Palestinian Authority and Where Did the Euros, Dollars, and Pounds All Go?

 

The Arabs are blaming Israel and the occupation and colonial oppressive rule for their money woes. Initially their audit by Tariq Dana, a senior research fellow at Birzeit University, as reported in the Arab Palestinian Authority (APA) news service, Ma’an News Agency, reported that the APA suffers from deeply ingrained corruption. But perhaps the APA is not entirely to blame as after all the APA was birthed from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) which itself suffered from the very same deeply ingrained corruption. Of course it almost goes without saying that the PLO passed their tradition and systemic deeply ingrained corruption on into the very similar structure adopted in the whole flesh by the APA. According to the report, the APA corruption is, in effect, a self-enforcing system dependent upon the graft and deceit formed through what the report named, “patron-clientelism” which pretty much mimics what in the Western nations is called crony capitalism except that there is little to any capitalism in the APA ruled areas. The report claimed that all this ingrained corruption which will be near impossible to weed out as it is simply the way things get done, will get done and always have gotten done ever since during the management by the PLO used a system, “during the 1980s, the PLO leadership used the Sumud (steadfastness) Fund…which was formally channeled through the Palestinian-Jordanian joint committee…to award their supporters and exclude others.”

 

In the report Dana noted that, “After the Oslo Accords, the patron-client regime was unsurprisingly inherited by the (A)PA and constituted the backbone of its institutional base.” It was mentioned that the corruption was “associated with the personalized and unaccountable style of governance of late PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian political leadership.” Using the first audit of the APA back in 1997, because, after all, every organization waits for four years after their inception to submit to a formal audit as why find out what is wrong at the start when maybe it could be repaired, found nearly forty percent of the APA budget, equaling around three-hundred-twenty-six-million dollars, was misappropriated. Dana continued pointing out that there is a continued system of corruption which has been strengthened through a massive public sector of “over 165,000 civil servants who are fully dependent on salaries guaranteed by international aid to the (A)PA.” The report further pointed to another problem area spawning from, Dana explained, “The dysfunction of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and the complete absence of legislative monitoring of the governmental budget have freed the presidency and the executive from institutional checks-and-balances and public accountability.”

 

 

Yasser Arafat takes oath to be the greatest of all when it came to setting up a culture of deeply ingrained corruption as head of the PLO. When the PLO was granted authenticity as the (A)PA, Yasser Arafat brought that culture of deeply ingrained corruption with him. Upon the death of Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, his faithful second in command all these years, proved to be no slouch when it came to continuing the culture of deeply ingrained corruption. Now the world continues, especially the Europeans, contributing the billions of Euros, Dollars, and Pounds we can never ask as to where they all have gone. We know, but must never speak or the whole house of cards will fall and all will be wearing the blame.

 

 

The report went into an area which seemed unusual for an audit but proved interesting to read, at least more interesting than any of the numbers and other banalities. The report cited an explanation that the APA public sector may be massive and corrupt, but it also is very fickle for employees. It gave the following example, “If employees express criticism of (A)PA policies, they are likely to be forced into early retirement, denied salary payments, or arbitrarily removed from their posts. They may also face a series of punitive measures, including denial of promotion or transfer to distant areas.” Special mention went to the Ministry of Local Government which is an interesting way by which the APA uses money distributed to those recognizes mukhtars, tribe heads and heads of influential families allowing them to speak on behalf of those who they control thus extending further the propagation of the corrupt hierarchical system.

 

But the best part of the entire report are the conclusions as to who is to blame and from where this deeply ingrained corruption was imposed upon the APA and the PLO likely before them. Yes, you guessed it, Israel. The only way to explain this stretch is to quote the report as given in the article. According to the report the APA corruption “played into the hands of the Israeli government, whose intention in signing the Oslo accords was to create a client state that they could continue to control through the rents distributed to the (A)PA via international donors, coupled with a strategy of territorial fragmentation and containment.” Even worse, “Israel has repeatedly contributed to and exploited corruption in the (A)PA. It has done so in order to place the blame on the Palestinians for their economic ills and to distract attention from the devastating impact of its colonial policies on Palestinian social and economic development.” And further, even if the corruption was not any base for the economic problems, the report concludes, “Although corruption within the (A)PA is undoubtedly harmful economically, it is worth noting that its effects are a distant second to the impact of systemic Israeli destruction of the Palestinian economy.”

 

The conclusion that the systemic deeply ingrained corruption being caused by Israel must be caused by the Israel Electric Company (IEC) charging the APA for the electricity provided to the areas under their autonomy where the IEC provides electricity for the Palestinian electric provider. The only problem is that the electricity provider is government owned by the APA and they have fallen years behind in their payments. Actually, records show that the Arab Palestinian electric company has not paid for the electricity they have received for at least the past decade, if ever. Further, when the Israeli government has attempted to divert tax monies due the APA to cover their overdue electric bill the European Union and numerous European governments, NGOs and European financed Israeli NGOs go into apoplectic shock decrying the possible end of the world being upon the earth as the APA is being held to normal rules and forced to actually pay for the electricity they have already consumed. The IEC gave notice to the APA that if they made no effort to mitigate their outstanding balance then the IEC would be left with no alternative but to cut off the power provided by the Israeli company. You would have thought that the IEC had threatened to steal all their children’s toys or some other diabolical horrific act by the reactions from all quarters starting with the United Nations, United States State Department and the European Union among other NGOs and nations from every continent reacting with shock and amazement that the Israeli government would permit this private company from cutting power to a group who had not made any effort for over a decade to pay for the electricity they had consumed. The Israeli government instead of turning a deaf ear to the whiners from the world over instead threatened the IEC and then cajoled them and twisted their corporate arms pressing them to continue to provide electricity to the APA free of charge.

 

If anyone believes that the APA in Judea and Samaria are not meeting their obligations, they have nothing on Hamas and friends in Gaza. Israel provides Gaza with most of its potable water and over half of its electricity and receives no payments for these provisions. Additionally, Israel sends a full trainload of tractor trailer rigs with full loads across the border crossing every single day, even on the Sabbath and, believe it or not, even every day last summer including during the Operation Protective Edge. The Israelis continued to transport tons of food and medical supplies every day during the weeks of war with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other terrorist groups every single day despite the fighting. Israel also continued to provide electricity and water as if nothing was different and in complete disregard for the state of war. Why would Israel do something so completely counterintuitive? Oddly enough the reason you would receive from the Israeli government, the IDF or any official in the Israeli government would be that while the people of Gaza elected Hamas to be their government the people cannot be held responsible for that same government they elected and anyways, Israel is not at war with the people of Gaza, just the terrorist groups which conduct rocket attacks and other violent acts against Israelis. Does any of this make one iota of sense? Of course not. Why would the Israeli government do such a thing? Fear of what the world would think and that somebody in Europe, especially in Brussels at the headquarters of the European Union might throw a hissy fit and say mean and nasty things about Israel and that would hurt Bibi’s feelings and we know we must not hurt Bibi’s feelings or that of anybody in Europe, Judea, Samaria, Gaza or at the next meeting of the Arab League or the United Nations Human Rights Council. It sure is not to receive any credit for doing what is right and humane even when it works in direct contradiction to the good of Israel and her people.

 

What can we deduce from all of this? Well, first thing is if the APA has some systemic financial difficulties, it must not be ascribed to the APA as they are the ones who must never be held responsible. Well, if it cannot be the APA, who can we as the powers of the world blame? Well, the United States claims, “not us,” the European Union says, “don’t look at us,” while the United Nations disputes their complicity and the Arab League suggest, “Let’s blame Israel, they did it,” and the others all look knowingly at each other nodding and they all blame Israel. How can Israel fight the world powers, the world media, especially the mainstream media and leftist media and fight the combined power of every United Nations organization, the world’s majority of NGOs and a general sense of anti-Semitism which holds the Jewish Nation as the scapegoat for all the ills of the world? The fight is an uphill fight and it is about to take a particularly nasty turn when Israel goes from being blamed for any and all opposition to the current Iran Nuclear Deal reached between Iran and the P5+1 and soon after Iran turns nuclear then Israel will likely be blamed for not opposing Iran with sufficient stridency and for not taking the necessary steps to prevent Iran from acquiring the necessary tools and abilities to produce nuclear weapons. Then the world will look to Israel and demand what they plan to do about the Iranian nuclear weapons and then demand to know when Israel plans to act. The realty comes down to Israel is demanded to stand down and not act and then blamed when nothing was done. Israel is pushed to act to repair a grand mistake made by other nations and then condemned for acting. It is the old situation of, and we will use blasted for a better and more familiar term; blasted if they do and blasted if they don’t, can’t win for losing. Take it as you wish but the thing the world had best understand, Iran needs Israel as the monster behind the Iranian governments every unsolved problem, that position does not transfer as well to the United States or Europe, so Israel has an upside down insurance policy; in it is the safety which Iran can blame for all its ills while Iran has little use for the Great Satan when the little Satan will do and once the United States is rendered muted as the great Satan then Europe becomes the next Great Satan. Anyway, Israel is well practiced at taking the blame in stride and will depend on being blamed as everyone else tries to explain why they were targeted. Must be wonderful to be any of you.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Should ISIS Replace Hamas in Gaza; So What?

 

There has been a news story running around loose that ISIS is causing ripples of violence and is intending to replace Hamas as the governing body in Gaza. Should this actually come to pass, what difference it would make has not been explained in the stories I have seen and I am pretty sure I know why, the truth would be too revealing. The other reason this story has had the emphasis given it is so that the world will see such an event as something horrific and of causing a sea of change probably for the worse. This is true only if your name happens to be Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal of Hamas or Ramadan Shalah and Abd Al Aziz Awda of Islamic Jihad and potentially some of the other top echelon commanders such as Hamas Military Commander Muhammad Deif. The terrorist members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been complimented by the lead members of ISIS in Gaza as far back as last summer’s Operation Protective Edge though you would be hard pressed to find many, if any, news stories mentioning such, especially outside of Israel. Even within the Israeli media the subject was barely ever breached for reasons that escape me for their logic. The most news that mentioned Hamas and ISIS in the same breath was those quoting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and a few other Israeli politicians and top security officers in the IDF and Shin Bet who were making the point publically that there was really no discernible difference between Hamas and ISIS despite what the world media cared to report. The actual discernible difference should both Hamas and Islamic Jihad along with the remaining Fatah and Palestinian Authority individuals all be supplanted by ISIS would be that Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal of Hamas as well as Ramadan Shalah and Abd Al Aziz Awda of Islamic Jihad and perhaps some of the secondary commanders who were seen as not sufficiently bold in their efforts against Israel as that would be the level of the majority of the change. I am fairly sure that the topmost leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, al-Qaeda of Gaza and any other top commanders who have been getting excessively wealthy usurping funds off the top for personal gain, better known as greed, then you have something to fear as such activities are not pure and will deserve punishment by the leaders of ISIS. The top people with the most profit from their positions such as the billionaires of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal who are both worth many billions of dollars, will simply be spending a lot more time at their mansions in Qatar and as time passes less and less time anywhere near Gaza, Mashal has not visited Gaza except for that occasional photo-op just to validate his credentials and to raise morale amongst the troops. The main loss to these leaders is that the gravy train will stop running and they will just have to suffer a serious financial setback and need to spend very carefully such that they do not spend through their billions of dollars too quickly.

 

In Gaza the difference will be minimal until ISIS has attained what they consider a critical mass such that they have the troops and equipment in place and everything ready for their assault on Israel. They will tell their forces that the day when the Zionist entity will pay dearly and no longer be in possession of the stolen Muslim lands and their fellow Muslims who are pure in their practice and intentions will finally celebrate their victory over the much hated enemies of Allah. Needless to point out but if you happen to be an Arab, Muslim or not, resident in Israel and ISIS were to even temporarily for some few hours gain control of your area of residence then you would be best served to be elsewhere during that period as any Israel Arab, especially the Muslims, will be treated according to Quranic texts and their most violent and strictest of interpretations. This means that those who are followers of Islam will have to explain to deaf ears why they had not risen up and destroyed Israel from the inside and were instead living so peaceably with the Jews. After said testimony, which will be interpreted to be more of a confession of guilt, these Muslims will be declared apostate and appropriately murdered, most likely burned alive as has been the lot for the Shia captured by ISIS. The best off will be the Arab Christians who will be permitted to live after paying the Jiyza, the tax especially levied against Christians and other non-Muslims under which their Muslim leadership will protect them until the next payment comes due, but be warned that sooner rather than later you will either not have the funds to pay the Jiyza or will be given the final choice between adopting Islam or death, and conversion will not necessarily save you as your forced conversion may be determined not to have been spiritually uplifting and you would then meet the fate of an apostate, burned alive.

 

After Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the rest of the terrorist forces in Gaza would necessarily come under the control of ISIS the sea change would barely be more noticeable than a ripple added to the surf pounding the coast; simply put it would produce negligible change. The changes would mostly be cosmetic as while the production of rockets would be increased with the rockets being stored for intense use in support of the eventual ISIS assault to eliminate Israel and liberate the stolen lands which they as the next Caliphate should rule over all the lands that were ever under Islamic rule and that includes all of Israel. The reality would likely be very different as ISIS has a much larger and more important foe than Israel which has been under attack for some time using Gaza as a safe haven and supply depot. The other dirty little secret that the news media have not reported about is that ISIS presence in Gaza is mostly to operate as their liaison with Hamas who manage the supplies and provisions so as to have ISIS in the Sinai Peninsula provided with the appropriate weaponry and ammunition for their attacks on Egyptian forces as their intent is to be able to take possession of sufficient amounts, all or the vast majority, of the entirety of the Sinai Peninsula and have successfully pushed all Egyptian forces from the field of battle and be capable of announcing their great victory and spread into the Sinai Peninsula and declared it as a part of the Islamic State being founded by ISIS. Such an accomplishment would necessarily demand an Egyptian counter-offensive to retake control over the entirety of the Sinai Peninsula using solely Egyptian forces so as not to need Israeli assistance of any note as such would arm ISIS with a propaganda battering-ram with which to unseat President Sisi and the Egyptian government and replace such rule over all of Egypt claiming it for the Islamic State’s Caliphate, just another jewel in their turban and another loss for the Arab Muslims desiring peace under which they can continue their lives.

 

Once ISIS has managed to wrest the Sinai Peninsula from Egyptian control, then ISIS would turn their attention on capturing Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt and then annex the remainder of the country setting to purify the Egyptian population by testing the people on their levels of devotion and knowledge of the Quran and Muslim Law, the Sharia. Should ISIS have the capability of defeating the Egyptian military, not only would such a victory be impressive adding greatly to their reputation, it would serve as another reason proving they are in fact and deed the Caliphate they have declared themselves to be and thus would attract even larger numbers of disenfranchised youth from Western nations as well as across the Muslim world. Such a victory would make any plans to defeat ISIS close to impossible, especially utilizing solely the Iranian forces, even were there to be provided airstrikes as required in support of ground operations to defeat ISIS or seemingly to stop their incremental advances creeping across the landscape. Such a gain would also connect ISIS forces in Libya to the rest of ISIS as well as placing ISIS that much closer to uniting with Boko Haram in western Africa and based in Nigeria. Adding the weapons systems and fighter aircraft to the ISIS arsenals would also be augmented by providing safe zones in which ISIS could train their own pilots providing them with a force multiplier, air support and bombing targets in order to soften them for the ensuing ground assault, something carried out currently by suicide bombers. Such gains made by ISIS would pose a direct threat to the entirety of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and place increased fears in Europe, particularly the southern nations bordering the Mediterranean Sea. One might suspect that such gains and the accompanying threats would provide sufficient threats that the United States would act in a more forceful manner beyond limited airstrikes, but it is our conjecture that until, at the earliest, mid-January 2017 the world can pretty much rule out any increase in their commitment than to provide minimal air support of a few sorties on an active day. One reason that President Obama would not escalate the situation with ISIS would be due to any expansion westwards across northern Africa poses no imminent threat to Iran. In such a case, western movement would take the focus off Iran allowing them to better prepare for their inevitable conflict with ISIS for as long as ISIS exists, the Shia Muslims will not be safe anymore than Jews, Christians and others who do not bow to Allah.

 

The current efforts by ISIS are bringing more forces to bear in the Sinai Peninsula and it appears they will simply be cementing their gains in Iraq for the time being while continuing their efforts in Syria while striking in the Sinai in an effort to overwhelm the Egyptian forces currently holding the area. This is a natural fit for ISIS to open its next expansion as they already have a resupply base where they are able to keep supplies safely and a place they can hide away from the warfront retreating and enjoying relative peace in which to lick their wounds and plan for their next strike. The ISIS strategy is to strike hard with as many forces across as many fronts of the area of operations causing confusion and high casualty counts on their enemy attempting to overrun their checkpoints and other positions. This is the first time ISIS is fighting a national armed forces as until now they were fighting the remnants of a the Syrian Army and militias such as the Kurdish Peshmerga forces and the Sunni and Shia militias in Iraq and some of Iranian IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) forces which have continued to hold Baghdad and stymying further advances. This has forced ISIS to open a new front from which to make headway and continue to project their strong horse imagery and their invincible forces. Their raid this week assaulted multiple targets striking checkpoints and guard positions across the Sinai Peninsula. These strikes met with varying levels of defense but by the end of the day the Egyptian army had regrouped and pushed ISIS from all the positions they had taken earlier in the day. This was accomplished using assets wisely. The coordinated fight was conducted using forces including the Egyptian Air Force, armored units and those ground forces already deployed in the Sinai Peninsula. ISIS actually brought supplies out of Gaza prompting one Egyptian military leader to breach the subject of Gaza claiming that Egypt held the option of their forces going into Gaza and striking hard at any opposition units that may be; including Hamas, Islamic Jihad or other terror forces they find in Gaza. Initial results have shown that ISIS can push the Egyptian forces from their positions but they have thus far been unable to retain the grounds gained and are forced back into hiding. This may prove to be a war of attrition which would favor ISIS as they are gaining strength as the Western Powers, particularly the United States, appear reticent as they refuse to commit ground troops and actually fight against ISIS. Their anxiousness might be due to their having a plan for one great rout of the United States forces reminiscent of the Tet Offensive in Viet Nam. What that taught the leaders who have studied the History of the United States, particularly their innovative abilities to adapt to their situation and implement strategic options changing their tactics and adopting new and innovative tactics to fit that situation but that as long as the enemy can claim a victory and have produced large numbers of casualties that the media will reside with the isolationist reporting the offensive as have created a new and perilous situation where the forces fighting the United States are described as valiant while the United States military are cast as murderous and treacherous and any other derogatory terms and cast as losing the war or at best not winning. Once the American public has been bombarded with such news reports they demand the troops be brought home and from that point forward the United States has lost and their enemies need only keep up a modicum of effort as a constant reminder and to continue the nightly body count at the opening of every newscast. This was what defeated the United States in Viet Nan, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq once already and the one strength the terror forces have is they have nowhere to run to so they will fight to the last man, woman and child. That sort of determination takes an amount of steady and constant levels of ruthlessness in order to not only defeat them in every battle but to break their spirit and prove to them beyond any doubt that their cause is useless and, in this case, Allah does not favor them being deserving of victory and has handed victory to their sworn enemies. The only question is once the coming war begins, will the American people have the stamina and stomach for completing the fight or will they simply first surrender to the coming propaganda and then inevitably face the final surrender, surrendering to Allah and becoming Muslim and all that does entail.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Life, Iran, ISIS, Our Fates, and an Unknown Future

 

One need remember that Iran and Iraq went at each other for a period just short of eight years starting on September 22, 1980 and lasting until August 20, 1988 and was initiated by Saddam Hussein and was largely considered to have been a failure by Iraq as Iran stopped the initial surge dead in its tracks and slowly but inexorably backed the Iraqi troops back and they eventually returned to their initial borders. This was just a part of the history of animosities between Iraq and Iran and was seemingly inevitable that they would go after one another. The fact that it was Saddam Hussein who began the hostilities was not so surprising and he may have even been nudged in that direction by the United States who still harbored great animosity towards the Iranians for the hostage crisis which was yet to have concluded. The United States hostages were not released until after the November Presidential elections on the very hour that President Reagan was sworn in to office. One might be able to claim that the hostage release coinciding with the swearing in of Ronald Reagan might make their release his very first accomplishment as President as few would even think to claim they were released as a sign of respect and a parting gift for President Jimmy Carter. The fact that the war between the secular dictatorial forces of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and the Shiite Muslim Sharia Iranian State of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini fought to a virtual standstill exchanging the same patches of ground as the fates ebbed and flowed neither capable of delivering a decisive blow that might make the other reel and collapse before a superior force. This was, in many ways, a conflict where despite governments picking sides, some places such as Israel was simply glad that the war kept both nations occupied and facing some fire situation which left them so preoccupied that they had little time to think about harming Israel, something else where these two nations might have also competed to see which could injure Israel the most.

 

Two years, less a mere eighteen days, Iraq decided to invade another neighbor, this time Kuwait. Starting on August 2, 1990 it took a mere two days to August 4, 1990 for Saddam Hussein’s army to sweep across Kuwait. This not only caused Iran to worry that another attack might be in the cards from their nemesis, it also made Saudi Arabia extremely nervous about the possibility that Saddam Hussein might have them in his sights as his next victim. Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz called his good and close friend, President George Herbert Walker Bush and the wheels were put in motion to ride to the rescue. The United States formed a coalition which included a number of Arab and Muslim States which worked under United Nations approval and removed Saddam Hussein’s troops from Kuwait destroying a huge number of the Iraqi armored vehicles including numerous Russian supplied tanks and armored personnel carriers plus scores of trucks and other vehicles. The Iraqi troops caused an unmitigated ecological disaster by setting virtually, if not every, oil well in the Kuwaiti vast oil fields. It took months to extinguish and recap every well and then proceed to put them back into service. Things actually appeared to have settled down in the threats between nations, but that did not mean all was well in the Middle East. Acting on what was interpreted to be United States urgings the Iraqi Shiites in the south and the Kurds in the North made an attempt to dethrone Saddam Hussein expecting the United States to provide some level of assistance. Well, United States assistance was never considered being sent as they had refused to even chase the Iraqi troops back to Baghdad after chasing them from Kuwait. The closest the United States manpower came to Iran was protecting the Americans working in the Kuwaiti oil fields putting out well fires and recapping wells before returning them to service, a task that took several years.

 

After the 9/11 terror attacks on the twin Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon and another target foiled by the passengers of Flight 93 which they brought down at the cost of their own lives before it could reach its intended target which was believed to have been either the Capital building or the White House and the beginning of the war on terror with the invasions of Afghanistan to find Osama bin Laden and fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban, President George W. Bush requested further authorization to take military action against Saddam Hussein in order to prevent his further manufacture of chemical weapons and to terminate his reputed nuclear weapons program. The alleged nuclear weapons program had been backed by all evidence gathered by the British, the United States, France and the rest of Europe all indicated that Saddam Hussein an advanced nuclear weapons program which could have been completed except for the Israeli attack destroying the French built Osirak Reactor before it could be fueled and used to produce plutonium for a weapon. There is the common misconception that there was none of the precursors for a nuclear weapons program to be found in Iraq during the Second Gulf War. There was a large amount of Yellowcake, a form of raw uranium used for safe transport and storage and can be transformed into uranium hexafluoride which is what is fed into the centrifuges in order to enrich the uranium. Whereas these approximately five-hundred-fifty-tons of yellowcake, that is over one-million-pounds, were from the stores logged back in 1991 and was under the watchful eyes of the IAEA, that does not mean it was impossible for those stores to be utilized to jumpstart Saddam’s dream to attain nuclear weapons had he decided to demand that the IAEA inspectors leave Iraq and then gone full speed ahead in a mad dash towards making a weapon. North Korea has stores of yellowcake which under IAEA guards until it was not under IAEA guards. Granted it might have been difficult to get the yellowcake into production before the world arrived, as they arrived despite Saddam not touching those provisions as there were suspicions backed by faulty intelligence.

 

Now Saddam Hussein is long gone and Iran has all but annexed the southern third of Iraq, the Shiite controlled area that includes the capital city of Baghdad. The Kurdish has become an entity unto themselves and definitely has autonomy if not complete independence. The Iraqi government, which appears to be weak and feckless with Iran holding the real power but only in the southern third of the nation even partially cemented under their control, has thus far refused to provide any weapons or other provisions to reach either the Kurdish militias or the Sunni tribesmen thus leaving both to their own devices in fighting against such forces such as ISIS which has been marauding and murdering anybody who does not meet their high standards for Islamic purity. This fighting has mostly taken place in the Sunni central area of what has been Iraq and that has left the Sunni stuck between two murderous powers. The Shiite military from the south performs ethnic cleansing whenever they gain sufficient areas to conduct sweeps. It appears that the main people targeted are Sunni males of fighting age. When ISIS takes control of these same areas they too pick the same group and demand that they prove their devotion to Islam by joining the new Caliphate or else suffer the wrath of the true believers. They also threaten the families of these young and middle aged men most of whom just want to be left alone to tend to making a living and caring for their families. ISIS does not care if they are fathers raising a family with young children as they are true warriors for the faith and because their cause is pure, they themselves are pure as are their acts, thus their cause is righteous. This makes their courts just, their drafting of all able-bodied men of fighting age, willingly or not, righteous, their taking of supplies such as food, even if it deprives the people of proper means, is just and all they do and how they go about performing their actions are righteous. Their being holy warriors make anybody opposing their cause or placing themselves contrary to their demands acts of blasphemy. This is why they have been holding public executions and quick trials followed by swift execution of their judgement and the sentence. ISIS has been proving to be a force on the ground with which to contend. Should they ever manage to procure an air force of any size and with even the barest minimum of competence, then ISIS will have the potential to have become at the least an entity possessing the barest minimum for being a nation in the Middle East, at least as a replacement in some ways for Syria.

 

What will add significantly to the range and broaden the abilities of ISIS would be their gaining the backing of al-Qaeda, something they appear to have been doing piecemeal thus far as one former entity which had sworn their fealty to al-Qaeda are now switching and swearing fealty to ISIS such as Boko Haram. The recent threats made by ISIS may end up spelling their demise as they may be biting off more than they can chew. Their threats to replace the Arab Palestinian Authority actually make complete sense as they are two opposing sides of the forces against Israel. Where ISIS are Islamists who follow a strict interpretation of the Quran which defines their form of the Sharia, the Arab Palestinian Authority are secularist, socialist with a small semblance of democratic principles as long as such does not threaten those in the highest places. The Arab Palestinian Authority represent the most vile and far removed form of Islamic governance that one can find, they are oil and water, or more likely pure sodium and water. Hamas, on the other hand, has a very similar charter stand for the same world conquest and placing all of the world’s people under the banner of Sunni Islam by whatever means necessary. As Hamas and Islamic Jihad might have a better than average probability of joining ISIS as a whole entity and thus giving ISIS additional manpower which has already been tested in combat. The statement made by ISIS which could prove their taking on a nut they are unable to crack was their threat to also tackle Israel. The IDF would not need to hold back fighting ISIS as they habitually have been forced into doing with every possible entity watching their every move just waiting to pounce should Israel operate without the strictest of restraints almost requesting permission to return fire when her troops come under fire. The probability that ISIS will open up a new front within its current operating theater would be tactical suicide. Currently ISIS has three fronts, their borders with the Kurdish Peshmerga Militias who are well trained and disciplined holding the northern front in Iraq and the northeastern front in Syria, the Alawites are holed up with their backs against the Mediterranean Sea in the northwest rim of Syria, IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) and the remnants of the Iraqi Army in the south of Iraq and the entirety of their eastern front is the rest of the Iranian armed forces should they push in an eastern and there have been hints dropped this week that President Erdogan has made intonations that Turkey is considering moving down into Syria to scoop up as much of the lands as they are able and that would place another front for ISIS to face off against and of course ISIS has mentioned their desire to take control over the holy cities of Mecca and Medina which would involve a war with Saudi Arabia which would also bring the Egyptians into the fray. ISIS has one service they are providing the world at this stage, they are breaking apart the Iranian crescent by destroying Bashir al-Assad and breaking the direct link from Tehran through Baghdad on through Damascus and through to Beirut or Latakia, Baniyas, Sidon, Tartus, or Tyre and then out into the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. ISIS is a horrific and barbaric entity on the order of something like a Saddam Hussein who gassed thousands of his own countrymen. Saddam Hussein rivaled Hafez al-Assad, the man who had murdered more Syrian people than any enemy until his son, Bashir al-Assad, became what appears to be the last president who may have set the bar to such a height for percentage of one’s nation either murdered, rendered without shelter, made into refugees, fled the nation or been imprisoned or simply disappeared without a trace. For the sake of the Western World it would be to their advantage for ISIS to engage fully with Iran preventing them the peaceful times which would allow them to pursue their nuclear weapons program to its completion including the ICBM missiles which could easily reach anywhere on earth. Maybe it is the fate of ISIS to foil the plans and progresses of the Iranians as United States President evidently will not go so. So, once again we find that silver lining within one of our darkest of clouds. Still, how long will we live with a world where we have to rely on scoundrels to do the work of an elected charlatan?

 

Beyond the Cusp