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Page added on March 11, 2015
Support Al Qaeda to Defeat ISIS
The Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington DC think tank with large influence over U.S. foreign policy, is once again calling on the Obama administration to support Al Qaeda terrorists under the guise of defeating the Islamic State.
In an article entitled, Accepting Al Qaeda: The Enemy of the United States’ Enemy, Foreign Affairs writer Barak Mendelsohn argues that the United States must reconsider its current policy towards the terrorist organization and its leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
“The instability in the Middle East following the Arab revolutions and the meteoric rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) require that Washington rethink its policy toward al Qaeda, particularly its targeting of Zawahiri,” Mendelsohn writes. “Destabilizing al Qaeda at this time may in fact work against U.S. efforts to defeat ISIS.”
Mendelsohn claims that by targeting both the Islamic State and Al Qaeda for airstrikes in Syria, the United States “reinforced the jihadist narrative that Washington is hostile to Sunni Muslims and ready to bargain with the murderous Alawite regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.”
“In order for U.S. President Barack Obama to fulfill his promise to ‘degrade and ultimately destroy’ ISIS, he must weaken ISIS’ control of Mosul, Raqqa, and other large population centers, as well as stop its expansion,” writes Mendelsohn. “Inadvertently, the administration’s cautious approach to military intervention makes al Qaeda—which views ISIS as a renegade offshoot—an important player in curtailing ISIS’ growth.”
The article goes on to assert that the death of Zawahiri would thrust Al Qaeda jihadists into the arms of the Islamic State and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group’s current leader.
“But if and when Washington succeeds in killing Zawahiri, the leaders of al Qaeda’s branches would have the opportunity to reassess whether to remain with al Qaeda or join Baghdadi’s caliphate. It is possible that Zawahiri’s successor will be able to hold al Qaeda together, particularly if it is Nasir al-Wuhayshi, al Qaeda’s so-called general manager and the head of its Yemeni branch,” Mendelsohn states. “But it is more likely that in Zawahiri’s absence, al Qaeda would drift into ISIS’ camp, offering it manpower, resources, and access to arenas such as Algeria and Yemen where al Qaeda’s dominance has so far hindered ISIS’ expansion.”
“It is certainly ironic that at this point, when the United States is the closest it has ever been to destroying al Qaeda, its interests would be better served by keeping the terrorist organization afloat and Zawahiri alive.”
Mendelsohn’s claims regarding the Arab revolutions and the eventual growth of the Islamic State unsurprisingly leaves out the United States’ admitted destabilization campaign to reorganize the region via proxy war.
During an interview in 2007, former NATO commander and four star General Wesley Clark admitted the Pentagon’s 2001-era plan to take down multiple countries including Libya and Syria, revealing current claims regarding the so-called grassroots spread of democracy in the Middle East to be a contrived narrative.
The Obama administration and its allies have armed, funded and trained foreign jihadist proxy armies with admitted ties to the Islamic State, all while labeling such fighters as “moderate” rebels, in order to facilitate regime change in Syria.
With thousands of so-called rebels openly defecting to and fighting with the Islamic State, Mendelsohn’s tactic is nothing more than an attempt to further blur the line between enemy and ally.
President Obama left no doubt as to his intentions in late 2013 when he repealed sections of U.S. law that banned the arming of known terrorist groups in order to keep jihadists well oiled in their fight against Assad.
The Council on Foreign Relations made similar statements in January 2014 and August 2012 regarding Al Qaeda and the United States’ need for further supporting the group.
11 Comments on "Support Al Qaeda to Defeat ISIS"
Plantagenet on Wed, 11th Mar 2015 3:20 pm
It doesn’t make any sense that the Obama administration wants to help the shia defeat the sunni or help al Qaida against the Caliphate.
There is no reason for the US to get involved in Muslim vs. Muslim religious wars. Why not just let them fight it and out and leave it up to Allah to decide which one is the truest and most devout devotee of the Muslim faith?
BobInget on Wed, 11th Mar 2015 4:47 pm
HRH still don’t get it.
Without Iraqi and Iranian oil in US control we go down in dust.
One principal reason NO ONE mentions the ‘oil’ word seriously in IS discussions. Not lend importance to the very issue that will drive us once again to ‘send in the Marines’,
is the name of this deadly game.
YOU get the job of explaining to a dead marine’s mom why we invaded Iraq for the third time.
” In the future, nations will go to war over resources, especially those nations prone to resource scarcity. Of all of the world’s resources, none is more likely to provoke conflict between nations in this new century than oil and water. Oil is the lifeblood of the modern industrialized state while water is the key to sustaining life. Without water, human life would cease to exist. Without oil, industrial nations will die”.
excerpted: http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/james-j-puplava/oil-money-and-war
Northwest Resident on Wed, 11th Mar 2015 5:03 pm
BobInget — Really good article you just posted. I read it last week and posted it on some comment on this board, but didn’t see any subsequent comments that indicated anybody read it and/or appreciated it. Hopefully your posting of it will get more notice.
Oil, money and war. Goes nicely with Oil, Smoke and Mirrors — a very disturbing video posted on YouTube which provides a whole different angle on “oil, money and war”.
Speculawyer on Wed, 11th Mar 2015 6:21 pm
Meh. ISIS isn’t our problem. It is Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Iran’s problem. Let them figure it out.
Hugh Culliton on Wed, 11th Mar 2015 7:00 pm
Given that Al Qaeda was created by the CIA in the first place, this comes as no surprise. I think Orwell best examined it in 1984 where various states constantly changed enemy’s randomly, and the only constant was that all states were perpetually at war thus providing a vehicle for control of the masses. Still, such cooperation will be hard to choke down for the thousands of American, Canadian and other alliance families who lost someone in the ridiculous “War on Terror” (how does one go about fighting a tactic anyway ?) since 9/11. I guess in the end, it’s all double-plus good.
GregT on Wed, 11th Mar 2015 7:39 pm
Muslims do not believe in a separation between “church and state”. There is only one law that they adhere to, and that law is Sharia law. The idea of an ‘Islamic State’ or ISIS, is a propaganda tool created by the CIA, MI6, Mossad, and other ‘intelligence’ agencies.
This is not a war against radical fundamentalists, but rather a war against Islam itself. A War against religion, or a war against the ‘State of Islam’.
Apneaman on Thu, 12th Mar 2015 12:07 am
Saudi Arabia the World’s Largest Importer of Weapons
http://cubiclane.com/2015/03/07/saudi-arabia-the-worlds-largest-importer-of-weapons-93232
US Weapons Exporters Lead World in War Profiteering
New study finds booming business driven by ‘an escalation of regional tensions in the Middle East and Asia Pacific’
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/03/09/us-weapons-exporters-lead-world-war-profiteering
Apneaman on Thu, 12th Mar 2015 12:10 am
How obvious does it have to be for USA Today to run with it.
Volunteer Ukrainian unit includes Nazis
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/03/10/ukraine-azov-brigade-nazis-abuses-separatists/24664937/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatoday-newstopstories
GregT on Thu, 12th Mar 2015 2:33 am
Welcome to the age of endarkenment.
Black is white, up is down, and out is the new in.
“Even if the general public were educationally equipped to identify the truth amongst the miasma of poor evidence and claim and counter-claim out there, the question remains as to whether they would care enough to do so. We have all borne witness to the trend over the last 30 years or more of an ever-reducing belief in politics and politicians”
“Whatever the cause, we have a challenge on our hands: disengagement by the general public from politics, not just voting once every four or five years, but disinterest in the arguments themselves, and in the veracity of the evidence behind the positions being taken – the very fabric upon which a democratic society is built – does not bode well. ”
“This is not an argument for elitism – that only the informed and intelligent should be allowed to debate and decide on matters of import; it is instead an argument for raising both political awareness and the level of the debate – away from the current ‘opiates of the masses’ such as a celebrity culture and social media – and towards an understanding that political engagement does matter and does make a difference.”
“If we are not careful it will be that we limped apathetically into a new age of self-imposed ‘endarkenment’: we had the theories, and evidence, and empirical processes, to drive progress further and faster than ever before, but instead we lost our way in the volume of uninformed debates of 140 characters or fewer. This is a future that I, and I would anticipate most readers of this article, would want to avoid. The question is, how do we turn the tide, and head back towards the light?”
http://www.solace.org.uk/knowledge/articles/2013-10-10-are-we-seeing-the-dawning-of-the-age-of-endarkenme/
We are not heading towards the light, we had our chance, and we blew it. Truth or consequences? We have chosen the consequences.
BobInget on Thu, 12th Mar 2015 10:09 am
GregT,
“the general public” can’t find Iran on a map much less understand which side of the toast is buttered.
I’ll bet most Senators who signed that treasonous letter to Iran’s leaders didn’t understand the US is not the only western nation in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
One wonders, if the fact that in any other
Western Democracy, forty-seven senators
or ministers or representatives would be asked to resign or face charges, depicts the US as stronger or pussy whipped by an ever more powerful arms and oil industries.
I believe we are stronger for ignoring a childish Senate action. Sadly, few of our ‘allies’ would agree. Am I in the minority believing US Senators could indeed find Iran on a world map?
When I was younger politics stopped at ‘the water’s edge’. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy presented
a United America confronting the USSR.
(imagine if a few Republicans wrote to
Khrushchev telling him all deals made with a Catholic President would be null once another (Protestant) Republican were elected? If that sounds silly now, you were not old enough in 1960’s America.
The bottom line here, according to the overwhelming majority of Republicans, a military ‘solution’ is the only recourse.
When regimes feel threatened, insecure, they resort to inhumane tactics to scare away opposition. We see this in Russia and Saudi Arabia today, among dozens of others.
The US is strong, confident, enough. No Republican, or military coup will bring down
this country.
In too many places views such as my own or HRH would land us in prison or worse.
Davy on Thu, 12th Mar 2015 10:59 am
Bobby, the senators that matter can find Iran and you know that. They are not all idiots that is why DC is so dangerous.