Tom Friedmann finds ISIS awful and useful (by CP)

The irrepressible Tom Friedmann, inventor of the famous Friedmann Unit, vanguard of provocative and out-of-the-box political thought opines in a recent piece titled "Go Ahead, Ruin My Day" that while awful, ISIS is also useful:

"Now I despise ISIS as much as anyone, but let me just toss out a different question: Should we be arming ISIS? Or let me ask that differently: Why are we, for the third time since 9/11, fighting a war on behalf of Iran?
...
In 2002, we destroyed Iran’s main Sunni foe in Afghanistan (the Taliban regime). In 2003, we destroyed Iran’s main Sunni foe in the Arab world (Saddam Hussein). But because we failed to erect a self-sustaining pluralistic order, which could have been a durable counterbalance to Iran, we created a vacuum in both Iraq and the wider Sunni Arab world. That is why Tehran’s proxies now indirectly dominate four Arab capitals: Beirut, Damascus, Sana and Baghdad.

ISIS, with all its awfulness, emerged as the homegrown Sunni Arab response to this crushing defeat of Sunni Arabism — mixing old pro-Saddam Baathists with medieval Sunni religious fanatics with a collection of ideologues, misfits and adventure-seekers from around the Sunni Muslim world. Obviously, I abhor ISIS and don’t want to see it spread or take over Iraq. I simply raise this question rhetorically because no one else is: Why is it in our interest to destroy the last Sunni bulwark to a total Iranian takeover of Iraq? Because the Shiite militias now leading the fight against ISIS will rule better? Really?"

Yes, really? Indeed, why is it in the US interest to destroy ISIS, when they could be used to roll back Iran? What a waste! Should not the US be arming ISIS (directly)? What are “some stirred-up Muslims” compared the the threat posed by Iran?

And lest one thinks ISIS controlling Iraq or Syria instead of the Shia would be a bad thing, Friedmann assures the reader that it's a toss up - given only bad choices, one is as bad as the other!

While we are speaking of hard truths - Iran under its current form of government, Syria as ruled by Assad, Lebanon with Hezbollah and even Iraq being controlled by the Shia - they are all at worst an inconvenience for the West and the US, but a thorn in the eyes of the Gulfies (for paranoia and religious reasons) and Israelis (for paranoia and in pursuit of local hegemony).

The idea the Gulfies and Izzies sell in DC is that the US must adopt their favourite enemies as their own, and that the US must (help) destroy them. Friedmann appears to find no flaw in that. While he despises ISIS as much as the next guy, he despises Iran more.

Where, if I may ask, is the US interest in aiding Israeli maximalist ambitions or in helping spread the Gulfie's profoundly anti-Western religious chauvinism in Iraq and Syria? Where?

Comments

[turcopolier]

All

There is a full court press underway to crush all opponents of hostility to Iran. Friedman should tell us where he was briefed for this column as part of the larger effort. On "Morning Joe" today dan Senor and Donny Deutsch were launnched against Obama and anyone who dares to think that Bibi's invective against Arab citizens of Israel could possibly be racist. Mika and Barnicle pushed back hard. Scarborough was notable for his absence. pl

[Matthew]

Col: What a contrast to 60 Minutes story's last night on IS' assault on the Aramaic-speaking Syrian Orthodox Church (and Eastern Rite Catholic faiths). So we are to hate the Iranians more than those who actually are eradicating the original Christians?

When my wife and were watching the Iraqi monks with their elaborate vestments and cross-laden skull caps, it reminded me of the kind clerics who attended dinner with us in Bethlehem.

Friedman's opinion is grotesque.

[MRW]

I am reminded of this from the New York Times, July 18, 2007:

"Leader of Al Qaeda group in Iraq was fictional, U.S. military says"
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/world/africa/18iht-iraq.4.6718200.html?_r=4&

"BAGHDAD — For more than a year, the leader of one the most
notorious insurgent groups in Iraq was said to be a mysterious Iraqi
named Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi.

As the titular head of the *Islamic State* in Iraq, an organization
publicly backed by Al Qaeda, Baghdadi issued a steady stream of
incendiary pronouncements. Despite claims by Iraqi officials that he had been killed in
May, Baghdadi appeared to have persevered unscathed.

On Wednesday, a senior American military spokesman provided a new explanation for
Baghdadi's ability to escape attack: He never existed.

Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, the chief American military spokesman, said the elusive
Baghdadi was actually a fictional character whose audio-taped declarations were provided
by an elderly actor named Abu Adullah al-Naima.

The ruse, Bergner said, was devised by Abu Ayub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born leader of Al
Qaeda in Mesopotamia, who was trying to mask the dominant role that foreigners play in
that insurgent organization."

[MRW]

"dan Senor and Donny Deutsch were launched"

No shit.

[MRW]

This may appear to be OT, but it IS apropos:

"Top Russia Scholar Stephen Cohen: War between NATO and Russia a Real Possibility"
http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/03/20/4761

"Germans Abandon Major News Sites in Anger Over Slanted Russia Coverage"
Triggered by reader disaffection, internet traffic has collapsed for half a dozen major German media websites
http://russia-insider.com/en/germany_politics_ukraine_media_watch/2014/11/10/08-50-10pm/germans_abandon_major_news_sites_anger
Take a look at the Alexa stats on this last link.

Would that were to happen with the NYT for promoting this odious Friedman.

[William R. Cumming]

Agree!

[Babak Makkinejad]

What Friedman is saying is this:

Shias and Iranians are bad.

Sunni Arabs are useful idiots.

Christian Arabs be damned.

Long Live Israel.

[LeaNder]

MRW, from the top of my head. Among us nitwits. ;) Reminds me of:

a) the obvious early trouble in the WOT to deal with Arab names. - at least it felt like that to me. Maybe since I had to look into customs too. Or frequent Arab names? Mistaken identities.

b) the possibility to adopt warrior names for strategic reasons.

c) limits in information, insecurity about the origin of informations. Or alternatively disinformation campaigns ... Was it considered helpful to link resistance to "foreigners" at one point: AlQuaeda - what was the term Babak used somewhere else faranji?

As a German: I realized the opposite approach as to Nazi Germany at the time, ... This must have created a lot of "not-foreign"-foreigners-to-the-established system. Remember Saddam was the latest new Hitler. ...

NYT one year earlier:

http://tinyurl.com/NYT-2006

A Jihadist Web site:, the NYT one year earlier:

"Mr. Muhajir is something of a mystery; his name does not appear on any of the charts of wanted leaders of Al Qaeda previously issued by the American command, ...One clue was that the word "muhajir" usually refers to an Islamic militant who has traveled beyond his own country to fight for his faith."

d) once established everyone else may adopt the name as some type of warrior name in a variation. Isn't there a ISIS leader with this name now? Or is this an accident or disinfo too? (Take back Bagdad?)

[Croesus]

C Span is all pro-Israel All the time.

Steve Scully is among the worst of the worst precisely because he was dean of press corp in DC and teaches/taught journalism; he above all should be held to highest standards.

But on an appearance by Douglas Shaw, http://www.c-span.org/video/?324913-4/washington-journal-douglas-shaw-iran-nuclear-negotiations a shill from George Washington University* called in the bash Iran, callers were more intelligent and informed than Shaw, but Scully back-stopped Shaw in emphasizing throughout the segment and concluding the program with:

Scully: "But can we trust Iran."
Shaw: "It's not about trust, it's about inspections ..."
Scully: "Let me frame it another way: Can we trust that all the sites will be accessible?"

I'd sure like to know who writes C Span's talking-points -- Frank Luntz?

* in the Steven Cohen video that MRW linked, Cohen said that our universities permit only one point of view; that is unprecedented; there is no open debate.

In a 2011 (video'd) discussion at CATO, Bradley Thompson made a similar point: through Irving Kristol's cleverness in buttoning up "philanthropies" to fund think tanks and university chairs, neocons dominate the major universities. http://www.cato.org/events/neoconservatism-obituary-idea#

[SteveG]

To paraphrase our long ago departed Sec Def Rumsfeld,
it will be a long hard slog to rid the MSM of the Isreali
hasbara meme. Could barely gag down watching the
Sunday morning talk. Between Liz Cheney on Fox and
Dermer on Schmooze the Press, I had to take a short
walk to clear the senses. Chuck Todd made a feeble
attempt on Dermer. His voice seemed to lower with each
follow up question.
As I jettisoned cable, does the morning Joe ever have a
contrary viewpoint. To its credit MTP did have the
Palestinian UN representative on but he was given short
rebuttal time.

[Fred]

What Tom Freidman is saying is that he supports the eradication of Christians from the Middle East at the hands of ISIS (whom he wishes the US to ally with) so as to oppose Iran. I’m sure the multimillionaire will lose no sleep over dead Christians in Syria, Iraq or the rest of the region. Maybe he can watch “Judgement at Nuremberg” some evening so he can see just how complicit he is in this evil.

[Stephen Calhoun]

"Uncredible."

I'm trying to visualize the metaphor for: something stupid, leaden, yet slowly moving and picking up speed.

People in the USA and Iran should think about where they are going to hide their children in the Spring of 2017.

[LeaNder]

We Germans have the same troubles with our media elites as US citizen, bascially.

The CIA cannot be blamed for everything. ...

Fact is: Snowden has support over here, obviously, incidentally he is supported by my favorite Green Party member, I haven't looked at developments admittedly. ... But generally it's equally obviously difficult to have Snowden speak over here to a parliamentary investigative panel, as long as the US does not come to terms on the issue.

Notice that Russia Insider starts crowd-founding. It necessarily needs to entertain a little in this context. I may of course be mistaken.

[LeaNder]

Ok, strictly it reminded me of my favorite scapegoat, who may in fact be what the article calls the leading political talk show.

Sandra Maischberger, no matter how much she and her crew would deserve it, wouldn't be rated as such, I think.

Go to Google translate on this link:
http://tinyurl.com/Gunter-Jauch

Or maybe look into the latest storm-in-a-teapot he and his crew produced:
http://tinyurl.com/the-stink-finger-debate

I doubt he needed the CIA for that. German interests is good enough.

[confusedponderer]

"Maybe he can watch “Judgement at Nuremberg” some evening so he can see just how complicit he is in this evil."

Won't help. He's so postmodern, he's postmoral.

[Babak Makkinejad]

"Muhajir" - مهاجر - means "immigrant".

In Muslim history, if was referred to those early Muslims who left Mecca to be with the Prophet is the city which came to be known later as City or Prophet - Medina.

More contemporary usage was in reference to those Muslims who fled India and settled in Pakistan after the Partition.

By itself, it means nothing much beyond the Hebrew word "gershon" - "stranger" - used so much in Yiddish as a convenient alias.

[João Carlos]

Are they crazy?

[no one]

Col. Lang, So, in your opinion, does all of this lend some credence to B's theory that Israel and IS have a working relationship?

[mbrenner]

Are they crazy?

In clinical terms, it may be difficult to establish. But by reasonable standards, a persuasive case can be made that they are deranged. The best evidence that a society and political culture has become unhinged is that people who say absurd things actually believe them - although they are not actually psychotic. It is the warped nature of the general discourse, the lack of accountability - intellectual and political, and the total absence of shame that permits this to develop. Of course, this is not to say that calculating minds are not at work organizing and promoting support for certain interests.

[optimax]

Freidman has gone full post-human.

[confusedponderer]

My own hunch is that the alliance, to the extent that it exists, is informal and temporary. Israel and ISIS/JaN have diametrally opposed long term goals and ultimately compete over the same sacred real estate.

In this deal it appears that ISIS/JaN get treatment for their wounded and the odd artillery support or air strike, spome intelligence perhaps, and the Israelis get an opportunity to stick it to the Syrians, because.

Probably the Israelis, given their conventional superiority over ANY of their neighours and probably even over all of them put together, do not fear ISIS and probably consider themselves able to destroy them if need be.

For Israel, weakening Syria promises the longer term benefit of getting to keep the Golan.

Also, bombing something makes Israel feel good - in the sense that it is an assertion of strength. The Israelis are insecure enough to have to resort to such reassertions periodically to 'restore their (lost, lost! again!) deterrence'.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3272219,00.html

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/11/16/can-israel-restore-deterrence/

http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/PressRoom/2014/Pages/PM-Netanyahu-sums-up-Operation-Protective-Edge-27-Aug-2014.aspx

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/289051/lieberman-we-must-restore-israels-deterrence-to-prevent-attacks.html

One ought to ask Deterrence what the Izzies do to loose her favour all the time, so that they have to bomb something to regain her attention every odd year. That said, given what it takes to impress her, Deterrence is quite a b*tch.

Also, the Israelis are unhappy at the prospect of Hezbollah in Syria, given Hezbollah's decent performance against the IDF that would limit Israel's freedom of action.

Given that Hezbollah usually is quite content with ***defending*** Lebanese territory that is a problem only insofar, as Israel whole national security posture hinges upon maximum freedom of action exercised with impunity.

The idea is that they must not be ***challangeable*** which is why they are so upset over Iran - it may down the road be able to stand up to them. Schockschwerenot!

And finally, I may overinterprete things totally.

Israel may just support JaN (i.e. Al Qaeda) because, read the sage Friedmann, Iran is worse than everything ...

[Cee]

Croesus,

I miss Brian Lamb on Washington Journal.

[Cee]

All,
Tom knows damn well that people wising up to the fact that Israel is supporting them via al-Nusra or whatever name or faction they are called.

[William R. Cumming]

YUP!

[Croesus]

I don't understand most of the concepts Robert Aumann promulgates, but it seems prudent to remain aware of his existence and the existence of his Institute for Rationality at Hebrew University, and to question the extent of their influence on day-to-day as well as long-range Israeli planning. What I know for sure is that interests of USA are instrumental but not objectives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Aumann