Neocon Krauthammer lays out the balkanization plan as if it's all inevitable. Just a natural progression of things. Happenstance. Rather then the reality that this balkanization was planned. That he and his ilk did everything possible to make this happen.Ordinary people have no interest in war- Much "encouragement" is needed to get them to participate. The Neocon cabal certainly incentivized this balkanziationDigression: Isn’t it interesting to contemplate the linkages between NeoCons &multiple global destabilization campaigns carried out via proxies in multiple locales?Hmmmmm.... what is the common factor?Neo Cons & Neo Nazis (Ukraine)Neo Cons & Islamists (Syria, Iraq, Libya, Chechnya etc.,)Neo Cons and Kurds (Iraq, Syria , Turkey soon Iran)A New Strategy for Iraq and Syria ????
It’s time to rethink Iraq and Syria. It begins by admitting that the old borders are gone, that a unified Syria or Iraq will never be reconstituted, that the Sykes-Picot map is defunct.We may not want to enunciate that policy officially. After all, it does contradict the principle that colonial borders be maintained no matter how insanely drawn, the alternative being almost universally worse. Nonetheless, in Mesopotamia, balkanization is the only way to go. Because it has already happened and will not be reversed. (How did that happen? CK doesn't get into the details) In Iraq, for example, we are reaping one disaster after another by pretending that the Baghdad government — deeply sectarian, divisive and beholden to Iran — should be the center of our policy and the conduit for all military aid.
Look at Fallujah, Mosul, Ramadi. The Iraqi army is a farce. It sees the enemy and flees, leaving its weapons behind. (No mention of the Iraqi army being infilitrated with lackies) “The ISF was not driven out of Ramadi. They drove out of Ramadi,” said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Our own secretary of defense admitted that “the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight.” (Why would that be? The reason has been mentioned here, certainly. CK wants you to believe this is all just organic)We can train them forever. The problem is one of will. They don’t want to fight. And why should they? They are led by commanders who are corrupt, sectarian and incompetent.
What to do? Redirect our efforts to friendly forces deeply committed to the fight, beginning with the Kurds, who have the will, the skill and have demonstrated considerable success. (Neo Cons love Kurds) This year alone, they have taken back more than 500 Christian and Kurdish towns from the Islamic State. (They have taken back Christian towns and kept them for themselves- No mention of Kurdish ethnic cleansing) Unlike the Iraqi army, however, they are starved for weapons because, absurdly, we send them through Baghdad, which sends along only a trickle.
The Kurds aren't starved of weapons and CK would be aware of that! That's a LIE.
This week, more Kurdish success. With U.S. air support, Syrian Kurds captured the strategic town of Tal Abyad from the Islamic State. Which is important for two reasons. Tal Abyad controls the road connecting the terror group’s capital of Raqqa to Turkey, from which it receives fighters, weapons and supplies. Tal Abyad is “a lung through which [the Islamic State] breathed and connected to the outside world,” said Kurdish commander Haqi Kobane.Moreover, Tal Abyad helps link isolated Kurdish areas in the Syrian north into a contiguous territory, like Iraqi Kurdistan. Which suggests that this territory could function as precisely the kind of long-advocated Syrian “safe zone” from which to operate against both the Islamic State and the Bashar al-Assad regime.
It's been obvious for some time this was the plan- The Kurds colluding with NATO powers to create a province of Kurdistan (for now) a no fly zone to attack Syria and Turkey.
More good news comes from another battle line. Last week, the Free Syrian Army’s Southern Front, backed by and trained in Jordan, drove the Syrian government out of its last major base in eastern Daraa province, less than 60 miles from Damascus.These successes suggest a new U.S. strategy. Abandon our anachronistic fealty to the central Iraqi government (now largely under Iran’s sway anyway) and begin supplying the Iraqi Kurds in a direct, 24-hour, Berlin-style airlift. And in Syria, intensify our training, equipping and air support for the now-developing Kurdish safe zone. Similarly, through Jordan, for the Free Syrian Army’s Southern Front. Such a serious and relentless strategy would not only roll back Islamic State territorial gains, it would puncture the myth of Islamic State invincibility.
In theory, we should also be giving direct aid to friendly Sunni tribesmen in Iraq whose Anbar Awakening, brilliantly joined by Gen. David Petraeus’ surge, utterly defeated the Islamic State progenitor, al-Qaeda in Iraq, in 2006-2007. The problem is, having been abandoned by us once, when President Obama liquidated our presence in 2011, why should the Sunnis ever trust us again?
As for the Iraqi army, we can go through the motions, but the best we can hope for is wobbly containment, ultimately guaranteed by Iranian proxies. Not a happy prospect, but the best that we can do having forfeited our dominant position in Iraq in 2011 .
The US never forfeited their dominant position in Iraq- Nor did they abandon their Sunni tribesman. Just another neo con lie!
At the time, Iraq was a functioning state. That state is now gone. We should not expend treasure or risk blood trying to resurrect it. Our objective right now is to defeat the Islamic State and to ensure the fall of the Assad regime. That does not require an American invasion. It does require recognizing reality and massively supporting our few genuine allies on the ground.On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter testified that we won’t quite meet our objective of training 24,000 Iraqi troops by this fall. Why? A recruitment problem. Iraqis don’t seem to want to join. We are 15,000 short.
It’s a fool’s errand anyway. If we need to pretend to support the Baghdad government, fine. But our actual strategy should be to circumvent it and help our real allies carry the fight.
Krauthammer and his ilk: The Road to Iraq: The Making of a NeoConservative WarRead through as many pages of that book as you like. It's linked to what appears to be a starting point for identifying & perhaps understanding the NeoCon war pushers-