifestations of a changing United States Middle East foreign policy, the big questions are numerous with two of the top queries being who will prove preeminent in the new Middle East in the future and where will the future players be from outside replacing the United States as the mediator and enforcer in the future Middle East?

 

Israel is still one of, if not the most, powerful nations with the best armed and trained military within the Middle East and North Africa but this may be challenged much sooner than many might believe. Currently Egypt is still receiving military hardware from the United States though many of the equipment is either sent after some period of delay or are being placed on hold in an attempt to influence Egyptian politics and the struggle for power which continues between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian military as well as the problems with terrorist attacks plaguing Egypt coming from within the Sinai Peninsula but still striking within central Egypt and have even assassinated some Egyptian government officials, members of the leadership and leading figures and others from within the Egyptian judicial and law enforcement system. In addition to any aid received from the United States, with aid monies provided by Saudi Arabia, Egypt has begun to supplement their military hardware with Russian equipment and President Putin has stated that he intends to equip the Egyptian military with weaponry and systems equal or superior to those possessed by Israel. Additionally, the Russians have made similar statements concerning arming Saudi Arabia. This is all part of a Russian plan to replace the retreating United States and become the predominant external power in the Middle East. Then there is the potential for additional Chinese presence should they expand their trade and other relations with Iran which are in addition to the relations and cooperation between Iran and Russia in the areas of trade, nuclear generated power, military equipment and technology, nuclear research in medicine and other areas, and other general areas of trade, finance, petroleum industries and on and on. These are the current potential trends should the retreat of the United States continue into the future even beyond this last term of President Obama. Of course some of these developments will be highly contingent on who takes up residence in the White House come January 2017.

 

Then there is the question of the striations of power within the Middle East and North Africa. Should Iran become a nuclear armed nation, this will have extreme ramifications throughout the entirety of the Middle East and North Africa, and North Africa must be included in these determinations due to the numerous predominantly Muslim nations found there. Already the intentions to also seek nuclear weapons capability should Iran become a nuclear power have been announced by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt. One can only postulate who else might pursue nuclear weapons capabilities once the nuclear jinni is released from the bottle. Once Iran develops nuclear weaponry there is a high probability that Syria would also receive the necessary tools, knowledge and likely access to equipment and even nuclear material for their own nuclear weapons program. The real fear would be nuclear weapons in the hands of Lebanon which would place such weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Hezballah, one of the most capable and widely spread terrorist organizations in the world with bases within Europe, South America, Central America, and suspected assets already within the United States. The possibility that terrorists beyond Hezballah such as some of the numerous al-Qaeda groups which now can be found in Yemen, Syria, Libya, Mali, Nigeria and elsewhere along with other terrorist groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, the PLO and the pirates and others in places such as Somalia, Eritrea, and others throughout the Islamic world and beyond, then the likelihood of a nuclear attack anywhere in the world would become not only possible but probable since a nuclear armed terrorist group would not have the facilities to store and provide the necessary upkeep required by a nuclear weapon. These limitations would make any nuclear device they possessed to possess a limited life span before it would become inoperative thus necessitating its use before it became inert. This means that a nuclear armed terrorist group would almost guarantee a nuclear attack within a short period of their receiving such a weapon and most likely such an attack would take place relatively close to the point of receipt. This would actually make the highest risk areas for the use of a terrorist nuclear weapon to be within the Islamic sphere of influence or some neighboring nation such as India, Israel, Russia, China, Eastern Europe or South East Asia. This does not mean that other targets would be out of the question as it is already known that there is some cooperation between the drug cartels and the terrorist groups especially in areas where the cartels have significant roots and power as well as anywhere that the Cartels have established smuggling routes into nations of interest to the terrorist organizations which definitely includes the drug cartels in Mexico and their smuggling routes into the United States. This means that there is some calculable risk of use for a terrorist nuclear device virtually, if not everywhere on planet Earth. Nowhere is truly beyond their reach and thus can afford to be complacent regarding terrorists coming into possession of a nuclear device. All of these threats and dangers must be taken into consideration in the future should Iran become a nuclear armed nation. Since North Korea and Iran share much information and research into such areas as nuclear technologies and rocket and missile technologies, the worst possible scenario may already be reality as North Korea is presumed to have at the least a primitive nuclear weapon and the probability that it is so rudimentary as to make it undeliverable should not make anybody complacent or comfortable with this fact. The termination of stewardship provided by the United States which has been the stabilizing influence in the ever turbulent Middle East and North Africa coming to an end should send shivers up the spine of any conscious and intelligent member of the human race and this is the future which may arrive before we are prepared or even have considered all of the ramifications. If this prospect makes you feel some degree of trepidation and cause a growing anxiety, then congratulations, you are a reasoning, intelligent and potentially insightful person and a likely contributing member of the human race. Thank you for your contribution to the general consciousness of our little pebble swimming in this corner of the vast cosmos. May we continue long enough to explore the far beyond of that cosmos.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Obama Initiates Countdown to Horrific Afghanistan Civil War

President Obama stated in his recent State of the Union Address, “When I took office, nearly 180,000 Americans were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, all our troops are out of Iraq. More than sixty-thousands of our troops have already come home from Afghanistan. With Afghan forces now in the lead for their own security, our troops have moved to a support role. Together with our allies, we will complete our mission there by the end of this year, and America’s longest war will finally be over.” The statement ignores the reality that though the participation of American and allied troops will have ended, the war in Iraq continues to escalate and the war in Afghanistan is heating up simply waiting for the Americans to completely depart from operations to begin a full blown civil war to decide who will take control in Afghanistan. Taking the open civil war engulfing Iraq first, one needs to realize that the Sunni center of the nation has fallen to al-Qaeda with their central power being in the Anbar Province and Fallujah, some of the names that represent some of the hardest won victories for the American troops during the Iraq War. The fact that all of the gains won by the sacrifice and dedication of the United States military troops and with the equally praiseworthy sacrifice given by their families have been squandered needlessly and without a second thought by the Administration of President Obama is enough to make any patriot ill. The truth behind this story is indicative of the entirety of President Obama’s lack of concern or attention of all things foreign policy.

 

The only requirement that fell at President Obama’s feet was to negotiate a continuance for a reserve force to remain in what is referred to as a Status of Forces Agreement. With such an agreement there would have been a contingency of American forces remaining in country with one mission, to assure that the hard won victories and the hard work putting Iraq on the road to becoming a functioning democratically based nation where the differences between people and groups are worked out peaceably through debate and political measures. Instead, without any American presence, the Iraqis returned to their historic measures of solving differences, the use of force and violence. The Shiites took control of the government after arresting or chasing off the Sunni members in the government which ignited the beginning of a civil war and the return of al-Qaeda to Iraq. The violence has been steadily building and Iraq threatens to become simply another front in the Shiite-Sunni civil war in neighboring Syria. The two sides will be backed by the same outside forces with Iran and the IRGC allied with the Shiites and al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood in support of the Sunnis. This is exactly the same situation faced by the Iraqi people under Saddam Hussein with the tables turned with the Shiites now in control of the government suppressing the Sunni minority which were the oppressive government under Saddam Hussein victimizing the non-Sunni population.

 

There is one gain, one victory, made by the investment made with the blood, sweat and tears of the American efforts in Iraq which owes nothing to President Obama. This victory is in the northern providences of Iraq. These areas are under Kurdish autonomous rule who also formed their own military and took control of their own destiny. The Kurds probably faced the worst under Saddam Hussein and took responsibility for their own security and only participated in the government in a spirit of Iraqi unity. Now that the government no longer honors that unity, the Kurds have simply closed their southern border with the rest of the nation and created a virtual Kurdistan though they have yet to attempt to establish an independent nation. The world should now fulfill a promise made to the Kurdish people after the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I and allow the establishment of Kurdistan. The British reneged on their promise to the Kurds in order to incorporate the northern oil fields in a greater Iraq in order to obtain the rights for Getty Oil. The time has come to correct that wrong and finally make good on the promise to an ancient people and give them back their homeland and their culture.

 

In Afghanistan the story parallels Iraq as Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai is currently refusing to sign a Status of Forces Agreement demanding that President Obama take whatever steps are required to assure his reelection as President before signing the agreement. This difficulty has come to be simply because President Karzai does not fear or respect United States President Obama. The loss of trust between the two men began when President Obama began to conduct negotiations with the Taliban attempting to arrange some sharing of power agreement behind President Karzai’s back. This resulted in President Karzai returning the favor and conducting his own secretive negotiations with the Taliban. Meanwhile, the Taliban figured out that there was trouble in Afghanistan’s future and that would enable them to return to power if they simply out waited the United States and swept in once the last American troops had gone home. So the Taliban broke off negotiations with the United States and strung along President Karzai and are apparently biding their time before turning Afghanistan into the next Iraq or Syria. There have already been signs of increasing violence in Afghanistan and it will likely only grow worse with time. Afghanistan has been a nation of often warring tribes since before Alexander the Great rode in and forced a peace by marrying off the daughters of a number of his generals to the many tribes and then forcing them to keep the others under control. This was Alexander’s attempt to untie the Gordian Knott, by cleaving it in half with a sword, not exactly tactful. Afghanistan can be expected to return to tumultuous violence soon after the last American and allied troop departs and there does not appear to be much that President Obama is going to do to alter the situation. As the Americans continue to return home, or be sent to Africa as some Afghanistan veterans have been diverted, the clock will slowly tick towards a civil war in Afghanistan.

 

Meanwhile, it appears that the slow and inexorable buildup will be starting across Africa with United States forces being deployed to Mali and thirty-four other African nations to train and prepare the indigenous military forces who are possibly facing potential violence. Gen. David Rodriguez, the head of U.S. Army Forces Command told the AP “If they want them for (military) operations, the brigade is our first sourcing solution because they’re prepared. But that has to go back to the secretary of defense to get an execute order.” Other troops will be heading to Libya, Sudan, Algeria, Kenya and Niger in order to prepare for advances from al-Qaeda linked forces. Additionally and ominously, American forces will be returning to Somalia, reportedly, in order to stand up to al-Shabab terrorist militants. Perhaps President Obama is on the leading edge of placing American troops in another conflict, this time across most of Africa enveloping much of the continent and not simply a nation or two as President George W. Bush accomplished. I wonder when these troop assignments will enter the regular news cycle or will the American public wake up one morning to reports of a conflict with across the African continent with total American involvement in over thirty nations. All this from the President who declared al-Qaeda on the run, finished as a force needing to be contained and the war on terror won and completed. Somebody may need to tell the Defense Department that the War on Terror is over so they can stop fighting it, or tell the American people the truth for once, pick one.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Israel Must Refuse to Even Accept Interim Deal

Following the smashing success in failing in more ways than one cares to list in implementation of interim six month Iran nuclear deal President Obama and Secretary of State threaten to seek interim deal between Israel and the Palestinians. Israeli leadership needs to get out in front of this idea and squash it completely before it is allowed to draw its first breath. This is not a serious peace plan but is a way of claiming to have accomplished peace without having actually accomplished a single iota. The Palestinians have already latched on to this idea and claimed they are willing and anxious to reach an interim deal provided it includes solutions acceptable to them on all the final issue items including all their demands regarding borders, land swaps, security arrangements, Jerusalem, and “refugees” are met. Once again their demands include but are not limited to Israel surrendering all of the disputed territories with minimal land swaps; East Jerusalem surrendered and recognized as the Capital city of the Palestinian state; security arrangements including Palestinian having full military rights, unlimited import rights including heavy weaponry, no Israeli presence anywhere within the disputed areas especially the Jordan River Valley, right to form alliances with other states and hold military drills in their newly formed states, complete and total rights to airspace over new state disallowing any form of overflight by Israeli origin aircraft which effectively closes Ben Gurion airport, and other items which I feel assured will become evident if this insanity is allowed to proceed; and of course the “Right of Return” for five million plus refugees to within Green Line Israel making Israel the next Arab Muslim State at the first elections.

 

One might ask why the United States would be seeking an interim deal in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. President Obama is facing probably the greatest personal challenge of his Presidency with the troubled rollout and continuing problems implementing the Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare. This has his total attention and is foremost in his list of priorities and the Iranian Nuclear Negotiations and the Palestinian-Israeli Peace Talks are an unwelcomed distraction from the really important items which are of paramount importance to President Obama. He needs to clear his schedule in order to put all his efforts behind getting Obamacare in place, passing a new Immigration Legislation passed replete with amnesty for twenty million illegal immigrants currently in the United States, and if President Obama’s wildest dreams are realized, the passage of Cap and Trade to completely overhaul the energy market in the United States which would make coal an unaffordable commodity from which to generate power. With such a full plate it is no wonder the President Obama is seeking ways to get out from under any pressures emanating from the foreign policy front.

 

But why should Israel simply refuse to even permit discussion of such an interim agreement right up front thus cutting the idea off before it even gets a fair hearing. The reason is that the whole idea of an interim deal is to get a framework in place using the idea that the deal is only a temporary situation whose individual terms were not chiseled in stone and were capable of being altered before any final agreement is reached. This would allow greater pressure to be brought to bear on Israeli leadership claiming that just agreeing to allow certain items to be included in the interim deal would not result in any guarantee that they would remain in the final agreement. Of course once any of the Palestinian demands for Israel to make suicidal concessions were agreed to in any form they would become chiseled in stone and as permanent as the sun rising and setting. This would be an interim step in the route to completely forsaking Israel and leaving her vulnerable and all but guaranteeing the next offensive to try and drive the Jews into the sea. President Obama has basically signed on to the destruction of Israel in stages, the intention first presented as the Palestinian tactic to the complete and full restoration of Palestine in place of Israel through stages where as much as can be gained through negotiations is step one and terrorist attacks weakening Israel is finally followed by a multi-state war against Israel in order to annihilate the Jewish state. This would also serve the Obama Administration’s apparent desire to force Israel into an agreement as once this interim agreement has been signed and ratified all that would remain is to wait out the period stated for negotiating a final agreement and then simply forcing the interim agreement to become the final agreement and such would be completed with or without Israeli agreement as the United Nations, European Union and virtually the rest of the world would back the idea.

 

Israel needs to take on the current United States Administration policies head-on and relegate the entire process now being used in order to push Israel into a corner and then shoving Israel into some interim deal which would eventually result in an attempt to completely destroy Israel which, of course, would require the final step, shooting. All one need do is draw conclusions from President Obama’s track record on the foreign policy front. He has systematically, from day one, set out and undercut the United States alliances and destroy any standing the United States had in the world. President Obama has, by design, neutered the United States influence on every front in the world. His first actions to this end was the complete lack of support or even comment backing the Iranian Green Movement during the short-lived uprising in 2009 after a transparently obviously rigged election. This reneged on the standing of the United States as the protector of freedom and open and honest elections. Such perfidy continued including the debacle over the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war continuing on to include inaction over the Ukraine blackmail by Russian President Putin’s open threats in order to prevent an agreement with the European Union over opening trade relations. Considering the fact that President Obama has sought to even negate all of the gains possibly resultant from the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan over the first decade of the new millennium by successfully botching the negotiations for a continued American presence in Iraq which has resulted in returned violence along Sunni-Shiite lines and the return of al-Qaeda to Iraq and actually negotiating and agreeing to allow the Taliban to share in the future governance in Afghanistan which has resulted in Afghan President Karzai negotiating with Iran seeking protection under their wing, selling Israel down the road and granting the Palestinian their wildest desires would simply be the cherry atop President Obama’s foreign policy debacle banana split.

 

Beyond the Cusp