Politics

Suddenly the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has become a threat worthy of American missiles. For years Obama completely ignored the biggest and most brutal terror group in the Middle East, allowing it to balloon into a regional power. No matter how many heads it severed or how much territory it conquered, ISIS just couldn’t draw Obama’s attention.

As ISIS was conquering ever-expanding territories Obama was supposedly waging a “war on terror” around the globe, drone-bombing any would-be bogeyman in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, etc. But when a real bogeyman emerged, Obama ignored it, and so did the U.S. media, which instead followed Obama’s warmongering gaze to Ukraine, while plagiarizing the president’s endless excuse-making for Israel’s genocidal conduct in Gaza.

For well over two years ISIS and other al-Qaeda-style groups have been the main driving force in the Syrian war that has claimed over 170,000 lives, with millions made refugees. And now, suddenly, Obama wants to intervene for “humanitarian” reasons to fight ISIS. But the actual reason that ISIS attracted Obama’s missiles is that the terror group did something unforgivable: It has finally threatened “U.S. interests,” whereas before the interests of ISIS and Obama were perfectly aligned.

The indefatigable Middle East journalist Patrick Cockburn was dumbfounded by the lack of government and media attention ISIS has gotten, as the group expanded its power over huge regions of Syria and Iraq, now threatening Lebanon. Cockburn exasperatedly writes: “As the attention of the world focused on Ukraine and Gaza, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) captured a third of Syria in addition to the quarter of Iraq it had seized in June…The birth of the new [ISIS] state is the most radical change to the political geography of the Middle East since the Sykes-Picot Agreement was implemented in the aftermath of the First World War. Yet this explosive transformation has created surprisingly little alarm internationally…”

Similar surprise was displayed by Noah Bonsey, a Syria expert at the International Crisis Group, who couldn’t understand the free hand Obama was giving ISIS:

“The U.S. has the clout and capacity to build partnerships capable of reversing ISIS gains, but seems to lack the necessary vision and will.”

And finally from The New York Times:

“Even after the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, seized Fallujah and other territory in the western part of the country [Iraq] at the beginning of the year and marched through Mosul and toward Baghdad by summer, the president expressed no enthusiasm for American military action.”

Or any action for that matter.

While ignoring the ISIS destruction of Syria and invasion of Iraq, U.S.-led NATO issued non-stop warnings about Russia possibly invading Ukraine. But of course there were no such warnings issued — or attention paid — to Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

And whereas Obama didn’t so much as lift a finger to stop the invasion of Gaza, he recently stated that the U.S. has a “unique opportunity” to stop an ISIS massacre in Iraq; thousands of Gazans must be rolling in their freshly dug graves.

Obama’s inconsistent approach to foreign policy has confused many an analyst, who see no logic in the president’s approach to military intervention. Even Obama’s former deputy Secretary of State recently commented:

“Nobody has the sense about why [intervention] in some cases and not in others… His [Obama’s] last news conference just leaves you scratching your head. Yeah, we can’t do everything. But what matters to us?”

In reality, however, there is a definite logic to Obama’s foreign policy, where he has been disgracefully consistent throughout his presidency. For example, Obama publicly targeted the Syrian government for destruction and had no qualms about using ISIS and the other al-Qaeda-linked groups as proxies in this fight.

These terror groups were encouraged to grow exponentially in their fight against al-Assad, with Obama knowing full well that Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allied Gulf States were sending mountains of money, guns, and fighters to the jihadists. There was simply was no one else effectively fighting al-Assad, a dynamic that has expanded a war that would have ended years ago, while creating the environment that ISIS thrived in. Much of the money and guns that Obama shipped to the “moderate” Islamists rebels of course found its way into the hands of the jihadists, since thousands of moderates have since joined ISIS.

The more that ISIS did for the U.S. in Syria, the less Obama gave it attention, which is a very powerful form of passive political support. When ISIS invaded Iraq from Syria, Obama barely batted an eyelash, making excuse after excuse why the U.S. couldn’t send the Iraqi government military equipment. Imagine, however, if Saudi Arabia or Israel were invaded by a terrorist organization? Obama would have green-lighted F-16 bombing raids in minutes.

Obama’s lack of concern for the ISIS invasion of Iraq was ideologically linked to his inaction in Syria: Obama wants regime change in both nations, and is using ISIS as a de facto ally in both cases. This became quickly obvious with Obama’s response to the ISIS invasion of Iraq; he simply criticized the Iraqi government for not being more inclusive; meanwhile ISIS butchered its way through giant regions of Iraq and subjected the survivors to a more brutal totalitarianism than the U.S.-allied dictatorship in Saudi Arabia.

Further political support was given to ISIS by U.S. politicians, who essentially accepted ISIS as the ruler of the newly conquered Iraqi territories; these politicians instantly referred to Iraq as being “de facto partitioned,” meaning that ISIS had created a separate Sunni region that would be complemented by Shia and Kurdish regions.

Coincidentally, this “partition” plan just happens to be the official plan of Vice President Joe Biden, who for a while has advocated a “soft partition” of Iraq, an idea as ludicrous as a “partial” nuclear attack. As long as ISIS was “de facto” helping achieve Biden’s partition plan, Obama was fine with ISIS’ murderous rampage. And now the media informs us, unsurprisingly, that Biden’s plan has officially been “gaining momentum” in Washington D.C.

But then ISIS went too far. The red line that ISIS finally crossed was their attack against the U.S. allied Kurdish Iraqis. The Kurds govern their own oil-rich autonomous zone in Iraq, and have been steadfast U.S. supporters. The New York Times talks openly about the real, non-humanitarian motive of Obama attacking ISIS:

“Mr. Obama has been reluctant to order direct military action in Iraq [against ISIS] while [Iraqi] Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki remains in office, but in recent weeks there have been repeated pleas from the Kurdish officials for weapons and assistance as ISIS militants have swept across northwestern Iraq.”

The Times re-enforced this perspective when talking about the views of Representative Adam Smith of Washington State:

“…he [Smith] supported intervening on behalf of the Kurds, as opposed to the unpopular Baghdad government. The Kurds are worth helping and defending.”

There you have it. The thousands who have been slaughtered by ISIS in Syria and other parts of Iraq weren’t “worth defending,” but the Kurds are different, since their leaders are U.S. allies. This sums up U.S. foreign policy in a nutshell, which has absolutely nothing to do with “humanitarianism.” Gazans are allowed to be slaughtered, Syrian’s massacred, and half of Iraq torn to shreds while Obama has busied himself with making threats to Russia.

The logical of U.S. military intervention is completely based on a cynical calculation meant to boost U.S. military and corporate power abroad, by any means necessary.

Read more

The newest crisis in the Middle East has sucked the U.S. into yet another insoluble military problem. Obama is again considering a bombing campaign in Syria, after infamously not bombing the country last year. This time, however, he’s not targeting his enemy Bashar al-Assad, but his enemy’s enemy — ISIS — now referred to as the Islamic State.

By attacking the Islamic State in Syria, Obama will become a de facto ally of the Syrian government, just as Obama and ISIS were de facto allies when they were both targeting Bashar al-Assad. Most Americans are likely fed up with Obama’s zig-zagging foreign policy, and with each new U-turn support drops for the next war.

But the U.S. has no plans to leave the Middle East to its own devices, and “fixing” the current problems will mean that Obama will need to tear up the patchwork of alliances previously pieced together amid past U.S. wars. The next U.S.-led “solution” will only compound the catastrophe, and continue the senseless logic of permanent war.

The situation has become so absurd that the U.S. is now spending millions of dollars bombing U.S.-made military equipment in Iraq — itself worth millions, previously gifted to the Iraqi government and then taken by ISIS.

Obama’s constant Middle East flip-flops have made it difficult to keep allies. After having built a coalition of nations to wage a proxy war against Bashar al-Assad, Obama backed out of his promised air strikes last year, in effect abandoning his anti-Syrian partners, many of whom still bear a grudge.

As a result, Obama faces a “credibility gap,” as does anyone who doesn’t do what they say they’re going to do. Obama also said he supported a two-state solution in Palestine, but then backed Israel 100 percent in its ongoing slaughter against the Palestinians and its continued building of settlements.

Obama also promised to wage a “war on terror,” but allowed the growth of jihadi movements in his fight against the Libyan and Syrian governments, since they were de facto allies against targeted governments. This is one of the reasons given by Middle East journalist Patrick Cockburn on why the “war on terror” failed.

But there are other reasons Obama has few allies to fight ISIS. The unbreakable bond between the U.S. and the Saudi dictatorship can never be too public, since the overwhelming majority of Saudis hate the United States government, as do the vast majority of people across the Middle East.

Why do they hate the U.S. government? Unlike the American media perception of U.S. foreign policy goofily stumbling from one good-intentioned mishap to the next, the average person in the Middle East views the American military as a sociopathic power hell-bent on annihilation.

Obama also has to keep Israel at arms length as he finds war allies in the Middle East, since Israel is the only country hated more than the United States in the region, for the exact same reasons. Thus, teaming up with Israel would worsen Obama’s already-horrible image in the Middle East.

Many mainstream media publications have recognized Obama’s crisis of allies and are pushing Obama to make new friends, fast. An increasingly popular plan among the mainstream is to have the U.S. make yet another U-turn and officially ally with the Syrian government, after many of these same publications had been previously urging Obama to attack it.

Interestingly, the Syrian government recently said that it would welcome U.S. airstrikes, but only if Syria were notified first. Without officially allying or “cooperating” with Assad, Obama’s air strikes in Syria will be a breach of national sovereignty, and Assad likely knows that when a tiger gets its paw in the front door it’s not long until it dominates the house.

Obama, however, continues to shun President Assad, recently adding that “Assad is part of the problem.”

Instead, the most “popular” idea seems to be the same one that has failed for the past three years in Syria: create a “moderate” opposition to the Syrian government that would also fight the Islamic extremists. The Guardian explains:

“The favored option, according to two [Obama] administration officials, is to press forward with a training mission, led by elite special operations forces, aimed at making non-jihadist Syrians an effective proxy force. But the rebels are outgunned and outnumbered by Isis and the administration still has not received $500m from Congress for its rebel training plans.”

To continue to advocate for this “plan” after three years of failures is to grasp at already-combusted straws.

The Syrian opposition is completely dominated by Islamic extremists, a fact which nobody seriously contests. But Obama would like to create a whole new “moderate” fighting force out of his armpit, powerful enough to tackle both the Syrian government and the Islamic State. Fantasy quickly reaches its limits in war.

Middle East journalist Patrick Cockburn explains:

“There is a pretense in Washington and elsewhere that there exists a ‘moderate’ Syrian opposition being helped by the U.S., Qatar, Turkey, and the Saudis. It is, however, weak and getting more so by the day.”

And:

“Jihadi groups ideologically close to al-Qa‘ida have been relabeled as moderate if their actions are deemed supportive of U.S. policy aims.”

This “relabeled” type of moderate is what Obama would like to grow in Syria. For example, the U.S.-backed “moderate” group, the Islamic Front, is dominated by the extremist group Ahrar al Sham.

A more realistic — though equally reckless — solution that Obama is suddenly pursuing is arming the Kurds to the teeth, which creates an entirely new set of regional problems. The Kurds have large populations in several Middle East countries, though most notably Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran.

The Kurds have long wanted their own nation, which they likely believe that the U.S. will help them get, since giving a population tons of guns —Obama’s plan — is the first step toward carving out a chunk of land. And although the Kurds have been a long-oppressed minority group that deserves its own country, carving a country out of land already claimed by other nations isn’t done without war, and lots of it.

Here’s how The Guardian explained Obama’s brand-new Kurdish alliance:

“Obama needs the Kurds, and he knows it. They are largely secular and pro-Western, but also maintain dynamic ties to both Iran and Turkey. They offer a potential base from which the US can stage counterterrorism operations against Isis… It [Kurdistan] offers a stable, economically prosperous buffer zone right at the intersection of several regional conflicts.”

This brand new strategy that the mainstream media suddenly discovered has long been speculated about as a “grand plan” for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, the main purpose would be to create a new nation and regional power — Kurdistan — that would be loyal to the U.S. and thus serve as a countervailing force to the anti-U.S. “Shiite crescent” countries of Iran, Syria, Iraq (under al-Maliki) and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

A key part of creating the new Kurdistan would require the partition of Iraq into three separate nations, which has been advocated by Vice President Joseph Biden.

This idea that — having long been considered a “conspiracy theory” —appears to be manifesting before our very eyes, especially when Vice President’s official plan of a “soft partition” is gaining popularity in D.C.

The above cluster of irrational events are based on one basic incorrect assumption: that the U.S. can create and maintain steadfast allies through military interventions, which inevitably attract the hatred of every Middle Eastern person. This false assumption is why Obama’s foreign policy has mirrored Bush, Jr.’s: creating disaster on top of disaster, leaving a strong stench of death in its wake.

And with each new military intervention in the “war on terror” the jihadist movement grows exponentially, born amid the rubble of U.S.-destroyed Iraq, Libya, and Syria, and groomed to maturity by U.S. allies Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and other Gulf States.

Such an irrational, never-ending cycle of war cannot last forever. It is already collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions.

Read more

Obama’s ISIS speech would have provoked outrage if Bush gave it. Now, however, Democrats and Republicans are united over foreign war to such an extent that a prolonged military campaign without congressional approval barely raises an eyebrow. So one year after an attack on Syria was rejected by the American public bombs will be dropping after all.

More surprising than the bi-partisan escalation of Middle East war is the complete absence of strategy. Obama’s speech ignored the fundamental causes of ISIS’ rise, while putting forth a military strategy of pure fantasy. The only guarantee of Obama’s war strategy is the unnecessary prolonging of the Syrian conflict and the further growth of Islamic extremism. It’s as if President Obama hasn’t figured out the ABC’s of terrorism: the more you bomb, the more extremists you create. It isn’t rocket science.

The 13-year “war on terror” has fundamentally failed, creating an exponential growth in Islamic extremism, now sprawling across the very epicenter of the Middle East where its presence before was miniscule.

The president’s speech ignored how his strategy to fight the secular Syrian government — funding, training, and arming the Syrian rebels — has directly contributed to creating giant militias of Islamic extremists, filled with money and jihadists from Obama’s Gulf state allies of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait. If not for the U.S.-backed rebels in Syria, the conflict would have ended long ago, and ISIS would have remained marginal.

But instead of admitting that this failed approach helped create ISIS, Obama has doubled down on his ludicrous plan to further arm and finance the “moderate” opposition in Syria. The New York Times discussed the holes in Obama’s strategy:

“… Mr. Obama is still wrestling with a series of challenges, including how to train and equip a viable ground force to fight ISIS inside Syria, how to intervene without aiding President Bashar al-Assad, and how to enlist potentially reluctant partners like Turkey and Saudi Arabia.”

None of these issues are to be resolved, only compounded. Of course President Assad will benefit if Obama attacks his enemy ISIS, in the same way that ISIS has been benefitting the last two years from the U.S.-backed proxy war against President Assad.

Further exposing these issues is the highly regarded Middle East journalist Patrick Cockburn, who predicted Obama’s foolish speech with precision:

“So far it looks as if Mr. Obama will dodge the main problem facing his campaign against Isis. He will not want to carry out a U-turn in U.S. policy by allying himself with President Assad, though the Damascus government is the main armed opposition to Isis in Syria. He will instead step up a pretense that there is a potent “moderate” armed opposition in Syria, capable of fighting both Isis and the Syrian government at once. Unfortunately, this force scarcely exists in any strength and the most important rebel movements opposed to Isis are themselves jihadis such as Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and the Islamic Front. Their violent sectarianism is not very different to that of Isis.”

Later in the article Cockburn explains that the negligible moderate force is dominated by the CIA.

Obama dared not say explicitly that his plan to fight ISIS included a plan to fight the Syrian government, but that’s exactly what he implied by continuing to arm, fund, and train a “moderate” Syrian opposition that is fighting both ISIS and Assad.

Obama’s bombing campaign against ISIS can thus rapidly transition into a regime change bombing of the Syrian Government, as happened in the U.S.-led NATO bombing campaign in Libya that began as “humanitarian intervention” and veered into regime change after the first bomb dropped.

Before he announced the expansion of the war Obama claimed legal authorization to bomb without Congressional approval. The U.S. House Judiciary Chair issued a different opinion. And Democrats, too, had a different opinion when Bush was in office.

But now many congressmen from both parties would like Obama to act without Congress, since midterm elections are nearing and no congressman wants to be on record voting for war, since Americans are fed up with it. Better to skip democracy and have the president declare war unilaterally, war weary voters be damned.

Lastly, Obama failed to mention that perpetual war is the new normal for the U.S. government, no matter which party is elected. By not addressing any of the above-mentioned issues, a serious analysis was shelved in favor of the Bush Jr. circular logic that can be used to rationalize war forever, creating new generations of Islamic extremists that will justify permanent war. There can be only one real solution: remove the U.S. military from the Middle East.

Read more

It’s nearly impossible to find an anti-war congressperson nowadays. A bi-partisan consensus exists for an expanded war in Iraq and Syria — from the “radical” socialist Bernie Sanders to Obama’s right-wing nemesis, John Boehner. So enthused was Boehner that he ordered Republicans back to D.C. — during a peak campaign season — to vote for Obama’s plan to fund the Syrian rebels.

Aiding the Syrian rebels is the fastest moving part of Obama’s anti-ISIS strategy. The Syrian rebels get a quick congressional vote and a speedy promise from U.S.-allied Saudi Arabia to open a rebel training camp, whose goal is to recruit and train 6,000 Syrian rebels over the next year, assumedly flush with their Congressional approved $500 million dollars.

The problem is that the Syrian rebels aren’t motivated to fight ISIS; they are rebelling against the Syrian government. They want regime change.  This glaring paradox is hardly mentioned in the U.S. media, though The New York Times commented on it briefly:

“…there are bigger questions. The main target of the United States right now is ISIS, but for the mainstream [Syrian] rebel groups, getting rid of Mr. Assad is the main goal. How do you reconcile those competing goals?”

The Times didn’t pretend to answer the impossible question, and Democrats and Republicans never bother asking. Obama understands perfectly well — as does Congress — that regime change in Syria is the expected outcome of funding the rebels; the ISIS beheadings were a convenient excuse.

There is a remarkable bait and switch happening in U.S. politics: Assad is the big fish that Obama wants hooked and he’s using ISIS to bait the American public. The U.S. president has superbly exploited American’s disgust of ISIS to deepen a war against the Syrian government, the scope and implications of which are completely unspoken.

Bush used a similar logic in Iraq when he “fought terrorism” by instead toppling the secular Iraqi government. And the deceit goes unchallenged in Syria because all of Congress is on board, dragging behind them the boot-licking media.

The “quiet support” of war by the progressive Democrats is especially noteworthy. The progressive superstar, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, has been especially vocal in her support of Obama’s war plans, saying that ISIS should be the nation’s “number 1 priority.” But Warren always conditions her war support with populist catchphrases such as “we can’t be dragged into another Middle East War,” as if investing in the Syrian rebels wasn’t doing exactly that.

The other progressive figurehead, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, also hides his war support under a populist glaze. Sanders shamefully agrees that Obama should ramp up support to the Syrian rebels, while giving the same hollow warning about avoiding another prolonged military adventure. Either the Democrats don’t understand the basic arithmetic of war or they assume the American public is stupid.

Sanders has repeatedly argued in favor of Obama’s plan as he grumbles about the “enormously complicated” problem of ISIS. But it’s actually quite simple; the U.S. military’s campaigns in the Middle East are creating more enemies with each bomb dropped. And the ongoing U.S.-led proxy war against the Syrian government has directly contributed to the rise of ISIS and other extremists.

But these simple truths are considered taboo in the war-hungry Congress. Most Americans still don’t know that Obama has coordinated the proxy war against the Syrian government since at least 2012. By doing this Obama and his regional allies have artificially lengthened the Syrian war, directly contributing to the deaths of tens of thousands of people while giving rise to the Islamic extremist Syrian opposition fighters.

The U.S. media lets out the occasional burp of truth about this, such as The New York Times quick mention that “In April 2013, Mr. Obama authorized the C.I.A. to begin a secret mission to train Syrian rebels in Jordan. The total number trained so far is between 2,000 and 3,000.”

These truths and other events in the region have been systematically hidden from the public in a scheme that makes President Reagan’s Iran-Contra scandal look tame. Obama’s “Contras” are the Syrian rebels, whom he has been covertly funding, arming, and training while telling the public little if anything about it.

The media has consistently minimized the breadth of Obama’s rebel support while ignoring the implications — a deeper U.S. involvement in regime change. This is why Americans were so shocked last year when Obama suddenly announced he’d be bombing the Syrian government; they didn’t realize that the U.S. was already neck-deep in a proxy war, and that direct intervention is an inevitable outcome.

The new escalation of the Syrian proxy war puts renewed pressure on Obama to directly intervene militarily, to ensure that the $500 million investment in the rebels — and the political investment with regional partners — “pays off.”

The basic facts of Obama’s involvement in the Syrian war go untold because there is no independent voice in the U.S. Congress. The two-party system is completely united on the fundamentals of government; spending more on war and cutting everything else. This is why working class issues find zero expression in Congress except for populist rhetoric reserved for Labor Day and the campaign trail.

With each Hellfire missile launched, two fewer teachers are hired. And with each Reaper drone built, $28 million goes unspent on funding healthcare, education or fighting climate change. The two-party system is so united over war they can’t even address the fundamental absurdity of the “war on terror:” the more bombs dropped the more extremists are created, requiring more bombs be dropped that create more terrorists, etc., etc. Permanent war is plaguing a nation where 99% of the people would much rather prioritize good jobs, social services and confronting climate change.

Read more

Now that U.S. bombs are falling in Syria, will Islamic extremism be stopped in its tracks? Such a question is an insult to the intellect, yet it’s the dominant theory in Washington D.C., where years of Middle East war have taught politicians nothing.

Not only will bombing yet another Middle East country create yet more extremists, the bombings in Syria are likely to broaden an already-existing proxy war between regional rivals. Obama’s strategy to combat ISIS purposely excludes key players that, if included, could actually help stop the fighting. The strategy of exclusion will thus intensify the regional proxy fight, leading to the likelihood of even deeper U.S. involvement in the Syrian war and a broader conflagration.

Iran, Syria, and Russia were not invited to join the war against ISIS, since the broader regional proxy war is a war between the U.S. and its allies versus Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Russia.

Syria cannot join the anti-ISIS coalition even though Syria has been fighting ISIS for over two years. Obama’s reason is that the Syrian government has “no legitimacy.” But Obama’s “coalition” of Gulf states are composed of totalitarian dictatorships that, in comparison, make Syria look like the bastion of democracy.

Equally hypocritical is that Obama’s Arab bombing partners are the states most responsible for ISIS’ creation. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are especially guilty of sending money, weapons, and extremist fighters into Syria to topple the Syrian Government, which directly helped transform ISIS from a fledgling group of fanatics into a regional power.

While Saudi Arabia and Qatar were exporting jihadism, Obama looked the other way, so pleased was he to have an army of foreign mercenaries to help topple Assad. These extremists dominated the Syrian battlefield for nearly three years, and only now Obama is using a couple of beheadings to flood the emotions of the American public.

Obama’s “coalition of the willing” is largely a mirage, since it’s composed of Gulf state monarchies that are completely dependent on U.S. aid, which supplies these dictatorships with enough fire power to protect them from their own citizens, who would otherwise topple their “royalty” in minutes.

Further enraging the Gulf state population is their governments helping the U.S. bomb another Arab country; the U.S. is disliked as much as the hated dictatorial monarchies.

To complicate matters more, there are large sections of support in the Gulf states for groups like ISIS, since these governments give institutional support to religious institutions that hold an extremist interpretation of Islam.

In fact, the only thin base of popular support for these dictatorships is religion, which is why these theocratic regimes cannot wage a real war on Islamic extremism — their thin political base will not support their monarchy bombing familial-religious offshoots. Thus, Obama’s coalition of regional lackey dictatorships cannot give too much support — or support such a war too long.

The real danger of bombing Syria is expansion. Once the first bomb explodes, the logic of war takes over, usually creating a dynamic of expansion. The U.S. military uses the sanitized term “mission creep” to explain this phenomenon. And the war is already starting to creep; Obama has already bombed non-ISIS targets, which has enraged some Syrian rebels.

An even larger “mission creep” is easily predictable because Obama’s main strategy to fight ISIS is to arm the rebels who are fighting the Syrian government. The rebels are more interested in fighting Assad than fighting their ideological cousins.

The New York Times recently confirmed this, as they mentioned that Syrian rebels dislike ISIS, but “…ousting Mr. Assad remains their primary goal, putting them at odds with their American patrons.”

Obama himself finally admitted in his U.N. speech that targeting the Syrian government was at least half of his intention by funding the Syrian rebels:

“Together with our partners, America is training and equipping the Syrian opposition to be a counterweight to the terrorists of ISIL and the brutality of the Assad regime.”

Of course, no politician tells the U.S. public that funding the Syrian rebels is being done to attack the Syrian government.

The above New York Times article also mentioned that the U.S. is currently paying the salaries of 10,000 fighters in northern Syria. This is a mercenary army, and thus a manufactured war. The U.S. is paying 10,000 fighters while Saudi Arabia and Qatar have long been paying “rebels” to fight the Syrian government. This cash-flush Syrian mercenary army has artificially expanded the catastrophic Syrian war that Assad would have otherwise won long ago, saving tens of thousands of lives in the process.

The likelihood of “mission creep” was recently discussed by legendary Middle East journalist Robert Fisk:

“How soon… before a missile explodes in a Syrian regime weapons depot — by “mistake”, of course — or other government facilities? Since the US has decided to fund and train the so-called “moderate opposition” to fight Isis and the Syrian regime, why should it not bomb both sets of enemies?”

Fisk is, of course, correct; investing in the Syrian rebels is likely an investment in a longer-term war against the Syrian government. Now that the U.S. Congress approved $500 million in funding for the Syrian rebels, the U.S. is more likely to “come to their defense” if they engage in a large battle with the Syrian government.

The U.S. politicians understand that the intended outcome of funding the Syrian rebels is regime change, while they tell the American public that ISIS is the only target. The real agenda is quite simple: keeping the Middle East under U.S. control by any means necessary.

Read more

Sometimes bad ideas die slowly. It was only one year ago that Obama announced he would bomb the Syrian government, only to change his mind at the last minute. Now the same fetid war talk is sprouting fresh roots in the ever-fertile U.S. military. Various media outlets reported that the U.S. military might “enforce a no fly zone in Syria to protect civilians from the Syrian government.”

This, just weeks after the U.S. public was told that ISIS was the reason the U.S. military was now in Syria. The 2014 media sound bites mimic the 2013 scare tactics, copying the “humanitarian motives” behind the push towards war with the Syrian government. For example, in 2013 The New York Times blandly discussed the “no fly zone” option:

“To establish buffer zones to protect parts of Turkey or Jordan to provide safe havens for Syrian rebels and a base for delivering humanitarian assistance would require imposing a limited no-fly zone and deploying thousands of American ground forces.”

Fast forward to September 27th 2014, where The New York Times published an article called, “U.S. Considers No Fly Zone to Protect Civilians,” where we read:

“The Obama administration has not ruled out establishing a no-fly zone over northeastern Syria to protect civilians from airstrikes by the Syrian government…Creating a buffer, or no-fly zone, would require warplanes to disable the Syrian government’s air defense system through airstrikes.”

A no-fly zone would also require that the U.S. prevent the Syrian air force from flying over Syrian airspace by destroying Syrian fighter jets, i.e., full scale war with the Syrian government and possibly its allies. This last part is always left out, so as to not anger the American public.

Under international law no country has any legal right to carve out a “buffer zone” within another country, even if the no-fly zone was actually well intended. For example, even Canada cannot legally create a buffer zone in Ferguson, Missouri to protect civilians from police violence.

The Syrian government is not bombing random civilians near the Turkish border; they are attacking ISIS and its ideological cousins. These are the same groups that Obama says that he’s waging a war on.

Do civilians die when Syria attacks with bombs? Yes, which is one reason that a lot of popular anger is channeled towards the government in these areas, the same way anger that anger is now mounting against the U.S. bombings for killing civilians in Syria.

If Obama truly wanted to target ISIS he would have included Syria, Iran, and Russia in his anti-ISIS “coalition.” These nations were excluded because Obama’s coalition is the exact same one that only months before was a U.S.-led coalition against the Syrian government. The grouping maintains its original purpose but puts on a new shirt to fool a media that’s content with surface explanations.

But as soon as the newly dressed U.S. coalition started bombing ISIS, various “partners” announced, unsurprisingly, that Assad was “the real problem.” Obama’s Gulf state monarchy partners never had the stomach to fight ISIS, because they and the U.S. are primarily responsible for its growth, as countries like Qatar dumped money and extremist fighters into the arms of ISIS. Qatar recently reiterated that the Syrian government was the “main problem,” not ISIS.

When Obama announced his strategy to fight ISIS, he snuck in a plan to further invest in the Syrian rebels, whom politicians claimed would be used against ISIS. But these rebels are rebelling against the Syrian government, not ISIS.

Obama even discussed his intent at the UN to use the Syrian rebels against the government:

“…America is training and equipping the Syrian opposition to be a counterweight to the terrorists of ISIL and the brutality of the Assad regime.”

The public talk of a no-fly zone is accompanied by no explanation as to the possible repercussions, including the real possibility of an even larger regional war that would likely kill an additional hundreds of thousands and create millions more refugees.

Any U.S. attack on the Syrian government would likely happen sooner than later. The “coalition” of Arab monarchies has lost its patience. The members of this coalition blindly followed Obama into attacking Syria a year ago and were enraged that the president backed out. Saudi Arabia protested by refusing a seat at the UN Security Council.

Obama’s regional follower-allies have invested in an expensive war for three years and have taken on millions of Syrian refugees, creating a destabilizing effect across the region among nations already politically fragile. These shaky regimes cannot support — and would not survive — another three years of war as they wait for Obama to deliver the Syrian deathblow. They demand decisive action, and soon.

History is already condemning the U.S.-led destruction of multiple civilizations in the Middle East, reducing the once-functioning and modern nations of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria to dysfunction and chaos, where millions of people flee violence and lose their dignity to the hopelessness of a refugee camp. Funding rebels or imposing no fly zones in already-demolished region will inevitably create more war and backlash, when the overwhelming population among the nations involved would prefer a peaceful solution instead.

Read more

How did Obama manage to botch U.S. foreign policy so stunningly? The promising speeches he gave in 2008 earned him the Nobel Peace Prize. But his inspiring words have since been buried in the rubble of Libya, Palestine, Iraq, and Syria. The region that once viewed Obama as a peace messiah now rejects him as a warmonger. And with every new foreign policy zigzag Obama only finds fresh “threats” while never managing to find the path to peace.

Obama would like peace in theory, but doing so requires he shake up his Middle East alliances. The U.S. stands pigeonholed in tightly-wound alliances with the most hated regimes in the world, sandwiched between the global pariah Israel and the brutal totalitarian dictatorship of Saudi Arabia. The other important U.S. ally is war-hungry expansionist Turkey, while the smaller U.S. allies are the remaining Gulf state monarchy dictatorships.

Allies like these make peace impossible. Obama recognizes that these friends restrict the ability of the U.S. to retain regional credibility. Consequently, there has been much speculation about a massive shift in U.S. alliances that hinges on peace with Iran, possibly supplemented by strengthening the alliance with Iraqi Kurds.

Americans and Iranians would celebrate a peace between nations, but this scenario now seems off the table. After “talking” peace with Iran for the first time in decades, Obama chose the warpath yet again.

This decision was finalized recently when the “ISIS deal” was struck between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, again cementing this ugly alliance. In exchange for Saudi Arabia attacking ISIS, the U.S. would commit to war against the Syrian government, which the Saudis want toppled to undermine their rival Iran. The Syrian rebels that Saudi Arabia agreed to train — with $500 million from U.S. taxpayers — will be used against the Syrian government, not to fight ISIS. The U.S. allies in the region understand the war against the Syrian government as a first step to war against Iran.

Economics is a key reason that U.S. allies want Iran destroyed. Iran stands as a competitor for markets and investment throughout the region, and the destruction of Syria and Iran would thus open up new markets for the vulture-like U.S. allies. The economic oil war between Saudi Arabia and Iran has recently heated up, with Saudi Arabia selling oil at extra low prices to put political pressure on Iran. This, coupled with the ongoing “economic war” that Obama is waging, has the potential to weaken Iran via internal chaos, softening it up to possible invasion if the Syrian government falls.

Iran’s military is another reason the U.S. wants regime change. There are U.S. military bases scattered around the Middle East, though none in Iran, which has a powerful regional military force that patrols the strategic Strait of Hormuz, jointly controlled by Iran and Oman. It’s intolerable for the U.S. and Saudi Arabia that one fifth of the world’s oil production must pass through this Iranian controlled area.

Iran’s regional power is bolstered by its political and religious connections throughout the Middle East. Not only does Shia Muslim Iran exert automatic authority over Shia majority Iraq, but also over Shia Hezbollah and Shia-led Syria. This region-wide dynamic is often referred to as the “Shia Crescent.” There also exist sizable oppressed Shia populations in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen, and Turkey that act as intrinsic political thorns in the sides of these Sunni sectarian governments, giving Iran a powerful political base in each case.

For example, when Saudi Arabia recently announced a death sentence for a popular Shia cleric, Iran responded that there would be “consequences” if the sentence were carried out, thus re-enforcing Iran’s self-portrayed position as “defender of the Shia.”

In Yemen there already exists a strong Shia insurgency against the pro-U.S. Sunni government that is using al-Qaeda-linked fighters against the Shia; the results of the conflict will either empower Iran or weaken it.

These regional religious tensions have been exponentially deepened by the U.S.-led coalition against the Syrian government, which has relied on systematic Sunni Islamic sectarianism to attract jihadist fighters and a flood of Sunni Gulf state donations.

The Sunni fundamentalism in Syria — loosely based on the Saudi fundamentalist version of Islam — views Shia Muslims as heretics worthy of death. The executions of Shia in Syria have reverberated throughout the Middle East, acting as an implicit threat to Shia Iran while increasing tensions in the Shia populations of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and beyond.

The regional Shia backlash against the Sunni fundamentalists have strengthened Iran’s regional influence, one likely reason why Obama made the peace-killing deal with Saudi Arabia against ISIS and the Syrian government.

Saudi Arabia and Israel are adamant that the U.S. make no peace with Iran. Both sent strong messages after Obama’s 2013 last minute decision not to bomb the Syrian government, and his brief flirtation with Iran. Saudi Arabia went as far as refusing a seat on the UN Security Council. Israel protested the decision too, after it had lobbied heavily in the U.S. Congress through AIPAC to ensure the bombing took place.

The Kurdish Question

Turkey has long assisted the U.S. in attempting to topple the Syrian government, and has recently been insisting on a U.S. enforced “no-fly zone” in northern Syria, which would be directed against the Syrian government, since ISIS has no air force. Turkey has no good intentions in Syria, and has long wanted to grab easy oil-rich land for itself; which happens to be where the Kurdish population in Syria resides.

The call to enforce a no-fly zone to “protect the Kurds” on Turkey’s border, if achieved, will be similar to the no-fly zone in Libya — to create a “humanitarian corridor” — that was used instead to create a massive U.S.-led bombing campaign for regime change.

The Kurdish people face the same situation they’ve faced for hundreds of years: other nations have used the Kurds for their own self-interest. The Kurdish people want and deserve their own independent nation state, but they’ve been betrayed countless times in the past and the situation now seems no different. Promises are made and arms given to the “good” pro-U.S. Iraqi Kurds, while across the border in Turkey another faction of Kurds are labeled terrorists and repressed by the government.

Recently, the Kurdish Syrian town on the border of Turkey was invaded by ISIS and militarily defended by the “bad Kurds” of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who are based in Turkey. The Turkish military watched across the border as ISIS relentlessly attacked Kobani, while the Turks used military force to prevent Turkish Kurds from crossing the border into Syria to help defend the Kurdish city.

This reinforced perceptions that ISIS was, in part, a Turkish creation, since Turkey’s border has long been an uncontested point of entry for foreign jihadists to enter Syria. Turkey defended its actions by essentially equating the Kurdish PYD and PKK with ISIS, dismissing all of them as “terrorists.”

In Turkey, Kurdish protests erupted against the government’s actions and inactions in Kobani, leaving 40 dead. Protests also occurred in other Kurdish regions including Iran.

Turkey ultimately proved that it fears the Kurds more than ISIS, and further proved that negotiations with its domestic Kurdish population will never result in an independent Kurdistan on any inch of Turkish territory. Turkey will likewise be violently opposed to any creation of an independent Kurdish state in Iraq or Syria, since it would empower the Turkish Kurds while preventing Turkey from grabbing the oil-rich regions for itself.

This dynamic acts as an impossible barrier for the Obama administration to “re-balance” its Middle East alliances by using the Kurds. No nation with a sizable Kurdish population — Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Syria — will buy in to a possible U.S. policy of Kurdish statehood, since they would lose the oil-rich territory that the Kurds live on.

Not only would the U.S. lose regional allies by advocating Kurdish independence, but if such a state were to emerge, it would be a weak nation, since the Kurds are already divided into various factions, and thus not strong enough for the U.S. to rely on to achieve regional objectives.

Consequently, Obama feels compelled to continue down the same war-torn path as his predecessors. But Obama’s perspective is colored by his assumption that the United States must remain the regional power in an area thousands of miles from its border, and that U.S. corporations should dominate the oil, banking, weapons selling, and other markets in the region.

The U.S. is long past the point where it can claim that its Middle East goals are “peace, stability, and democracy,” especially after invading and destroying Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and now the dirty war against Syria. The oil, minerals, and other wealth that attracts the U.S. corporations that steer U.S. foreign policy prevent any real lasting peace to be achieved. The logic of corporate America is to crush the competitor by any means necessary.

Peace with Iran and Syria could be achieved if Obama told the world the truth about the above dynamics in the region, and treated Iran and Syria with the respect that an independent nation deserves, while working to curb the power of Israel and Saudi Arabia, who both depend on U.S. financial, military, and political support.

But instead Obama has dug in his heels and re-enforced alliances that demand the continuation of the Syrian war, and after that Iran. A war-shredded region remains on the bloody path to a potentially even wider war, while the billions of U.S. tax dollars funding this genocide will remain unusable for domestic projects like job creation and climate change reduction and preparedness. During election season both Democrats and Republicans agree on continuing Middle East war.

Read more

You’re not paranoid if you think the world feels more unstable — it is.  There’s a dangerous confluence of political, economic, and military phenomena that is producing a very hazardous international situation. Heightened national tensions that lead to regional confrontations have become normal as economic and political winds constantly shift in the direction of instability and conflict.

At the center of each maelstrom is the U.S. Government, and instead of acting as a promoter of peace and stability the Obama administration has been a catalyst of confrontation and war.

Whether it be the Middle East, Asia, Russia’s border, or the world economy, the actions of the Obama administration have leaned towards various forms of provocation and aggression — economic sanctions, threats, funneling arms, etc. This dynamic makes an eventual regional conflict inevitable, beyond the one already occurring in Syria/Iraq, where a U.S.-led proxy war against Syria and Iran is dangerously close to a full-out regional war.

The U.S. public is dangerously ignorant about the significance of these various regional conflicts. To the extent that they’re even reported, the “news” has excelled at blaming others and sharpening conflict, rather than shedding light or presenting peaceful alternatives.

An especially combustible zone is the Ukraine, where the U.S. is engaged in what is becoming a full-fledged proxy war with Russia. The Obama administration’s decisive role in the Ukrainian conflict has received only a sliver of space from the U.S. media, even after an audio of Obama’s Under Secretary of State was leaked, exposing the U.S.’ direct leadership role in a coup that overthrew Ukraine’s democratically elected government.

Obama’s allied boots on the ground in the Ukrainian coup were open fascists — the Svoboda and “Right Sector” — whose ideological hero, Stepan Bandera, was one of Hitler’s most reliable fascist allies during World War II.

The Obama administration has given crucial military and economic support to the anti-Russian Ukrainian government, and provided this fascist-friendly government with various forms of military assistance, and now is considering giving more “lethal” military aid to a government that cemented its coup power via questionable elections during the start of a civil war.

Former USSR president and media darling, Mikhail Gorbachev, is now disregarded by the U.S. media, since his words no longer promote U.S. foreign policy objectives. Gorbachev recently said:

“If we call a spade a spade, America has pulled us into a new cold war, trying to openly implement its general idea of triumphalism. Where will it take us all? The [new] cold war is already on. What’s next? Unfortunately, I cannot say firmly that the cold war will not lead to the hot one. I’m afraid that they might take the risk.”

This “new cold war” is warming quickly, since the U.S.-Russian proxy war in Ukraine shares a large chunk of Russia’s border, and like all wars borders are ignored when convenient. Gorbachev fears that the 5,000 dead Ukrainians and 1.5 million refugees may just be the detonator for a larger war between two fully nuclear countries. Meanwhile, the U.S. media completely ignores this very real threat, giving valuable political cover to Obama’s reckless actions.

Equally crazy is Obama’s longstanding policy in the Middle East, where his “no troops on the ground” mantra has led to non-stop drone bombing and a massive proxy war in Syria, which every nation in the region has directly contributed to. The 200,000 dead and millions of refugees have boiled political tensions across the region, and Obama’s dedication to regime change in Syria is partially due to his dedication to the two biggest pariah nations in the world — Saudi Arabia and Israel.

When Israel recently bombed Syria again — a now regular occurrence — an Iranian general and Hezbollah leader were killed in the attack, which was labeled an assassination. Soon after, it was revealed that in 2008 the U.S. and Israel organized a terrorist attack in Lebanon that killed a Hezbollah leader. Both events push the Syrian conflict to the tipping point of regional war, and Obama’s silence over Israel’s repeated bombings against Syria only encourage an extremely dangerous regional conflagration.

Equally reckless is that Obama’s Syrian proxy war relied on thousands of Islamic extremists from neighboring countries.  Obama’s funding, training, and tolerating these extremists created the ideal conditions for a group like ISIS to rise from obscurity into a regional colossus.

To date the Obama administration has proposed no peace plan for Syria outside of “regime change.” When the Russian government recently organized a major peace conference to address the Syrian war, the U.S.-led Syrian National Coalition boycotted the talks, and Obama put no public pressure on his allies to attend, when he should have been publicly demanding it. Once the peace conference started neither Obama nor the U.S. media cared much to talk about the happenings, since continued fighting is the priority.

One shouldn’t forget Obama’s Africa policies, where his “successful” bombing campaign-turned regime change in Libya has ruined a country that previously had the highest standard of living on the continent, second only to South Africa. After Obama waged an illegal, aggressive war and assassinated the Libyan president, Muammar Gaddafi, Hillary Clinton said — while giggling — “we came, we saw, he died.”

Libya’s weapons were looted and are now, according to the U.N., being funneled throughout the Middle East in Africa, destabilizing neighboring countries and empowering the Islamic extremists that Obama allied with against Gaddafi (similar to the ones he allied with against Syria’s president).

When it comes to the global economy Obama has been launching financial weapons of mass destruction against his enemies. The economic sanctions against Iran, Russia, N. Korea, Venezuela, Syria, etc., are of course an act of war. This kind of war is described in the book, Treasury’s War, by former Under Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, Juan Zarate, who glamorizes this “new” form of war that the U.S. has a monopoly over, given the U.S. dollar’s preeminence as the global reserve currency.

Another lethal non-military weapon Obama has recklessly used is his helping crash the price of oil. The U.S. media publicly discussed the anti-Russian motive behind Obama intervening in the oil markets, by starting to sell the “strategic oil reserve” held by the U.S. government — intended to be used at times of severe shortages. But Obama started unloading the strategic reserves at a time when there was already increasing global supply. The oil price floor fell out when Obama persuaded Saudi Arabia to ramp up production, flooding the market with cheap oil.

And whereas the Obama administration has kept mum about the Saudi’s accomplice role in crashing the oil market, the Saudis themselves have been pretty open about using their oil weapon to force Russia to drop support for Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. The New York Times reported:

“Saudi Arabia has been trying to pressure President Vladimir Putin of Russia to abandon his support for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, using its dominance of the global oil markets at a time when the Russian government is reeling from the effects of plummeting oil prices.”

Russia’s economy is consequently in free fall, with Iran, Venezuela and every other oil-producing nation suffering massive economic consequences. All of this is barely mentioned in the complicit U.S. media, content with shrugging its shoulders over the subsequent political chaos that directly affects hundreds of millions of people globally, and threatens to boomerang back on the U.S. in the form of unemployment and economic disruption.

All of the above policies have directly created havoc internationally. And today’s world is more inter-connected than ever; the chaos in the oil markets has already caused layoffs in the U.S., and threatens a larger economic conflagration. Obama’s policies in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan have greatly increased the likelihood of another terror attack in the U.S.

In a world of increasing danger and threats of war, the Obama administration has been completely unable to champion any serious peace proposal. His main contribution to global affairs has been chaos and death — either by proxy (Syria and Ukraine), drones (Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, etc.) dollars, gun trafficking, sanctions, or direct military intervention (Afghanistan and Libya).

Even the pathetic “peace process” Obama faked with Israel-Palestine was revealed as farce the second Israel decided to re-destroy the Gaza Strip: Obama gave crucial support to Israel in committing its numerous war crimes.

Obama is aided and abetted in his reckless actions by a media that cheer-leads the government’s every move, except when it encourages a more “aggressive” approach. In this way the above realities of U.S. foreign policy — and the very real dangers they present — are completely obscured from the American public. And when the next inevitable military combustion occurs, the public may be disorientated just long enough to fall victim to scapegoating and fear mongering that can lead to a bi-partisan military “solution.”

Read more

Obama’s foreign policy is bound in a thousand knots, all threatening to unwind. At the same time that the U.S. is engaged in nuclear negotiations with Iran the two are fighting proxy wars against each other in Yemen and Syria.

Which begs the question: are the nuclear talks with Iran really that meaningful, if war is what’s practiced?

Yes, Obama has overcome the objections of the Republicans and the Israeli lobby to pursue the negotiations with Iran. But bombs speak louder than treaties.

Now Obama has turned up the Yemeni war-dial by announcing the U.S. Navy is being parked off the coast of Yemen to tighten the naval blockade, itself an act of war. Interestingly, the media was told explicitly that the U.S. Navy’s presence was directed against Iran to prevent weapon shipments from Iran to the Yemeni Houthis that now rule most of the country.

At the same time that Obama is preventing the Houthis from being armed, he is pouring military hardware into Saudi Arabia, which is using it to bomb Yemen to smithereens, killing hundreds of civilians in the process (the Saudis recently announced an end to their ineffective bombing campaign).

And for what? The stated goal of the Saudi-U.S. war on Yemen is to reinstate the hated Yemeni dictator, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who has no political legitimacy or social support inside of Yemen. The Houthis have much broader support than Hadi ever had.

But attacking the Houthis is “necessary” — from the Saudi-U.S. perspective — because the Houthis receive backing from Iran, not because the Houthis are “terrorists.” In fact, the Houthi’s sworn enemy is al-Qaeda, which the Houthis have battled a thousand times more effectively than Obama’s failed drone assassination program that killed hundreds of Yemeni civilians. But instead of helping the Houthis finish off al-Qaeda, Obama is helping Saudi Arabia attack the Houthis.

It’s a terrible misnomer to label the current Yemeni conflict as a Saudi war. The Saudi’s military is completely funded, trained, and directed by the U.S. military. The Saudi military doesn’t sneeze unless it has U.S. permission. And the Saudis would be unable to wage this war without the key additional U.S. support, including refueling Saudi aircraft and directing the warplanes where to bomb.

In short, Obama could end this war with one public statement demanding Saudi Arabia cease and desist. War over.

But instead, the U.S.-Saudi war on Yemen was allowed to deepen, becoming a humanitarian catastrophe. The U.S.-Saudi forces have essentially blockaded the entire country, preventing anything from coming and going in Yemen, meaning that fuel, food, and basic medical supplies are evaporating.

According to an Oxfam spokesperson:

“…land, sea and air routes must be re-opened [in Yemen] to allow basic commodities like food, fuel and medical supplies to reach millions in desperate need.”

Which brings us back to Iran. It’s difficult to predict Obama’s intentions in participating in “historic” nuclear talks with Iran, while the Yemen and Syria wars continue. Many have argued that Obama’s Iran policy is part of a fundamental shift in his Middle East policy, which is an attempt to become less dependent on Israel and Saudi Arabia.

But ultimately — as the war in Yemen proves — the U.S. will continue to prioritize Saudi Arabia and Israel over Iran. The reason is simple: U.S. foreign policy depends on allies willing to do basically whatever the U.S. wants, a kind of alliance that is rare and takes years to foster and maintain. Unlike the stalwart Saudis and other Gulf monarchy dictatorships, no one expects the Iranians to become subservient to U.S. foreign policy.

Furthermore, the current “strong allies” of the U.S. all view Iran as an “existential” enemy, by virtue of historic, religious, and most importantly, economic rivalries. Iran is a regional power in a region of competing regional powers, most notably Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel, and all.

Read more