A proposal to focus on Syria, not Iraq, in the war on ISIS, from the Council on Foreign Relations

A news report three days ago asserted that the Baghdad government, after Tikrit, will go South, against ISIS in Anbaar, rather than North, to relieve Kurds in and around Mosul.

The article below argues that the focus should shift to Syria instead of more concentration on Iraq.

Notes on rebel groups mentioned in the article appear after the jump.

[Emphasis and links added]

Foreign Affairs 

March 29, 2015

SNAPSHOT

Iraq Isn't the Right Front

A Syria-First Strategy to Fight ISIS

Hassan Hassan

 Smoke rises after a shell fell on a building that was held by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, March 28, 2015. (Rami Zayat / Reuters)

HASSAN HASSAN is a Middle East analyst and co-author of ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror. 

The battle to retake Tikrit from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has been a serious test of the United States’ current strategy in Iraq. Despite more than 2,320 strikes (costing $1.83 billion) since the summer, ISIS still holds uncontested control of the Sunni heartlands, including in Anbar, Deir Ezzor, Mosul, and Raqqa. If anything, the air strikes have mostly helped Kurdish and Shiite militias push ISIS back from their own territories and deeper into the Sunni ones.

The battle for Tikrit, though, could be different. The defeat of ISIS in Saddam Hussein’s hometown seems likely—but only after the complete destruction of the city. The battle stalled for more than three weeks despite initial expectations that it would be over within days or even hours. ISIS has reportedly been holed up in 1.5 square mile area inside Tikrit, with the Iraqi government announcing last week the final phase of the battle. If ISIS does lose, it would mark the group’s first retreat from the Sunni heartland since it took over large swaths of Iraq and Syria in June last year, undermining the group’s reputation for invincibility. But the potential gains should not distract from important dynamics reshaping the fight to ISIS’ advantage.

In Iraq, the battle against ISIS is increasingly perceived as a sectarian fight led by the Iranian-backed militias that dominate the country’s political and military landscape. As these militias start pushing against ISIS at the borders of Sunni-dominated areas, unease will only grow. The U.S. strategy stipulated that Sunni tribal fighters would be leading the effort to dislodge ISIS in Sunni areas, but the Iraqi government, along with the powerful militias that form the core of the Iranian-backed Hashd al-Shaabi, announced the start of the battle of Tikrit without consulting the U.S.-led international coalition.

In other words, although ISIS’ losses in Tikrit and other Sunni areas would seem like good things, the United States should tread carefully. The air campaign against ISIS has reached a point of saturation; more strikes won’t aid the U.S. battle against ISIS and will only further destabilize the sectarian balance in the country. Kurds and Shia have benefited immensely from the strikes. They’ve been able to guard territory, infrastructure, and power, to the detriment of the overall war against ISIS.

Given this reality, a better battlefield on which to fight ISIS is further north: Syria.

ISIS is far less entrenched in Syria than it is in Iraq. Syrian communities living under ISIS, although glad for the relative stability that ISIS has brought, view the group with profound suspicion. They see ISIS as an impermanent force that might be better at governance than previous groups but that will eventually be dislodged. And they have steered clear from joining it in large numbers; many express a deep revulsion at the group that killed hundreds of tribesmen belonging to prominent tribes in eastern Syria, including the Sha’itat in Deir Ezzor.

Even so, ISIS has worked hard to entrench itself in northern and eastern Syria. Any anti-ISIS activist operating in these areas is marked for death, and the group has beaten down most potential rivals. Many of those who would have fought against ISIS have left for Turkey or are doing battle against Assad in rebel-held areas elsewhere in the country. The pool of warriors that could conceivably fight ISIS is thus dwindling in number and resolve. But it is still possible to rally enough fighters around retaking territory from ISIS.

There are some promising signs: earlier this month, one of the most powerful rebel factions, Jaish al-Islam, announced the formation of Ali bin Abi Taleb brigade to fight ISIS in the northeast. Such announcements are not mere rhetoric. Last spring, rebel forces in the north successfully pushed ISIS out of the eastern cities of Idlib and Aleppo. In December, Jaish al-Islam chased ISIS from Damascus into the mountainous Qalamoun region. Similar groups have tried to take on ISIS in the northeast before; the Syrian Revolutionary Front (SRF), for example, pledged to send “convoys after convoys” to retake Raqqa and Deir Ezzor before Western air strikes on Iraq began over the summer. Because of a lack of international support, though, the group started to disintegrate and then was fully dismantled by the al Qaeda­–affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra earlier this year.

This time, with international backing, such fighters could be effective. But they have to be trained, funded, and equipped to fight the Assad regime as much as to fight ISIS. Perception matters in the fight against the terrorist group. A thousand fighters who have attacked regime targets would be far more effective against ISIS than many thousands who are seen by their communities as mercenaries of foreign governments. Groups such as Liwa al-Tawhid and Jaish al-Islam, for example, were able to successfully push ISIS from their areas (and hold those areas) because they had made remarkable gains against the regime, and local communities were more willing to back them. Branches of Ahfad al-Rasoul and SRF, which were perceived to be serving foreign interests focusing on extremists, had far more trouble.

And, for the fighters themselves, feeling that they are part of the overall revolutionary cause in their country is necessary for morale. Indeed, according to U.S. sources familiar with the existing CIA training program for Syrian rebels, many of those who were trained since December 2012 as counterweights to extremists—between 1,500 and 2,000 fighters—have abandoned the war altogether because they saw the program as aimless. One prominent FSA commander from Idlib said that local communities and even other rebel groups view any fight focusing on extremist forces as driven by foreign countries “unless you’re fighting on two fronts at the same time.”

And that leads to two points. First, partnership with the Assad regime to fight against ISIS will not be effective outside the areas that the regime controls, because Assad does not have the resources, the legitimacy, or the popular support needed there. Second, the West should provide weapons, funding, and training to enable the moderate rebels to make some gains against the regime, short of toppling it. And it should give them military and political backing to build a credible and effective brand. Realistically, it is not likely that the rebels would be able to topple the regime, and allowing them to try in earnest is probably irresponsible at this juncture. A good compromise would be to enable moderates and moderate Islamist rebels to take some territory from the regime, which will help them gain credibility within their communities and, in turn, help them justify turning against extremists.

The strategy must enable the rebels to feel secure in their own areas, especially in Aleppo, and prevent the regime from seizing the opportunity to attack them from behind if they push against ISIS. After Aleppo, winning the cities of al-Bab and Minbij (the first is located near Turkey and the other between Aleppo and Raqqa) would be a good step. ISIS’ loss of these territories would put massive pressure on it in Deir Ezzor, Hasaka, and Raqqa, especially if a joint Kurdish-Arab force pushes on ISIS from Qamashli. The strategy would also jibe well with Washington’s stated policy of trying to pressure Assad to accept a negotiated settlement.

In all of these plans, consistency is key. American support for the rebels should be steady and should not be limited to weapons. It should involve managing differences among backers of the Syrian opposition to ensure that the forces work closely with each other, even if they are not directly supported by the United States. Training and sufficient ammunition and weapons, including TOW missiles, which have played a remarkable role in recent rebel gains, should not be stopped on whims. Rebels blamed the recent disintegration of the SRF [Syria Revolutionaries Front] on the sudden disruption of support to the rebels in northern Syria, which enabled Jabhat al-Nusra to dominate the region.

Air cover and close coordination will be vital as rebel groups gain more territory and subsequently more credibility. Rebel victories will deprive ISIS of two essential propaganda tools it often uses against the Assad forces as well as Shia and Kurdish militias in Syria and Iraq: sectarian and political grievances, since the Syrian rebels are Sunni and largely conservative. That is why fighting ISIS in Syria will be far more effective than the current battles in Iraq. The shift to fighting ISIS in Syria will avoid the complication of sectarian tensions. Even so, the battles in Iraq must continue as ISIS disintegrates, and the two fronts must ultimately be coordinated to strike against the group wherever it shows weakness. The current “Iraq-first” strategy ignores ISIS’ weaknesses in Syria and allows it to entrench itself there while the battles in Iraq play into its hands.

The current U.S. strategy is designed to help the war against ISIS in Iraq. But it will likely backfire as the war there takes on an increasingly sectarian tinge. Even the plan to train Syrian rebels to fight ISIS, according to one source in Washington, is meant to help guard the borders between Syria and Iraq rather than to aid in a strategy to dislodge ISIS in Syria. Fighting ISIS in Syria itself would be a better bet.

News organizations report that Iran is and is not boycotting US and French air strikes in Tikrit, The article today, from the Washington Post, is the most reliable.


The Washington Post

Friday, March 27 2015

WorldViews



Call to arms a reminder of the power of Iraq’s Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani

Washington Post

By Abigail Hauslohner June 13, 2014


It has been a while since Americans paid much attention to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s top Shiite cleric.

But a call to arms issued at Friday prayers in Baghdad served as a reminder of the power that Sistani yields in a country that is once again fracturing along sectarian lines.

With Sunni militants gaining territory rapidly, a representative of Sistani told followers that the defense of the country against those “terrorists” was a “sacred goal,” and that anyone who died fighting to that end “will be a martyr.’’

Sistani emerged from relative passivity after Saddam Hussein’s ouster by U.S. forces in 2003 to become a vocal religious and political guide for Iraq’s suddenly empowered Shiite masses.

His words Friday marked a radical departure for a man who has played a powerful hand in shaping Iraqi politics, but has typically urged Iraqi Shiites to resist provocation to sectarian bloodshed.

And as the most powerful religious authority in Iraq, Sistani’s words were likely to find support among the country’s Shiites and political leaders, who are desperate to hold on to power and have a fleet of well-trained Shiite militias ready to act.

Sistani was born nearly a century ago into a family of religious scholars in Iran, and spent his youth there before taking up a humble residence in Iraq's holy city of Najaf.

He survived Saddam Hussein’s brutal crackdown on Shiite opposition and members of the Shiite clerical community by staying silent.

Under Maliki’s government, Sistani’s power as a religious leader expanded. Shiites often solicit religious advice or decisions from Sistani on topics that have ranged from from marriage and war to computer games and sports.

Now 83, Sistani  has spoken repeatedly in recent years of retirement. It’s unclear why he has never followed through.

Experts say Sistani, who still speaks with a Persian accent, maintains close ties to Iran’s powerful clerics — and controls the purse strings of a vast charitable Shiite empire.

Andrew Tabler, an expert on Arab politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Sistani’s call to arms most likely reflected some collaboration with Tehran.


Abigail Hauslohner covers transportation and development for The Washington Post. Previously, she served as the Post’s Cairo bureau chief.

Lightly-armed Houthi concuer Yemen

The Houthi, lightly armed and brave and brutal, have routed the national military, well-armed by the United States and supported by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Gulf Dictatorships and for years the might of the US  drones.

Ya gotta hand it to them.  Brave determined tribesmen and their brave determined wies with only isolated Iran to support them and its support embargoed by the US navy

Insurgency in Yemen detailed Map    Controlled by Hadi loyalists    Controlled by Al-Qaeda    Controlled by Houthis    Deserted

For a clear summary of the Houti Rebellion, see the Wikipedia article.  You can see from the map that the Houthi control most of the population of Yemen.

The New York Times

MIDDLE EAST

Houthi Rebels Release Yemeni Officials From House Arrest

By KAREEM FAHIMMARCH 16, 2015

CAIRO — Houthi rebels released Yemen’s former prime minister and members of his cabinet after nearly two months of house detention on Monday, in a sign of some progress toward easing the country’s chaotic political crisis.

In a note he posted on his Facebook page on Monday, former Prime Minister Khaled Bahah called his release a “good-will gesture,” and praised the Houthi leadership as well as the United Nations envoy to Yemen for arranging it. The release means that he and the other ministers have “absolute freedom to travel inside and outside the country,” he said.

Mr. Bahah also said he hoped his release could help rescue the country from a deepening crisis that began in September, when the Houthis, a Zaydi Shiite rebel group from northern Yemen, took control of the capital, Sana. The rebels were demanding political reforms from the government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

In January, the rebels expanded their power grab by seizing the presidential palace and placing Mr. Hadi, Mr. Bahah and the rest of the government under house arrest.

Last month, Mr. Hadi fled Houthi custody and traveled to the southern port city of Aden, where he declared that he was still Yemen’s rightful president. Seeking to bolster that claim, several Persian Gulf nations announced that they were moving their embassies to Aden.

The United States, which closed its embassy in Sana in February after the arrest of Mr. Hadi, has not announced any plans to move its diplomatic facilities to Aden.

Even before the crisis began, Yemen was the region’s most impoverished country, suffering from a vacuum of central authority that made it an attractive haven for a powerful affiliate of Al Qaeda. Now, with Yemen split between competing power centers in the north and south, concerns have also grown that the dispute could devolve into a civil war.

The crisis has also transformed Yemen into a stage for the region’s enmities. The Houthis, facing growing international isolation in the capital they control, have turned to their longtime Iranian allies for support, while Saudi Arabia, Iran’s rival, has rallied the monarchies of the Persian Gulf behind Mr. Hadi.

In his message on Monday, Mr. Bahah, who had resigned his post after his arrest, said he and the government would not resume their duties and warned of “dire consequences” if the political process was abandoned.

He said he was leaving the capital to be with his family, and called his long ordeal “a unique experience in my career.”

The Iranian missiles  in Iraq are not precision guided and the US is worried because civilian deaths might cause sectarian strife.  

The bombs the US dropped on Baghdad in its Shock and Awe Operation were not precision guided,  and they didn’t cause sectarian strife.  Did they?

The US now has a choice:  give Iraq precision-guided missiles or do all the heavy lifting itself.  It is unseemly for the US to stand on the sideline and carp.

The New York Times

MIDDLE EAST 

Iran Sent Arms to Iraq to Fight ISIS, U.S. Says

By ERIC SCHMITTMARCH 16, 2015

WASHINGTON — Iran has deployed advanced rockets and missiles to Iraq to help fight the Islamic State in Tikrit, a significant escalation of firepower and another sign of Iran’s growing influence in Iraq.

United States intelligence agencies detected the deployments in the past few weeks as Iraq was marshaling a force of 30,000 troops — two-thirds of them Shiite militias largely trained and equipped by Iran, according to three American officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence reports on Iran.

Iran has not yet launched any of the weapons, but American officials fear the rockets and missiles could further inflame sectarian tensions and cause civilian casualties because they are not precision guided. Their deployment is another dilemma for the Obama administration as it trains and equips the Iraqi military and security services to help defeat the Islamic State, but unlike Iran is unwilling to commit fighters and advisers who join Iraqi forces in the field.

Official grab for power extends beyond the grave

From The New York Times:  

China forbids Dalai Lama from refusing to reincarnate.

The Han - the world's largest ethnic group and the present rulers of China- have become e il Monty Python. 

I don’t think the Dalai Lama would mind if you saw this through the prism of Monty Python,” Robert Barnett, director of the modern Tibetan studies program at Columbia University, said in a telephone interview. “But he is reminding the Chinese that, from his perspective and the perspective of probably nearly all Tibetans, the Chinese don’t really have a credible role in deciding these things.”

Imagine sitting in on a meeting of the Politburo when it is discussing alternatives means  of  compelling compliance with it's dictates.  

The meeting oc of the Politburo  is both as hilarious and as chilling as a meeting of the Republican Senate Foreign Relations Committee trying to figure out how to accept Iran's help in fighting the Islamist State:  can't be done, by Republicans.   

The atheist government of China trying to figure out how to frame an edict directed to the corps of the Dali Lama, to force the corps to reincarnate is -- well, can't be done either.

The Dali Lama, by suggesting that he will not reincarnate, is playing a last, best trick on the Han, who have gone mad with a desire to compel all within the borders of China to adopt the mores that work so well for the Han but that fit with great discomfort with Tibetans, Uighurs, Taiwanese, and many other ethnic groups who find themselves living within the artificial borders of "China."

The political elites of all countries except for the Republic of Tuva play out a Theater of thee Absurd and their power for harm is awful (original mealing).  

Even as this blog post is published, Tibetans are immolating themselves in protest to the Han rule.  One hundred thirty-seven Tibetans have self-immolated since 2009.  There names are here.

Self-immolation hurts.  You have to seriously object to governmental idiocy, and feel helpless to stop its insensible harm to do it.

The Dali Lama's suggestion that he might not reincarnate isn't just a problem for China.  There are five Autonomous Republics in the Russian Federation that have a majority of folks who are Tibetan Buddhist, and who refer the Dali Lama.  A failure by him to reincarnate would cause grater disturbances in those republics and dissension between China and Russia.

Priests praying and beating a drum at a new Buddhist temple in a suburb of Ulan Ude, capital of Buyatia Republic, Russia. Photo: Japhet Weeks

The Times story is after the jump.

Yesterday's battle for Doreen town, Syria: 50 men killed; who mourns and celebrates the dead; the living

For a huge exploration of Syria today, see

Isis, carnage and 3.5m refugees: a day devoted to Syria's four-year war | World news | The Guardian

Highly recommended

Walt Whitman, A Child Said, What is Grass?  

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and
from offspring taken soon out of their mother’s laps,
And here you are the mother’s laps.

On America's Civil War

ReutersMore: Reuters World

Syrian army repels attack on village in west: monitor, military source

• REUTERS

• MAR. 12, 2015, 6:44 AM
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Thomson ReutersFree Syrian Army fighters prepare mortar shells before firing towards forces loyal to Syria's president Bashar Al-Assad on the outskirts of Doreen town, in Jabal al-Akrad area in Syria's northwestern Latakia province

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian government forces and allied militia have repelled an insurgent attack on a village in western Syria of strategic importance to both sides, with dozens of combatants killed, a monitoring group said on Thursday.

A Syrian military source also said the army had repelled the attack on Wednesday on Doreen, some 30 km (20 miles) east of the Mediterranean coast. The army took Doreen a week ago from groups including the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.

Doreen is important because of its high elevation overlooking surrounding areas. It lies in the coastal area seen as a priority for Damascus as the government tries to consolidate its control over territory stretching north from the capital through Homs and Hama and then west to the Mediterranean.

Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, said the insurgents entered Doreen on Wednesday night but were driven back to its outskirts. More than 50 combatants were killed on both sides, he said.

The Syrian military source said between 25 and 40 insurgents were killed and a small number of Syrian soldiers suffered light wounds.

A statement posted on an official Nusra Front Twitter feed on Wednesday said its fighters had expelled enemy forces from Doreen. But it had not been updated on Thursday.

The Nusra Front is the strongest insurgent group in western Syria, but was dealt a heavy blow early this month when its top military commander was killed in an air strike that the Syrian army said it carried out.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Tom Heneghan; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

This article originally appeared at Reuters. Copyright 2015. Follow Reuters on Twitter.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-syrian-army-repels-attack-on-village-in-west-monitor-military-source-2015-3#ixzz3UC9o2b5v

This might be what happened to the Tikrit football squad

You may think of Tikrit as a mere trinket; it is't

Iranian and Iraqi forces are in the center of Tikrit and seem likely to route Islamic State forces from the city. 3/11/15.

images of Tikrit will give you some idea of what is at stake:

Maps

Saddam's presidential palace in Tikrit:

File:US Navy 030419-M-9124R-015 7th Marine Regiment Chaplin, Father Bill Devine speaks to U.S. Marines assigned to the 5th Marine Regiment during Catholic Mass at one of Saddam Hussein's palaces in Tikrit

  Isis 'beheads three men for homosexuality and blasphemy' in Iraq  A religious authority reads out the death sentence.

The University of Tikit:

War with ISIS

Iraqi gunships attack militants

ISIS in the city

Iran and Iraq rescue the city

THE CITY AT PEACE

If you are puzzled about what position your country should take about the Southern Movement in Yemen

If you are puzzled about what position your country should take about the Southern Movement in Yemen, please encourage your government to take any position opposed by the Saudis.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal

Saudi Arabia has affirmed that its position on Yemen's national and regional unity, as well as its independence and sovereignty, remains "constant" in Saudi policy.

The comment came in a statement issued by a Saudi Foreign Ministry official and quoted by the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) on Sunday, in order to clarify an earlier statement made by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal in which the term "South Yemen" was used.

The source said that Al-Faisal's use of the term during a joint press conference with US Secretary of State John Kerry last Thursday – in which he referred to the transfer of the legitimate government of the Republic of Yemen to South Yemen – specifically meant the transfer of the legitimate government to the southern city of Aden following the Houthi's coup in the capital Sanaa.

The source said that the Saudi stance on Yemen's national and regional unity, independence and sovereignty remains constant in its policy. The source added that Saudi Arabia continues to call on Yemenis to preserve their national unity amidst the country's various social, religious and political factions and movements, and not to make any decisions that would dismantle the social fabric of Yemen and stir up internal strife.

Last Thursday, during the joint press conference with Kerry, Al-Faisal was asked about the role of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) towards of the Shiite Houthi group in Yemen. The Saudi foreign minister responded that the GCC states have taken various actions in this regard since "the Houthis seized the Yemeni government and detained the President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi."

He noted that the Gulf countries continue to emphasise the importance of legitimacy in Yemen, saying that it is the only way forward for the country's internal security. They are also happy with the presence of the Yemeni president in South Yemen and the statements he made from there, Al-Fasial added.

He explained that the Kingdom and the GCC states are in support of the Yemeni president's stance and his announcement of a meeting between Yemeni factions outside Yemen, probably in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi foreign minister also noted that there is an agreement at the international level on the rejection of the Houthi coup and their attempts to impose a de facto situation on the ground.

Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi arrived in Aden, south of Yemen, on 21 February after he fled the house arrest that was imposed on him in Sanaa by the Houthi militia who control the northern half of the country.

North and South Yemen were unified on 22 May 1990, followed by a four-year civil war during which the then-Vice President, Salem Al-Bayd (aided by Saudi Arabia) unilaterally announced secession.

The Southern Movement, which has demanded secession since 14 October 2014, has recently staged open sit-ins in Aden and Makla (the largest cities in Hadramount).

〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰

Yemen's former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, vigorously supported by the Saudis and the US, was nevertheless forced to flee Hemen  by popular uprising, with a mer $5,00,000,000 of Yemen's sorely-needed money in his possession.

Saleh's family:

The people who oppose him

The Saudi who support his keeping his Five Billion Dollars.

American support of Saleh, as many see it

Iraq, the gift from Bushco that keeps on giving

IRAQ, from the fevered

 imaginations of 

international hawks,

 now supported by

 international

malefactors of great

wealth.

(Theodore Roosevelt was our first great Trust Buster.  May he not be the last)

(A principle of particle physics:  Two things indistinguishable from each other is the same thing. The principle applies to Netanyahu and Bushco then and now . And now John McCain and Mias Lindsay Graham want us in a ground war in Syria.)

From Haaretz Blog, published in Israel.

HAARETZ

DIPLOMANIA

by Barak Ravid

Iraq 2002, Iran 2012: Compare and contrast Netanyahu's speeches

The arguments are the same, the intonation is the 

same, even the advisers are the same.

By Barak Ravid | Oct. 4, 2012 | 3:18 PM |  11

euters

Text size

“There is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking and is working and is advancing towards the development of nuclear weapons – no question whatsoever,” Netanyahu, then a private citizen, told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on September 12, 2002. “And there is no question that once he acquires it, history shifts immediately.”

A video clip from the 2002 hearing has been making the rounds of the Internet over the past few days, after it was posted by American blogger Jim Lobe at almost the same time as Netanyahu was addressing the United Nations General Assembly last week.

During last week’s speech, Netanyahu stressed that if Iran is not stopped, it will be on the verge of producing a nuclear weapon by next spring, or by summer at the latest. Therefore, Netanyahu argued, a red line must be drawn to stop the Iranian nuclear program.

Netanyahu’s remarks during the 2002 congressional hearing sounded very similar to his UN speech. The arguments are the same, the intonation is the same, even the advisers are the same – Netanyahu’s current diplomatic adviser, Ron Dermer, who wrote the prime minister’s UN address, can be seen in the 10-year-old video sitting behind Netanyahu in the congressional hall.

Aside from the fact that both Dermer and Netanyahu look 10 years younger, the primary difference between the two videos is one word: 2002’s Iraq has been replaced by Iran in 2012. Here are some more quotes:

“There’s no question that [Saddam] has not given upon on his nuclear program, not [sic] whatsoever. There is also no question that he was not satisfied with the arsenal of chemical and biological weapons that he had and was trying to perfect them constantly…So I think, frankly, it is not serious to assume that this man, who 20 years ago was very close to producing an atomic bomb, spent the last 20 years sitting on his hands. He has not. And every indication we have is that he is pursuing, pursuing with abandon, pursuing with every ounce of effort, the establishment of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. If anyone makes an opposite assumption or cannot draw the lines connecting the dots, that is simply not an objective assessment of what has happened. Saddam is hell-bent on achieving atomic bombs, atomic capabilities, as soon as he can.”

“Today the United States must destroy the same regime because a nuclear-armed Saddam will place the security of our entire world at risk. And make no mistake about it — if and once Saddam has nuclear weapons, the terror networks will have nuclear weapons.”

“Two decades ago, it was possible to thwart Saddam’s nuclear ambitions by bombing a single installation. But today, nothing less than dismantling his regime will do, because Saddam’s nuclear program has fundamentally changed in those two decades. He no longer needs one large reactor to produce the deadly material necessary for atomic bombs. He can produce it in centrifuges the size of washing machines that can be hidden throughout the country. And I want to remind you that Iraq is a very big country. It is not the size of Monte Carlo. It is a big country. And I believe that even free and unfettered inspections will not uncover these portable manufacturing sites of death.”

Six months after that congressional hearing, the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003 and overthrew Saddam’s regime. Then U.S. President George W. Bush justified the war by claiming that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and had to be prevented from using them. But despite extensive searches conducted all over Iraq, no evidence of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons or weapons development was ever found.

In the years following the invasion, there was heavy criticism of both Israel and of pro-Israel lobbyists in the U.S., who were accused of dragging America into the war with Iraq, which cost the lives of thousands of U.S. soldiers.

In recent months, similar allegations have been heard regarding Netanyahu’s exertion of pressure on U.S. President Barack Obama on the issue of Iran’s nuclear program. Such criticism is being voiced by senior American commentators, as well as on blogs and in social media.

The fact that the 2002 video is going viral now is evidence that many in the United States – especially those identified with the Democratic Party – believe that in the same way Netanyahu pushed the Bush administration into a war against Iraq, he is trying today to press Obama to launch military action against Iran.

It certainly isn’t fair to suggest that the Iranian nuclear program, or its desire to acquire nuclear weapons, is the product of Netanyahu’s feverish imagination. One need only read the reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency to understand that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are real and a serious problem.

Still, it seems at times that Netanyahu has been using the Iranian issue as a hammer with which to browbeat both the U.S. administration and his domestic political rivals.

THE NEW YORK

 TIMES (Punch:  What 

foos these mortals be)

MIDDLE EAST

Iran Gains Influence in Iraq as Shiite Forces Fight ISIS

By ANNE BARNARDMARCH 5, 2015

Photo

Iranian-backed militias, working with Iraqi security forces, gathered on Thursday in Samarra, Iraq, during their counteroffensive against Islamic State militants in Tikrit.CreditAhmad Al-Rubaye/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

AWJA, Iraq — All along the green irrigated plains in the heart of what American occupying troops used to call the Sunni triangle, lampposts and watchtowers are flying the flags of the Badr Organization, a Shiite militia long hated and feared by many Iraqi Sunnis.

The road from Baghdad to Tikrit is dotted with security checkpoints, many festooned with posters of Iran’s supreme leader and other Shiite figures. They stretch as far north as the village of Awja, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein, on the edge of Tikrit, within sight of the hulking palaces of the former ruler who ruthlessly crushed Shiite dissent.

Continue reading the main story

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  Iraqi Offensive to Retake Tikrit From ISIS BeginsMARCH 2, 2015

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  U.S. and Iran Face Common Enemies in Mideast StrifeJAN. 6, 2014

More openly than ever before, Iran’s powerful influence in Iraq has been on display as the counteroffensive against Islamic State militants around Tikrit has unfolded in recent days. At every point, the Iranian-backed militias have taken the lead in the fight against the Islamic State here. Senior Iranian leaders have been openly helping direct the battle, and American officials say Iran’s Revolutionary Guards forces are taking part.

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Iraqi officials, too, have been unapologetic about the role of the militias. They project confidence about their fighting abilities and declare that how to fight the war is Iraq’s decision, as militia leaders criticize American pressure to rely more on regular forces.

On Thursday, as they showed journalists around the outskirts of the battle, leaders of militias and regular forces alike declared that there was no distinction between the two; that the militias were a legitimate force under the government’s chain of command. And like the militiamen, many police officers and soldiers decorated their checkpoints and helmets with Shiite slogans and symbols.

What has been conspicuously absent in this fight, in the eyes of some Iraqis, has been the United States, whose airstrikes have assisted in earlier battles to roll back the Islamic State but have not been brought to bear in this new and crucial battle.

On Thursday, one of the militiamen, Mohammad al-Samarrai, 28, stood near a ruined mosque in the village of Muatassim, southeast of the city of Samarra, that he and his comrades had taken back from Islamic State militants on Monday. His face brightened at the sight of an American reporter, and he explained that he loved to see Americans because his brother had worked as an interpreter for American troops and now lives in Virginia.

But now, he said, he was confused that the United States did not seem to be throwing its full weight behind Iraq’s fight against the militants.

“After Saddam fell, American policy was helping the Iraqi people,” he said. “So why now are they helping the very same enemy that used to kill the American soldiers? If only they would remember the American soldiers killed by Al Qaeda.”

Kareem al-Jabri, a former teacher who now heads an artillery unit for the militias, known as popular mobilization committees, explained the new order of things more directly: “Iran is the principal supporter of Iraq, for the people and the army,” he said. “Iran is a real, true partner.”

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Mohannad al-Ikabi, a spokesman for the militias, declared: “Iran is the only country that is actually responding to what is happening.”

But the commander of the Badr Organization, Mueen al-Kadhumi, joked that Americans had contributed to the fight — on the other side. He was referring to the Islamic State’s claims that an American suicide bomber had carried out an attack for the group on Monday. Near Muatassim, militiamen pointed to a crater that they said came from that explosion. A Badr flag has been planted beside the hole.

During the operation, Iraqi state television has sought to emphasize the competence and cooperation of militia and regular forces. While militias make up the bulk of ground forces, the Iraqi Air Force has carried out strikes, and Iraqi news channels have shown grainy pilot’s-eye footage of bombs hitting their targets — much like the ones often released by the Pentagon.

Thursday’s trip made apparent the complex nature of Iraq’s war effort. So far it has heavily relied on the Shiite militias, who are powerfully motivated by ISIS’s belief that Shiites are apostates who deserve death. But the militias’ involvement carries a risk of further inflaming sectarian tensions that ISIS has exploited — as has already happened in some places where Sunni residents have reported abuse or summary executions by the militias.

Officials said that as many as 5,000 local Sunnis had joined the counteroffensive for Tikrit. But Mr. Jabri, the artillery commander, and other militia leaders said their main function was not fighting, but providing intelligence and basic guidance to the militia fighters, who are mostly from Baghdad and southern Iraq and do not know the area.

Even as militia leaders declared that they were inseparable from the Iraqi state, the Shiite identity of the combined forces marching on Tikrit was on vivid display — jarring in an area long known as a Sunni stronghold.

The tour convoy began at the Badr Organization’s headquarters in Baghdad. There, over a breakfast of bread dipped in tahini, fighters embraced visiting clerics and recounted missions to Syria to defend the shrine of Sayeda Zeinab, holy to Shiites.

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The fighters showed enthusiasm, expressed in both patriotic and religious terms. Many said they had left jobs to volunteer in the militia after Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most senior Shiite cleric, called on all Iraqis to join the effort.

Vehicles were draped with the Badr flag and Shiite slogans. Religious battle songs blared from a sound system atop a bus; on its rear window, “God is Great” was spray-painted in pink.

The first stop along the road was Samarra, a mixed Sunni-Shiite city that was once a hub of Sunni insurgents fighting the Americans. Qaeda insurgents bombed a revered Shiite shrine there in 2006, provoking years of tit-for-tat sectarian attacks. Its dome, now half-rebuilt, glimmers gold beneath a scaffolding, and towering portraits of the Shiite imams Hussein and Ali now stand in a main traffic circle.

At federal police headquarters, there was a spread of grilled fish served beside Samarra’s reservoir, as the smoke of battle rose in the distance.

Many villages along the road seemed nearly empty, except for a few residents and shepherds who cautiously approached checkpoints on foot, holding white flags. The tour provided no time to talk to local Sunnis. But some said in separate interviews that they supported the effort and even the militias.

“They left their provinces to help us,” said Saleem al-Jabouri, 28, a government employee. “No one else has helped to liberate our areas, not even our tribal neighbors.”

At the edge of Tikrit, a blocked road marked the beginning of Islamic State territory. Militiamen worked a base that looked out on the city and Saddam’s palaces, once occupied by American soldiers, and more recently by ISIS.

At the base, Nizar al-Asadi, a militia member and engineer, compared the war effort to the battles of Imam Hussein 1400 years ago, adding, “His history is repeating itself.”

“Iraq is defending the whole world,” he said. “Your freedom is assured as long as you are with us.”