BlackMamba Posted June 11, 2014 Posted June 11, 2014 Iraq has gone to the dogs ! http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/11/world/meast/iraq-violence/
gattaca Posted June 11, 2014 Posted June 11, 2014 Add Syria to the list.Afghanistan, Libya is next up. Democracy will not work in most Islamic countries.it works only in progressive Islamic countries.
KeyboardWarrior Posted June 11, 2014 Posted June 11, 2014 The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is more dangerous thn Al-Qaida ....
JaiRamesh2 Posted June 12, 2014 Posted June 12, 2014 Salute to the arsesholes Americans and morons who voted for Bush.
Raghav_12 Posted June 12, 2014 Posted June 12, 2014 Surprised with these developments. How come Sunni militants can take control of Iraq which is Shia dominated. But country has completely gone to dogs. No doubt.
hhunaeh Posted June 12, 2014 Posted June 12, 2014 Surprised with these developments. How come Sunni militants can take control of Iraq which is Shia dominated. But country has completely gone to dogs. No doubt. It seems they are coming in from syria where the sunni opposition is fighting against the govt. The shia govt in iraq was supposedly extremely unfair to its sunni population. The borders are falling apart and entire region is fecked.
hhunaeh Posted June 12, 2014 Posted June 12, 2014 It looks like the country iraq will soon be history, the middle east will be completely destabilized, thousands have died and thousands will follow. And all of this started with a war based on a lie.
Muloghonto Posted June 12, 2014 Posted June 12, 2014 It looks like the country iraq will soon be history' date=' the middle east will be completely destabilized, thousands have died and thousands will follow. And all of this started with a war based on a lie.[/quote'] You know, I don't know why the Americans don't like recalling that TV interview with Clinton after he came to power. Something to do with re-enforcing or ramping up the no-fly zones over Iraq (from 1st Gulf War) and he was asked point blank why don't the Americans just re-invade, finish Saddam and things would be so much better. His response was pretty simple- that Saddam is Iraq and if they removed Saddam (this is 1997 or so) there would be a power vaccum in Iraq. Lookie lookie, guess what has happened in Iraq over the last 10 years. Iraq if a mess, it will be a mess for the foreseeable future. Its a country thats got serious fault-lines : the Shia- Sunni divide compounded by the Kurdish autonomy/independence. To top it off, it is yet another battleground for the Saudi-Irani power struggle.
Muloghonto Posted June 12, 2014 Posted June 12, 2014 On the other hand, here is a different perspective I came across recently: With Ukraiine being the major focus in Russia-West relations, Syria has completely fallen off the radar. Assad was winning the war against the Saudi-backed insurgents a year ago, he is still winning the war. if anything, its now a matter of time before the rebels are all routed(unless something changes). If Assad and his Hezbollah allies are actually able to win decisively in Syria, they may become a third player over Iraq and with with the help of Iran, create a 'Shia corridor of power' stretching from the mediterranean to the arabian sea.
gs Posted June 12, 2014 Posted June 12, 2014 On the other hand, here is a different perspective I came across recently: With Ukraiine being the major focus in Russia-West relations, Syria has completely fallen off the radar. Assad was winning the war against the Saudi-backed insurgents a year ago, he is still winning the war. if anything, its now a matter of time before the rebels are all routed(unless something changes). If Assad and his Hezbollah allies are actually able to win decisively in Syria, they may become a third player over Iraq and with with the help of Iran, create a 'Shia corridor of power' stretching from the mediterranean to the arabian sea. That might not be the worst outcome after all. It will probably keep the nutjobs (sunni Wahabis v/s shia Hezbollah) busy with themselves as they are more evenly matched and maybe spare the rest of the world of their nonsense if we are lucky.
Raghav_12 Posted June 13, 2014 Posted June 13, 2014 US will send fresh help to Iraq: Obama http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/world/us-will-send-fresh-help-to-iraq-obama/article6110281.ece President Barack Obama is weighing a range of short-term military options, including airstrikes, to quell an al-Qaeda inspired insurgency that has captured two Iraqi cities and threatened to press toward Baghdad, less than three years after pulling American forces out of Iraq. “We do have a stake in making sure that these jihadists are not getting a permanent foothold,†Mr. Obama said on Thursday in the Oval Office. Mr. Obama, in his first comments on the deteriorating situation, said it was clear Iraq needed additional assistance from the U.S. and international community given the lightning gains by the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Levant. Republican lawmakers pinned some of the blame for the escalating violence on Mr. Obama’s reluctance to re-engage in a conflict he long opposed. For more than a year, the Iraqi government has been pleading with the U.S. for additional help to combat the insurgency, which has been fuelled by the civil war in neighbouring Syria. Northern Iraq has become a way station for insurgents who routinely travel between the two countries and are spreading the Syrian war’s violence. Iraqi leaders made a fresh request earlier this week, asking for a mix of drones and manned aircraft that could be used for both surveillance and active missions. Officials said Mr. Obama was considering those requests and was expected to decide on a course of action within a few days. The U.S. already is flying unmanned aircraft over Iraq for intelligence purposes, an official said. Short of airstrikes, the president could step up the flow of military assistance to the beleaguered Iraqi government, increase training exercises for the country’s security forces and help boost Iraq’s intelligence capabilities. The U.S. has been leery of its lethal aid falling into the hands of militants or being otherwise misused. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U.S. is sending about $12 million in humanitarian aid to help nearly a million Iraqis who have been forced from their homes by recent fighting. Mr. Obama huddled with his national security team on Thursday to discuss the deteriorating security situation. And Vice President Joe Biden called Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to underscore that while the U.S. stands ready to help, it would be crucial for Iraq to come up with longer-term solutions to its internal political strife. Nearly all American troops left Iraq in December 2011 after Washington and Baghdad failed to negotiate a security agreement that would have kept a limited number of U.S. forces in the country for a few more years at least. Sen. John McCain a frequent White House critic, called on Thursday for Mr. Obama’s entire national security team to resign. House Speaker John Boehner accused the president of “taking a nap†while conditions worsened. But Congress appeared divided over how to respond, with some Republicans backing airstrikes and other lawmakers from both parties suggesting that was the wrong approach. There were no calls for putting American troops back on the ground in Iraq, and Mr. Obama’s advisers said the president had no desire to plunge the U.S. back into a conflict there. “The president is mindful that the United States has sacrificed a lot in Iraq and we need to not just be taking this all back on ourselves,†said Ben Rhodes, Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser. “We need to come up with solutions that can enable the Iraqis to manage their internal security and their internal politics.†Even after American troops left Iraq, the U.S. has continued to send weapons and ammunition although not nearly as much as Baghdad has requested. A U.S. training mission for Iraqi counter-terror forces dwindled to almost nothing earlier this year, and Baghdad asked as early as last summer for armed U.S. drones to track and strike terrorist hideouts. The administration resisted, and similarly rejected options for airstrikes in neighbouring Syria. Instead, the U.S. Embassy has sold small scout helicopters, tanks, guns, rockets and at least 300 Hellfire missiles to Iraqi forces. A U.S. shipment of ScanEagle surveillance drones is to be delivered to Iraq later this summer, and the State Department is trying to speed an order of Apache helicopters to Baghdad. Additionally, Congress is reviewing a $1 billion order of arms, including Humvee vehicles, to Iraq. Several thousand Americans also remain in Iraq, mostly contractors who work at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on programs to train Iraqi forces on American military equipment like fighter jets and tanks. One of the largest training missions was based at the air base in the city of Balad, about an hour northwest of Baghdad, where three planeloads of Americans were being evacuated on Thursday. They included 12 U.S. government officials and military personnel who have been training Iraqi forces to use fighter jets and surveillance drones. There is complete anarchy in Iraq as of now. No governance in much part of the Northern and western Iraq. Intervention of international forces, without any kind of vested interests though, is urgently needed. ISIS would emerge as another al-queda if not stopped at this moment.
Raghav_12 Posted June 13, 2014 Posted June 13, 2014 Islamist Militants Aim to Redraw Map of the Middle East http://online.wsj.com/articles/islamist-militants-aim-to-redraw-map-of-the-middle-east-1402620168 Following article summarizes situation in middle-east pretty well. At an annual security conference in Israel this week, the head of the military showed pictures of two long-dead diplomats. Mark Sykes, an Englishman, and François Georges-Picot, a Frenchman, secured their place in history by cutting a deal that drew the borders of the modern Middle East. The point of recalling the men: It suddenly appears those century-old borders, and the Middle Eastern states they defined, are being stretched and possibly erased. "This entire system is disintegrating like a house of cards that starts to collapse," Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz said. A militant Islamist group that has carved out control of a swath of Syria has moved into Iraq, conquering cities and threatening the Iraqi government the U.S. helped create and support with billions of dollars in aid and thousands of American lives. The group—known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham—isn't a threat only to Iraq and Syria. It seeks to impose its vision of a single radical Islamist state stretching from the Mediterranean coast of Syria through modern Iraq, the region of the Islamic Caliphates established in the seventh and eighth centuries. Governments and borders are under siege elsewhere, as well. For more than a year, Shiite militias from Lebanon have moved into Syria and operated as a virtual arm of the Syrian government. Meanwhile, so many Syrian refugees have gone in the opposite direction—fleeing into Lebanon—that Lebanon now houses more school-age Syrian children than Lebanese children. And in Iraq, the Kurdish population has carved out a homeland in the north of the country that—with the help of Turkey and against the wishes of the Iraqi government—exports its own oil, runs its own customs and immigration operations and fields its own military, known as the Peshmerga. The picture is difficult for the U.S., which is deeply invested in keeping the region stable, and the rapidly deteriorating situation in Iraq is setting off alarm bells inside the Obama administration. The U.S. is weighing more direct military assistance to the government of Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki, the White House said Thursday, and officials hinted that aid might include airstrikes on militants who have edged to within a half-hour's drive of Baghdad. "There will be some short-term immediate things that need to be done militarily," President Barack Obama said. "Our national security team is looking at all the options." Mr. Obama also urged Iraq's Shiite-dominated government to seek political paths for moderate Shiites and Sunnis to work together against jihadists. "This should be also a wake-up call for the Iraqi government," he said. Why are the borders of today's Middle Eastern states suddenly so porous and ineffectual? In short, the conflicts unleashed in Iraq and Syria have merged to become the epicenter of a struggle between the region's historic ethnic and religious empires: Persian-Shiite Iran, Arab-Sunni Saudi Arabia and Turkic-Sunni Muslim Turkey. Those three, each of whom has dominated the whole of the Middle East at one time or another in past millenniums, are now involved in the battle for influence from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia, for example, refuses to recognize the Shiite government of Iraq, backs an array of almost exclusively Sunni Muslim rebel groups in Syria and bitterly opposes the Shiite Hezbollah. Iran conversely, is the biggest backer of the Shiite-linked Syrian regime, has forged deep ties to the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government and assures that Hezbollah, which Iran's Revolutionary Guards nurtured from its birth in the early 1980s, remains impressively armed and trained. The U.S. also has played a role. In the wake of 9/11, it toppled Saddam Hussein, who had no connection to the attacks, and launched an effort to remake Iraq as a first step to transform the region. The Arab uprisings three years ago ousted more iron-fisted rulers, whose authoritarian regimes had kept ethnic and religious tensions in check. Syria's uprising reached no resolution, and instead morphed into a festering civil war. Both sides have turned to religious and ethnic propaganda and brutality to maintain their advantage. The U.S. straddles some of the divisions. It supports the Shiite government it helped create in Iraq, for example, while denouncing the Shiite-linked Syrian regime. Its toppling of an Iraqi leader and encouragement of sectarian rule has helped fan tensions along religious and ethnic lines. The U.S. further undermined indigenous authority with its long, troubled occupation of Iraq as it sought to rebuild the country. Broader changes in the global power structure also have helped unleash change. For decades, the Middle East was locked in place by the Cold War and petro politics. The U.S. supported countries opposed to the Soviet Union and rich in oil—Persian Gulf monarchies, Jordan and Egypt starting in the mid-1970s—while the Soviets supported their friends—Syria, Iraq, Libya at times and South Yemen. The U.S. backed a lot of anti-democratic and despotic regimes, but the result was relative stability. Now, though, the Cold War framework has been shattered, and the growth of new energy sources elsewhere has reduced the premium placed on stability. The trouble for the U.S. and regional powers is that the conflict may have outrun their control, fueled by the rise of the most pernicious groups in chaotic conditions. ISIS is a threat for both Turkey and Saudi Arabia, but its easy conquests over the past week—including Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city—were made possible by governments hobbled by years of insurgency and opposition aided by those two countries and like-minded Arab Gulf residents. Iran, for its part, has encouraged Shiite Muslim militia groups so extreme and violent, and often intent on targeting Sunni Muslims, that many Sunnis are willing to endure ISIS if it provides the protection their own government won't. The mess puts Mr. Obama in a box. A few weeks ago he laid out in a policy speech his rationale for staying out of the mire of such sectarian conflicts, since they seem far removed from concrete U.S. interests. Yet, he now seems to acknowledge the U.S. must do something. The danger for the president is the U.S. are being drawn back into the fray, but with very few options, never mind good ones.
surajmal Posted June 13, 2014 Posted June 13, 2014 India needs to start building a wall on the western border. And give the contract to the Chinese since they got experience with that sort of thing. Gonna need it in a decade. Middle east wants to bring back 7th century, let em.
Vilander Posted June 13, 2014 Posted June 13, 2014 115 per barrel crude if it gets breached then everyone will be cautious, it is breaches 120 **** will get real and the big boys will descend and clean house. As simple as that, NATO hardly cares what happens to ME people its just the crude.
Vilander Posted June 13, 2014 Posted June 13, 2014 India needs to start building a wall on the western border. And give the contract to the Chinese since they got experience with that sort of thing. Gonna need it in a decade. Middle east wants to bring back 7th century' date=' let em.[/quote'] India should. 1, Give Tawang and get southern face of mansorovar and kailash. 2, Give Askai Chin and get chicken neck. 3, Settle border with China, become their friendly state.
hhunaeh Posted June 13, 2014 Posted June 13, 2014 This isn't a country which can be bombed to submission. They will just disperse and regroup after sometime. And bombing sunni cities might exacerbate the long term problem.They will need boots on the ground and solutions to problems that have been difficult to find for a long time in history.
Vilander Posted June 13, 2014 Posted June 13, 2014 This isn't a country which can be bombed to submission. They will just disperse and regroup after sometime. And bombing sunni cities might exacerbate the long term problem.They will need boots on the ground and solutions to problems that have been difficult to find for a long time in history. American Vs Indian war escalation has some differences. For Indians escalation is 0, Coercive diplomacy 1, Boots on ground 2, Naval Blockade 3, Air strikes. For them its. 0, Pay to get the dogs on leash. 1, Naval power projection 2, Air Strikes 3, Boots on ground.
JaiRamesh2 Posted June 13, 2014 Posted June 13, 2014 Hopefully Shias take full control of Syria and Iraq. Better Shias then the more fundamentalists Sunnis..
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