US policy in Islamdom is a chaos. Part 1

The accompanying map does not include India as a  country deeply affected by Islam and Islamicate civilization.  IMO that is a defect.  The terms "Islam," Islamdom," and "Islamicate Civilization." were clarified by the great historian of Islam, Marshell Hodgson.

This is my editorial opinion.

 ------------

 Syria.  The US persists in its nonsensical policy of regime change in Syria.  McGurk, the State Department lead in Syrian affairs is evidently one of the leaders of this foolishness.  The Syrian Government's forces have regained control of most of the country with the help of their Russian, Iranian, Hizbullah, Palestinian and Christian militia allies.   In spite of this the US MSM studiously ignores the efforts of the SAA and allies (R+6).  They are simply never mentioned.  They have been edited out of the US narrative.  Whether DJT has a side agreement with Putin over Syria seems not to affect the MSM narrative at all.  McGurk's statement that the Syrian government would not be allowed into Raqqa City is an announcement of an extra-legal interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign UN member state.  Do we intend to hold Raqqa forever and to what purpose?

Iraq.  In Iraq we have for the moment abandoned the interests of the KRG in its evident desire for independence from Baghdad.  We have done this in spite of outrage expressed by our foreign policy mentors in Israel.  The Israelis are, of course, the chief sponsors of Kurdish statehood.   The Israelis follow a consistent pattern of policy of disrupting surrounding states with a view to reducing them to pastoral rug bazaars.  Our loyalty to the Baghdad government is amusing because it is virtually inevitable that the Shia run government of Iraq will eventually align itself with Iran and ask the US to withdraw from the country.

Iran.  DJT's decision to stop certifying Iranian compliance with JCPOA is merely a reflection of Zionist influence over the president and the hyper-belligerent attitudes of Mattis, and McMaster.  They are revealed as more neocon than the organizational neocons and largely in league with them.  US abandonment of JCPOA will lead to direct policy conflicts with major European allies and the loss of business for American companies like Boeing.   In the end this direction may lead to a US-Iran War as a culmination of Israeli machinations in Washington.

Saudi Arabia.  Trump prostrated himself and his country before the Saudis and the leaders of the Islamic World.  The Saudis expect that this was more than a symbolic and empty gesture.  Saudi Arabia is a weak state in actual capabilities in the world  It is a state that the US will not need much longer as a source of petroleum.  The feebleness of the Saudi government is demonstrated by the ineffectual nature of its war in Yemen,  This genocide is being aided and abetted by the US government as part of its cartoon-like conception of basic social and political structures in Islamdom.  The Saudi government grows ever weaker as   a result of this war and decline in its monetized assets because of a growing surplus of petroleum in the world.  The Saudi princelings are not worth the effort being put into keeping them happy.

 Qatar.  US military operations in the ME are centered around the command and control facility at Al-Obeid in Qatar as well as the air base itself.  The air base is useful but is only one of many used by the US in the ME.  By siding with the Saudis DJT has de-stabilized the US relationsip with Qatar and is driving the Qataris in the direction of an pro-Iranian stance.  Would the US fight to keep al-Obeid?  The Saudis won't do it for the US.

Afghanistan.  DJT made a bad decision in deciding to persist in fighting to establish a coherent government in the country.  The aggressive and successful efforts of the taliban in the last week demonstrate the weakness of a government that has a negligible GDP and no ability to fund its own armed forces.  The defeat of that government is a certainty  when the US eventually withdraws it forces.  The various Afghan peoples are inherently unsuitable material for the formation of a coherent state.  DJT's flawed decision was based on the advice of his national security team.  McMaster, Mattis and Dunford are too powerful.  The US government is inherently a civilian government.  There are too many military men at the top just now.

Try to think past the MIC cult belief and the absurd conception of a US Deep State.

To be continued ... 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Hodgson

Comments

[LondonBob]

Of course the early Christians were ferociously persecuted so perhaps this helped colour their attitudes somewhat. Indeed the leading figures in shaping the early Church – Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, Chrysostom, Cyril – had much stronger opinions than Luther. These early Church fathers did not attempt to convert Jews, but regarded them as members of an essentially alien group against whom Christians should define themselves, just as Jews defined themselves in contrast to gentiles. Constantine the Great, the emperor who in 313 issued the edict legalizing Christianity throughout the empire, was so hostile to Jewish power and influence that a good case can be made that his Christianity, at least in part, was a means of promoting anti-Jewish policies. Of course one must note that these attitudes were not unique to Christians but shared widely amongst the differing groups and sects of the Roman Empire. As Cicero noted "See how unanimously they stick together, how influential they are in politics."

Of course paradoxically the Nazis despised Christianity for its universalism and assimilationist attitudes.

[MRW]

No. Not at all.

[elkern]

RSH -
The big flaw in your "Deep State" theory is the implication that it is singular and monolithic. I would heartily agree with the your statement that "There is ALWAYS a group colluding for their own interests", if you had pluralized it to "groups". Every sufficiently large organization (ie, Nation-States) has multiple power-centers which compete, cooperate, and screw up in different times & different ways.

I consider Eisenhower's warning about the Military-Industrial [-Congressional] complex to be spot-on, but it's a "complex", not a "conspiracy". It is a phenomenon which emerges from the uncontrolled way our elections are funded and the (huge?) profits from military contracts.

Likewise, the trend of Israelocentric (sp?)influence on US foreign & military policy is mostly possible because of the effect of campaign donations on elections (especially primaries).

Every system has flaws, and the low viscosity of money causes it to flow toward the leaky parts.

[Babak Makkinejad]

I have a theory - albeit rough on the edges - what is your?

Oil?

[Babak Makkinejad]

The dynamics?

Which part of a religious war you fail to grasp?

[kooshy]

I can assure you, there would not be a single Shia Arab out there, including Hassan Nasrallah and Nori Al Maliki that is pro Persian or Pro Iran, if it wasn’t for the common threat against Shia minority by the Sunni majority and their gulf Arab petrodollar coffers which brings in the support and interests of the west. That common threat against the Shia minority as can be seen in Bahrain, in Yemen in Syria and elsewhere is what makes all this Shia Arab find a common security cause and unification with Iran. That was the security architecture that Ayatollah Khomeini geniusly designed and implemented which has elevated and safeguarded Iran’s security ever since.

[Eric Newhill]

Richardstevenhack,
Seriously? You sound like you've been hitting the hookah with Juan Cole. How come with you it's always America the bad guy and all the other world players (e.g. Kim Jung Un, The Islamic Govt of Iran, etc) are all innocent victims? Just because the US arguably has a destructive mess of policy as relates to Muslims, doesn't make any of the Muslims into good guys. Iran regularly issues all kinds of threats to Israel and to various Sunnis. The threats are returned, of course. Arguing who started it is a fools errand at this point. The climate of tension and hostility exist. Period. Your going to call me a racist or something, but you are not comprehending the middle-eastern mind, which is quite different from your own.

Babak,

Yes I agree that the US posture toward Iran is impossible and stupid.

Kooshy,
yes. I know what US policy intends to do re; Iran. However, US actions have exactly the opposite effect and the results are highly predictable to the point that I am baffled that our policy makers can't see it. Lots of people said that the result of removing Saddam's Baathist party would result in a Shia controlled Iraq and a closer relationship w/ Iran. I even said that before it happened. It was also clear that going after Assad would result in an reinforcing of the bonds of the so called "shia crescent". This ain't rocket science. Our policy makers are very stupid, very delusional or clever by half (probably all of the above).

[LeaNder]

Entertaining, Bandolero,;)

On the other hand wasn't there this historical/mythical link to Raqqa which surfaced in ISIS propaganda?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raqqa#Early_Islamic_period

Maybe Kooshy remembers, at least if I am not completely misguided by ill-aligned data stored on my synapses.

[LeaNder]

mike, the "dippel" connects to the dialect variant "schisser", which no doubt is a Scheißer or shitter in heigh German. Since the diphthong just as the long vowel cannot be followed by double "ss".

I misspelled the variant I am familiar with Dipfelesch"ie"ßer, based on that I surely would understand the Swizz or Austrian variants, if I encountered them.

This is vaguely with English Outsider in mind, who claims to have been tortures by the German spelling reform. Actually I was too, but I wasn't alone in matters:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_orthography_reform_of_1996

******

I read your response on the Kurdish desire in Iraq. Didn't feel like responding there. The latest news in Europe concerning more autonomous rights, mind you no independent statehood, come from Italy.

[LeaNder]

I agree, that usage stuck out.

[Castellio]

I'm sorry that mentioning Popper makes you jump. For the record, I'm not a great fan of his (nor Kuhn) and if push comes to shove, in all that group arguing at that time, my preferred thinker is Peter Munz.

I was, specifically, trying to point to a reference to the push and pull between facts and framework, so that an historical framework would not deny/hide the facts changing the historical condition. That simple.

[Castellio]

In a place like Somalia you've written off the Sufi tradition?

[LeaNder]

IMO there would have to be some sort of catastrophe that provided a catharsis so profound that basic assumptions had to be re-examined. pl

Worth repeating.

if I may, I never tried, but for this nitwit "the Borg" if I were forced to try to define it, might circle around a 'foreign polite society' caught in some type of moment of inertia. Loads, and loads of accumulated expert wisdom that would take ages to sort out and/or to discard, on the other hand some type of urgency dictated by the real world out there.

[Annem]

Who is the "He" who is supposed to be saying these things? From my perspective, depending on the circumstances, communities, nations or their leaders cooperate on any layer of their identities, to include religion, religious sect, ethnicity, nation, region, or broader international coalitions or ideology. That is neither right nor wrong, simply a matter of human social organization that can be seen throughout history.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Sufi Tradition? It is foremost a Seljuk Tradition. You think Sufis came out of the barren lands of Arabia? You are truly clueless; go lookup major works of Sufi Muslims that expound the theoretical basis of Sufi approach to Islam - they are all in the form of Persian poetry - from Attar to Shabestari.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Then your perspective be wrong.

[Kooshy]

“probably all of the above” or tied up by Borg, without an option for any better choice.

[Croesus]

me too.

wow Col., that's a surprising statement.
My first political memories are of my parents' dislike for Ike.

[Croesus]

Polish Catholicism is entirely different from Italian Catholicism. I've been both -- actually, if you factor in American Irish Catholicism, I've been all three. Italian Catholics are the best -- most holy-joe pious, least likely to obey.

[Croesus]

Do you really think the Pole- or Italian- or Irishman- in- the- pew knows Popper from Kuhn from beeswax candles?

[Castellio]

You know I don't think that.

As replied to Lemur "I was, specifically, trying to point to a reference to the push and pull between facts and framework, so that an historical framework would not deny/hide the facts changing the historical condition. That simple."

And I was writing in response to Babak wrote, hardly launching an appeal to the Poles, Italians and Irish in their pews.

[Castellio]

Polish Catholicism is different from Italian Catholicism (although I think the word "entirely" is the wrong modifier for different), which is also different from American Irish Catholicism.

Wasn't that my point? That using the word Catholic to build a predictive historical framework doesn't work – in fact – because of the differences being suppressed by a single concept?

[Castellio]

I don't deny the roots, I do deny I'm clueless.

Are you saying that post-Khomeini "Shia Doctors" are actually going to strengthen the Sufi traditions in East Africa?

[Richardstevenhack]

"Iran regularly issues all kinds of threats to Israel and to various Sunnis."

Citations, please. Preferably dated in a timeline. You can't do it. Whereas Israel has been pushing the US for war with Iran since forever and explicitly saying so.

"Your going to call me a racist or something, but you are not comprehending the middle-eastern mind, which is quite different from your own."

Whereas you are an expert in the "middle-eastern mind"? Based on what experience, education and training? The Colonel at least has all three.

[Babak Makkinejad]

No.

I am saying that you have two choices - bad and worse.