Susan Walsh/Getty Josh Rogin Josh Rogin facebook tweet post POLITICS 10.02.14 Obama’s Ex-CIA Chief Slams White House for ‘Hesitation and Half Steps’

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/02/panetta-slams-obama-for-hesitation-and-half-steps-on-syria.html

In a forthcoming book, obtained by The Daily Beast, former spy director and Pentagon leader Leon Panetta blames the White House for screwups from Syria to Afghanistan.

The president’s White House staff was controlling, insular, and often ignored the advice of its senior national security officials, former Defense Secretary and CIA Director Leon Panetta charges in his yet-to-be-released memoir. The result, Panetta says: botched U.S. policies from Syria to Iraq to Afghanistan.

Panetta—whose new book, Worthy Fights, is set to be released Oct. 7—is particularly tough on his former boss on the issue of Syria. (A copy of the book was obtained by The Daily Beast.) President Obama had called the use of chemical weapons there a “red line.” So when the Syrian military used chemical weapons in August 2013 to kill an estimated 1,400 people, Obama decided to strike. But then the president abruptly reversed himself—without consulting his national security Cabinet members.

The U.S. eventually secured an agreement to hold off on any attacks in exchange for Assad handing over his chemical weapons. But that deal was a mistake, according to Panetta.

“The result, I felt, was a blow to American credibility. When the president as commander in chief draws a red line, it is critical that he act if the line is crossed. The power of the United States rests on its word,” he wrote. “Assad’s action clearly defied President Obama’s warning; by failing to respond, it sent the wrong message to the world.”

Panetta also noted that Obama overruled him and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when the president decided not to arm the Syrian rebels—an admittedly risky proposition—in 2012. The current ghastly situation in Syria shows the results of the White House’s policy, he wrote.

“Hesitation and half steps have consequences as well—and those remain to be determined,” Panetta said.

Throughout the book, Panetta repeats that senior White House staffers, such as National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, then-Counterterrorism Advisor John Brennan, and Deputy National Security Advisor Dennis McDonough (who later became Chief of Staff) had more influence and control over national security policy than senior officials such as him and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“The result, I felt, was a blow to American credibility. When the president as commander in chief draws a red line, it is critical that he act if the line is crossed. The power of the United States rests on its word.”

“There was nothing wrong with that, but that did have the effect of reducing the importance of the Cabinet members who actually oversaw their agencies,” Panetta stated. “Those agency heads were rarely encouraged to take their own initiative or lobby for priorities.”

Analysis of the Capture of the Iraqi City of Hit by ISIS

ISIS Captures Anbar City in Coordinated Offensive

Lauren Squires and Christopher Kozak

Institute for the Study of War , October 3, 2014

On October 2, ISIS detonated three SVBIEDs in Hit, a city between Ramadi and Haditha, targeting security checkpoints at the western and eastern entrances of the city as well as the city center. Hit is one of the few remaining areas in the Thar Thar area of Anbar Province that is not under ISIS control. ISIS followed this initial SVBIED wave with a ground attack and now reportedly controls between 70 and 90% of Hit. Local nationals report ISIS members moving freely around the city and black flags flying over government buildings.
Hit occupies a strategic position along the Euphrates River Valley arm, and ISIS likely seeks to control Hit in order to counterbalance ISF control of Haditha, a city that has been highly contested between ISF and ISIS for the past several months. The attack on Hit is the latest in a series of operations that ISIS has conducted in Anbar province in order to gain freedom of movement and maneuver and to develop a secure staging area in preparation for further consolidating territory in the western Baghdad avenue of approach. Additionally, ISIS could be intensifying its effort in Anbar Province to eliminate tribal retaliatory attack planning. In the past two weeks ISIS has besieged an ISF base in Albu Aitha, north of Ramadi and overrun a second ISF position in Saqlawiyah northwest of Fallujah. ISIS persistently conducts attacks against emplaced ISF positions in the Euphrates River corridor to prevent ISF reinforcements from entering the province and to break ISF lines of communication to the outer Euphrates River belt.

ISIS’s Anbar urban offensive likely employs several different pincer movements in the outer Baghdad Belts and in the Euphrates River Valley, deliberately alternating its tactical engagements in time and space in order to keep the ISF and other adversarial forces off balance. ISIS attacks northwest of Baghdad appear to offset from ISIS attacks southwest of Baghdad, for example, and ISIS is offensives in eastern Anbar appear to offset from attacks in outer Anbar near Haditha. ISIS has been active in each of these locations over the last few weeks. ISIS tactics in the outer Anbar province also suggest ISIS commands from at least two distinct operational headquarter in Anbar. These two commands frame the Haditha-Ramadi corridor.

One headquarters element exercises control from the outer northwest Thar Thar region to middle Anbar, a block we have previously assessed to conduct attacks and provide strategic reinforcement along this corridor. The Thar Thar region that stretches from Fallujah north to Samarra is a likely stronghold for ISIS since the Abu Ghraib Prison attack in July 2013. ISIS took control of the Muthanna Complex there on June 11, 2014 - only a day after Mosul fell. The ISF have increasingly targeted villages on the southern edge of the region, such as Garma, after ISIS entered Fallujah in December 2013, but the evidence indicates that ISIS probably maintains a significant force in this zone.

Follow a #Pilgrim on Their #Hajj to #Mecca

BY SIOBHÁN O'GRADY

OCTOBER 1, 2014 

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/10/01/follow_a_pilgrim_on_their_hajj_to_mecca?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=%2AEditors%20Picks&utm_campaign=2014_EditorsPicks01%2F10RS 

If you're not on your own pilgrimage to Mecca, you might as well follow someone else's on Instagram.

The annual hajj to Mecca is one of the most ancient and sacred rituals in Islam, but it's also the largest annual gathering of people on the planet, and this week many pilgrims are recording their rites through selfies, even as Islamic scholars begin to declare they're haram (illegal in Islam). 

Last month, the Egyptian Dar al-Ifta, an Islamic authority with 780,000 followers on Facebook, issued a fatwa -- a legal interpretation of Islamic law -- stating that women should resist taking selfies and sharing them with strangers online because they can be used "in corrupted acts by deviants, and it is deemed foreign to our religion."

Professional photography is banned at many of the sacred sites in Mecca, but as more than 2 million Muslims from 180 countries arrived in Saudi Arabia Wednesday for the yearly ritual, which marks the end of the Islamic lunar calendar year, many were clicking away as they circled the Kaaba. The center of one of the world's oldest mosques, which Muslims say was built by Abraham himself, the Kaaba is considered by Muslims to be one of the most sacred places in the world. 

Completion of the hajj is intended to be the apex of a Muslim's spiritual existence, and documentation is generally discouraged in order to maintain the ancient purity of the tradition. Critics say filming the daily prayers and interrupting your own prayer at the two holy mosques can take away from what is often a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the most pious Muslims.

The Dar al-Ifta's website, which takes questions from users ranging from whether they think it's acceptable to paint or draw pictures of animals (they do) to whether they think it's okay to join a jihadist group (they don't), makes clear with each posted response that the answer is based on an interpretation of Islamic texts, but "Allah the Almighty knows best."

But in a conversation with Arab News, Saudi scholar Sheik Abdul Razzaq al-Badr sided with Dar al-Ifta and criticized Muslims who choose to document their experience through smartphones.

"It is as though the only purpose of this trip is to take pictures and not worship," he said. "And when they return home they say: 'Come look at me, this is me on Arafat, this is me in Muzdalifah!'"

Martin Indyk on the power of Islamic State

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2014/s4095810.htm

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Broadcast: 27/09/2014

Reporter: Steve Cannane

Former US Special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and US Ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, discusses the complexities of the war against Islamic State.

Transcript

STEVE CANNANE, PRESENTER: To further discuss the campaign against Islamic State in the Middle East I'm joined by Martin Indyk, director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. He is a former US ambassador to Israel. Until recently he was the US special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. He's currently on a visit to his old home town of Sydney, where he spoke this week at the Lowy Institute.

Martin Indyk, welcome back.

MARTIN INDYK, DIRECTOR OF FOREIGN POLICY, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Good to be here. Thank you.

STEVE CANNANE: Can we start by getting you to paint us a picture about what is happening in the Middle East at the moment? Can you outline for us the three conflicts, as you see it, that are causing so much chaos in the region?

MARTIN INDYK: I think it's important to understand that we're not just dealing with ISIL in isolation. It is a situation in which the age-old Israeli-Arab conflict, which has kind of morphed into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is now joined by a Shiah-Sunni conflict, with the predominant power Iran on the one side and Saudi Arabia on the other side, but finding its expression in Syria and Iraq and ISIL playing off on that conflict as well. And then there is a conflict within Sunni Islam between the Sunni monarchs and the new Egyptian regime on the one side and the Muslim Brotherhood and then the more extreme ISIL as well.

So you've got three different conflicts creating a great deal of cross-currents and turbulence, as well as a kind of breakdown of the old existing order in the region. And that makes it extremely difficult to try to generate some order out of this chaos.

STEVE CANNANE: In your many years living in the Middle East and engaging actively in the Middle East, have you ever seen it this volatile and this unpredictable?

MARTIN INDYK: You know, it's worth looking back. There have been many periods over the last 40 years, 50 years in which there have been wars, conflicts: Arab-Israeli, Arab-Arab, Arab-Iranian, Iraqi-Iranian. That one raged for 10 years, included the use of chemical weapons. So this is a region that is known for its volatility and its conflicts and its bloodshed.

But I cannot remember a time since the Second World War in which you have this confluence of revolutions, breakdown, failing states, ungoverned areas, rise of Islamic extremism, on top of all the conflicts we've had before.

STEVE CANNANE: So we're now seeing the US dragged back into the Middle East reluctantly to try and restore some kind of order. How are they going to go about that?

MARTIN INDYK: I think the first point is right: that President Obama is coming back with the American people in a very reluctant way and it's quite striking that the British parliament today should be voting to come back and join us in that effort.

We think back a year ago: it was last summer in the Northern Hemisphere when the British parliament refused to back up the prime minister and his desire to back president Obama in an effort to enforce a red line in Syria against the Syrian regime.

So now you've got a real turning point, but it's not because anybody really wants to do it; it's because there is a recognition on the part of the leaders and the people in the West that this is becoming so dangerous, not just to the region but our own shores, even here in Australia, that something has got to be done about it.

STEVE CANNANE: So how are they going to go about it?

Is America on the ISIS Hit List?

Graham Allison

September 30, 2014

"To whom does ISIS pose the most imminent and even existential threat?"

ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and his organization are unusual among terrorists in their explicit articulation of their ambitions, their agenda, their priorities, and their strategy. Analyzing their actions, one finds a high level of alignment between what they say and what they do.

Their self-proclaimed mission is to create an Islamic State, one governed according to their extreme and perverted interpretation of Islam. To achieve that objective, they organize fighters prepared to strike with vividly brutal strokes that are aimed at terrifying and intimidating their adversaries. After more than three years of civil war in Syria between the Assad government and an array of opponents, including the American-assisted Free-Syrian Army and Al Qaeda’s affiliate Al Nusra, ISIS has emerged as the most successful in establishing control of territory. From that base it has pushed into adjacent Iraq where it now controls a large swath of the northwest.

To those who come to its battlefield to thwart its ambitions, ISIS promises death, in the most brutal fashion. The ISIS-crafted statements by the American and British hostages who were beheaded could not be more explicit. Unlike Osama bin Laden’s fixation with what he called the “far enemy,” for ISIS the US is far away and well down on its hit list.

To whom does ISIS pose the most imminent and even existential threat?

- Assad’s Syrian government (from whom it has seized more than one-third of its country and seeks the rest).

- Iraq’s Baghdad government (from whom it has seized a quarter of its territory and aspires to more).

- Iraq’s Kurds (from whom it seized parts of Kurdistan until it was forced to retreat by a combination of US air strikes and Kurdish peshmerga boots on the ground).

- Iran (as the leader of Islamic Shia whom Sunni ISIS regards as apostates who must be converted or killed).

- Lebanon (where Iranian-affiliated Hezbollah militias have noticed and are fighting back).

- Jordan (fragile and fearful as always).

- Israel (who sees ISIS as just one more terrorist group well down its threat matrix, which fears it primarily as a new bright shiny object that may distract the US from the higher priority threat posed by Iran).

ISIS Is Winning the Online Jihad Against the West

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/01/isis-is-winning-the-online-jihad-against-the-west.html 

Despite Western efforts, distribution of ISIS propaganda is as strong as it has ever been.

The release by ISIS of another video, in which British captive John Cantlie narrates their propaganda message, highlights that efforts to disrupt the ISIS media campaign, and claims made about the impact of current measures, are overstated. 

This is the second “episode” in what appears likely to become a long-running series titled Lend Me Your Ears, and comes just days after an hour-long, full HD propaganda video, Flames of War. 

As ISIS videos continue to spread online, Western claims that the propaganda capabilities of jihadist groups have been degraded by suspending accounts on Twitter and YouTube look increasingly out of touch. Efforts to stop ISIS and other groups from disseminating their propaganda have had little effect. There remains a persistent as well as ideologically cohesive presence for jihadist propaganda online. 

If the U.S., and its Western and Arab allies, are to weaken ISIS's media reach, they need to look for new approaches that go beyond shutting down individual Twitter accounts and removal of YouTube videos. 

Some terrorism experts had claimed that the ability of ISIS to spread its message was being degraded. However, the jihadist propaganda effort is not degraded, nor are the counter-narrative efforts “targeted at blunting the recruitment pitches” of jihadist groups having the desired impact. Instead, the U.S. and its Western allies are being drawn into open warfare online, on a battlefield chosen by their jihadist adversaries. And it is those jihadists who will thrive in the chaos that results. 

The Nature of Netwar 

Jihadist groups, and specifically ISIS, have been able to maintain a persistent online presence by sharing content through a broad network of “media mujahedeen”—one of the clearest incarnations of netwar since it was firstenvisaged. 

Netwar is “an emerging mode of conflict in which the protagonists—ranging from terrorist and criminal organizations on the dark side, to militant social activists on the bright side—use network forms of organization, doctrine, strategy, and technology attuned to the information age,” according to an October 2001 paper by David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla. 

Networks are “very hard to deal with. …What all have in common is that they operate in small, dispersed units that can deploy nimbly—anywhere, anytime,” they wrote. In addition, successfully executing netwar strategy requires that a group know “how to swarm and disperse, penetrate and disrupt, as well as elude and evade.” Organizations engaging in network are often diffuse, leaderless, and incredibly resilient. 

“They operate in small, dispersed units that can deploy nimbly—anywhere, anytime.” 

ISIS, for example, uses dispersed forms of network organization and strategy to disseminate rich audiovisual content from the battlefield in near-real time. Its interconnected network constantly reconfigures itself, much like the way a swarm of bees or flock of birds constantly reorganizes in mid-flight. It marks a shift from the broadcast models of communication during conflict to a new dispersed and resilient form, the user curated “swarmcast.” This makes ISIS a challenge for traditionally hierarchical organizations to counter. 

Russia and Iran Lock NATO Out of Caspian Sea

By Jacopo Dettoni

October 01, 2014

A summit earlier this week achieves consensus on the inadmissibility of a foreign military presence in the sea. 

Iran and Russia have built unanimous consensus among the Caspian states, which also feature Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, over the inadmissibility of a foreign military presence in the Caspian Sea, ruling out any future possible deployment of NATO forces in the basin.

A political declaration signed by the presidents of the five Caspian states at the IV Caspian Summit held in Astrakhan, Russia, on September 29, “sets out a fundamental principle for guaranteeing stability and security, namely, that only the Caspian littoral states have the right to have their armed forces present on the Caspian,” according to a statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin in the wake of the summit.

His Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, added that “there is consensus among all the Caspian Sea littoral states that they are capable of maintaining the security of the Caspian Sea and military forces of no foreign country must enter the sea,” Iran’s state news agency PressTV quoted Rouhani as saying.

The move comes as both Russia and Iran are experiencing tense diplomatic relations with Western countries and feel increasingly threatened by a foreign military presence in the Caspian Sea.

“Both Iran and Russia have interests in keeping under control a military presence of Western countries in the basin,” Bahman Diba, foreign policy expert and author of The Law and Politics of the Caspian Sea, told The Diplomat.

“Because of the ongoing troubles with former Soviet countries such as Ukraine and Georgia, Russia revived a foreign policy that can bring to mind the Cold War era. At the same time, the Iranian regime is concerned that the west may use Caspian countries to put pressure on its nuclear program.”

The Ukraine crisis has left the West seriously at odds with Moscow, which stands accused of breaching international law and violating Ukraine sovereignty. The array of sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Europe on Russia following the annexation of Crimea and fighting in Eastern Ukraine represent the toughest action taken by Western countries against the Kremlin since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, Iran is engaged in delicate negotiations with the P5+1 bloc (the U.S., Russia, China, U.K., and France, plus Germany) over its civilian nuclear energy program. Since Rouhani took office in 2013, the two parties have moved beyond the impasse that prevailed during the tenure of Rouhani’s predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and a breakthrough agreement was struck in November 2013. Amid recurring hiccups in the negotiations, the two sides are now trying to strike a comprehensive agreement by November 24. 

On the other hand, the former Soviet republics in the Caspian basin have been stepping up cooperation with the U.S. and Europe on security and energy issues, particularly Azerbaijan. Since it gained independence in 1991, Azerbaijan has emerged as a strategic partner to the West thanks to its vast oil and gas riches flowing westwards through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipelines, which are both outside Moscow’s control.

The Destruction of Mecca

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/01/opinion/the-destruction-of-mecca.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=1

By ZIAUDDIN SARDAR

SEPT. 30, 2014 

 

WHEN Malcolm X visited Mecca in 1964, he was enchanted. He found the city “as ancient as time itself,” and wrote that the partly constructed extension to the Sacred Mosque “will surpass the architectural beauty of India’s Taj Mahal.”

Fifty years on, no one could possibly describe Mecca as ancient, or associate beauty with Islam’s holiest city. Pilgrims performing the hajj this week will search in vain for Mecca’s history.

The dominant architectural site in the city is not the Sacred Mosque, where the Kaaba, the symbolic focus of Muslims everywhere, is. It is the obnoxious Makkah Royal Clock Tower hotel, which, at 1,972 feet, is among the world’s tallest buildings. It is part of a mammoth development of skyscrapers that includes luxury shopping malls and hotels catering to the superrich. The skyline is no longer dominated by the rugged outline of encircling peaks. Ancient mountains have been flattened. The city is now surrounded by the brutalism of rectangular steel and concrete structures — an amalgam of Disneyland and Las Vegas.

Qatar’s Relationship With ISIS and Other Extremist Groups in Iraq and Syria

The Case Against Qatar

Elizabeth Dickenson

Foreign Policy

September 30, 2014

ABU DHABI and DOHA — Behind a glittering mall near Doha’s city center sits the quiet restaurant where Hossam used to run his Syrian rebel brigade. At the battalion’s peak in 2012 and 2013, he had 13,000 men under his control near the eastern city of Deir Ezzor. “Part of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), they are loyal to me,” he said over sweet tea and sugary pastries this spring. “I had a good team to fight.”

Hossam, a middle-aged Syrian expat, owns several restaurants throughout Doha, Qatar, catering mostly to the country’s upper crust. The food is excellent, and at night the tables are packed with well-dressed Qataris, Westerners, and Arabs. Some of his revenue still goes toward supporting brigades and civilians with humanitarian goods — blankets, food, even cigarettes.

He insists that he has stopped sending money to the battle, for now. His brigade’s funds came, at least in part, from Qatar, he says, under the discretion of then Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Khalid bin Mohammed Al Attiyah. But the injection of cash was ad hoc: Dozens of other brigades like his received initial start-up funding, and only some continued to receive Qatari support as the months wore on. When the funds ran out in mid-2013, his fighters sought support elsewhere. “Money plays a big role in the FSA, and on that front, we didn’t have,” he explained.

Hossam is a peripheral figure in a vast Qatari network of Islamist-leaning proxies that spans former Syrian generals, Taliban insurgents, Somali Islamists, and Sudanese rebels. He left home in 1996 after more than a decade under pressure from the Syrian regime for his sympathy with the Muslim Brotherhood. Many of his friends were killed in a massacre of the group in Hama province in 1982 by then President Hafez al-Assad. He finally found refuge here in Qatar and built his business and contacts slowly. Mostly, he laid low; Doha used to be quite welcoming to the young President Bashar al-Assad and his elegant wife, who were often spotted in the high-end fashion boutiques before the revolt broke out in 2011.

When the Syrian war came and Qatar dropped Assad, Hossam joined an expanding pool of middlemen whom Doha called upon to carry out its foreign policy of supporting the Syrian opposition. Because there were no established rebels when the uprising started, Qatar backed the upstart plans of expats and businessmen who promised they could rally fighters and guns. Hossam, like many initial rebel backers, had planned to devote his own savings to supporting the opposition. Qatar’s donations made it possible to think bigger.

In recent months, Qatar’s Rolodex of middlemen like Hossam has proved both a blessing and a curse for the United States. On one hand, Washington hasn’t shied away from calling on Doha’s connections when it needs them: Qatar orchestrated the prisoner swap that saw U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl freed in exchange for five Taliban prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. And it ran the negotiations with al-Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, that freed American writer Peter Theo Curtis in August. “Done,” Qatari intelligence chief Ghanim Khalifa al-Kubaisi reportedly texted a contact — adding a thumbs-up emoticon — after the release was completed.

But that same Qatari network has also played a major role in destabilizing nearly every trouble spot in the region and in accelerating the growth of radical and jihadi factions. The results have ranged from bad to catastrophic in the countries that are the beneficiaries of Qatari aid: Libya is mired in a war between proxy-funded militias, Syria’s opposition has been overwhelmed by infighting and overtaken by extremists, and Hamas’s intransigence has arguably helped prolong the Gaza Strip’s humanitarian plight.

For years, U.S. officials have been willing to shrug off Doha’s proxy network — or even take advantage of it from time to time. Qatar’s neighbors, however, have not.

Over the past year, fellow Gulf countries Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain have publicly rebuked Qatar for its support of political Islamists across the region. 

Effectiveness of US Airstrikes in Iraq and Syria Being Hampered by Significant Intelligence Gaps

Airstrikes launched amid intelligence gaps

Associated Press

October 1, 2014

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon is grappling with significant intelligence gaps as it bombs Iraq and Syria, and it is operating under less restrictive targeting rules than those President Barack Obama imposed on the CIA drone campaign in Pakistan and Yemen, according to current and former U.S. officials.

The U.S. military says its airstrikes have been discriminating and effective in disrupting an al-Qaida cell called the Khorasan Group and in halting the momentum of Islamic State militants. But independent analysts say the Islamic State group remains on the offensive in areas of Iraq and Syria, where it still controls large sections. And according to witnesses, U.S. airstrikes have at times hit empty buildings that were long ago vacated by Islamic State fighters.

Human rights groups also say coalition airstrikes in both countries have killed as many as two dozen civilians. U.S. officials say they can’t rule out civilian deaths but haven’t confirmed any.

"We do take extreme caution and care in the conduct of these missions," Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon’s press secretary, told reporters Tuesday. "But there’s risk in any military operation. There’s a special kind of risk when you do air operations."

Military officials acknowledge that they are relying mainly on satellites, drones and surveillance flights to pinpoint targets, assess the damage afterward and determine whether civilians were killed.

That stands in sharp contrast to the networks of bases, spies and ground-based technology the U.S. had in place during the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, officials say.

As a result, “it’s much harder for us to be able to know for sure what it is we’re hitting, what it is we’re killing and what it is collateral damage,” said Tom Lynch, a retired colonel and former adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff who is now a fellow at the National Defense University.

In Iraq, the U.S. is relying for ground reports on the Iraqi military and intelligence services, whose insights into Islamic State-controlled territory are limited.

In Syria, the U.S. is not coordinating the strikes with the main moderate opposition group, the Free Syrian Army, even though it has backed that group with weapons and training, said Andrew Tabler, who follows the conflict for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The CIA is generally unwilling to send American intelligence officers into Syria, and partner Arab intelligence services are often focused on their own agendas.

The intelligence gaps raise questions about the effectiveness of the strikes and about whether the current strategy will achieve the administration’s goal of defeating the Islamic State group.

The group has begun adapting to U.S. airstrikes by seeking to conceal itself, move at night and blend in with civilians, Pentagon officials say.

"They’re a smart adversary," said Air Force Maj. Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, briefing reporters at the Pentagon this week.

In terms of tracking the movements of militants, U.S. intelligence coverage of Syria and Iraq is not as good as it was in Pakistan and Yemen at the height of covert CIA drone campaigns there, officials say.

Israel: ISIL Is Not A Problem In This Neighborhood

http://www.strategypage.com/%5Cqnd%5Cisrael%5Carticles%5C20140929.aspx

September 29, 2014: In Gaza the UN is making ambitious plans to repair the damage from the recent Hamas war, but Israel warns that it will not cooperate if measures are not taken to prevent Hamas from “militarizing” the reconstruction as it has in the past. This means no diverting some of the reconstruction cash to Hamas for use in supporting terrorist and anti-Israel activities. Then there is the problem with Hamas diverting a lot of the building materials to military uses. This includes building bunkers, tunnels and the modification of rebuilt homes, schools and hospitals to accommodate weapons storage and rocket launching facilities. The UN now admits this sort of thing exists, mainly because the existence of these military facilities became widely known during the recent war, so much so that even the UN could not ignore it. To further complicate matters Hamas insists there will be another war unless the blockade is lifted and Hamas is allowed to import whatever it wants. Israel will never allow that as long as Hamas also proclaims that its eventual goal is the destruction of Israel. In response to that Israel is demanding that Hamas disarm before the current truce is extended. Hamas refuses to even consider this.

Israel was not asked to join the international coalition against ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant). This was because the ten Arab members of this twenty country coalition are still trapped by decades of their own “Israel must be destroyed” propaganda and rhetoric. Many Arabs now regret this rigorous anti-Israel policy but it has become a part of Arab culture and very difficult to change or even discuss openly. So despite the fact that ISIL seeks the overthrow of the Shia Syrian dictator as only the first of many conquests that include Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Saudi Arabia and, eventually Turkey and Israel, the Arab states must play down the fact that they and ISIL agree on one thing; that Israel must be destroyed. Meanwhile since the fall of Mosul in June ISIL has continued attacking and all the Moslems nations on the ISIL target list agreed that ISIL was a threat to everyone. The Saudis called on the West to do more because ISIL will eventually turn its attention to making terror attacks in the West. The Saudis do not mention that they are higher on the ISIL hit list than the West, Israel or Turkey and that the most effective force against Islamic terrorism in the region (Israel) is not being called on to help against ISIL. Israel does not complain, since ISIL is not as much of an effective threat to Israel as it is to Moslem states in the region. Meanwhile Israel and several Arab states continue to quietly exchange data on Islamic terrorist operations. This has been going on for years and seems immune to all the anti-Israel rhetoric in Arab nations.

Egypt and Israel are not concerned with ISIL because both have more immediate Islamic terrorist problems. Israel has the Palestinians (mainly Hamas at this point) to worry about and Egypt has the radicalized members of the Moslem Brotherhood. Israel has Hamas and Palestinian terrorism under control but not eliminated. The Palestinians turned to terrorism in 2000 and keep at it despite years of failure to do anything of note. In Egypt Islamic terrorist groups are more active and successful. But as in a similar situation in the 1990s, the Islamic terrorists have support from only a minority of the population. In the 1990s this meant the Islamic terrorists were eventually suppressed (killed, jailed or driven into exile) because a hostile population helped the police. The Islamic terrorists learned from their 1990s experience and are trying to avoid civilian casualties and attacks that hurt the economy (and put people out of work). By concentrating on the security forces and government officials the terrorists are angering fewer Egyptians and making it possible for more moderate anti-government groups to continue demonstrating. Government efforts to use the courts to halt the demonstrations is not working out. The courts eventually free most of the people arrested for demonstrating in violation of new anti-demonstration laws. The courts have not tried to free those convicted of terrorism or for leading large protest organizations. Meanwhile the Islamic terror attacks on the security forces are causing growing popular anger towards the terrorists and time seems to be on the side of the government if they can get the economy going. That remains to be seen, given the endemic corruption.

The Islamic terrorist violence in Egypt is leaving several dozen people dead (and 50-100 arrested) each week, most of them terrorists. This is a war of attrition that may see several thousand more deaths before it is all over. That is in addition to the 1,400 who have already died since the Egyptian war on Islamic terrorism began in mid-2013. Also since that time Egypt has been receiving massive economic aid from the Arab oil states. Saudi Arabia has been particularly generous sending $5 billion in aid (most of in the form of oil) during the last 14 months. This aid has been essential to keeping many Egyptians from getting mad enough to back the Islamic terrorists.

Egypt signed a military cooperation deal with Kuwait. This involves joint training and the exchange of information. Just in case.

Iran appears to have been trying to get a media story going about Israeli UAVs being used over Iran and Iraq. Three times in August 2014 there were stories about Israeli Hermes UAVs crashing in Iraq, Iran and Gaza. The Iraq story was reported by a Hezbollah satellite news channel, the Iranian crash was reported by Iran and the Gaza crash was reported by Hamas (which receives regular supplies of Iranian cash and weapons). Hezbollah is also on the Iranian payroll, but is more public about it. The one thing all these events had in common was that in each of them it was claimed there was physical evidence of a Hermes type UAV crashing and that the evidence would be presented. But the evidence never was made public and the three stories faded away because they never gained any traction. Iran was also embarrassed when informed that the Hermes could not reach Iran from Israel. Iran then blamed other countries in the area for working with the Israelis. That line was quickly abandoned because most Moslems don’t believe any Moslem state would support Israel. It’s unclear why Iran chose now to try and get this story going. It is no secret that Israel keeps a close eye on Iran, especially the Iranian nuclear weapons program. The “Hermes” UAV brought down in Iran was allegedly near a uranium enrichment facility. Israel has apparently used UAVs to spy on Iran, but Israel also has spy satellites that can do the same job, although not in as much detail as with the more powerful cameras carried by UAVs.

Information Warfare: Islamic Myths

http://www.strategypage.com/%5Chtmw%5Chtiw%5Carticles%5C20140930.aspx

September 30, 2014: One reason for the continued Moslem hostility towards Israel is frustration at not being able to get more non-Moslems to agree with or at least understand the Moslem view of the world and Israel. To most Moslems it’s perfectly natural to hate Jews and insist that Israel should not exist. These are indeed alien concepts to most Westerners and non-Moslems. To get a better idea of where Moslems are coming from consider the fact (based on opinion surveys of Moslems) that most Moslems see themselves as Moslems first, and feel that the non-Moslem world is out to get them. The intense hatred of Israel is better understood if you keep in mind some key elements of Islamic history. First, Islam is a very intolerant religion. Their scripture calls for any Moslem who converts to another religion be killed. Moreover, that particular rule is regularly obeyed by Islamic conservatives, even if local civil law forbids it. According to the Koran, other religions are only tolerated as long as the infidels (non-Moslems) pay higher taxes, do not hold positions of authority in the government, do not try to convert Moslems, and keep their own religious activities low key. Note, for example, that in Saudi Arabia, non-Moslem houses of worship are forbidden, as are public religious ceremonies for any other religion. 

Infidels have been persecuted and driven out of the Islamic world for centuries. The percentage of Christians in the Middle East has been declining particularly rapidly in the last century. Sure, the infidels "get along" with Moslems in the Middle East, but they do so on Moslem terms. Another unique aspect of Islam is the triumph of religious conservatives along with the constant persecution and suppression of original thinkers and innovators. This struggle between innovators and conservatives has been going on for over a thousand years and is a typical feature of many religions. When Islam first appeared it was, in many ways, quite progressive for its time. But then most religions are. Yet seven hundred years later the Europeans were undergoing a social and intellectual renaissance, and the Islamic world was going in the other direction. The Europeans solved their problems with religious fanaticism and factionalism. That is why when Moslems talk about all the West owes the Islamic world in terms of science, they must refer to events many centuries in the past. It also explains why the Middle East now has such high rates of illiteracy, and such low rates of scientific and economic accomplishment. 

Israel makes those difference too obvious and embarrassing for most Moslems. That's particularly painful because over a third of the Israeli population are Middle Easterners, the descendants of Jews expelled from Middle Eastern countries after Israel was founded in 1947. These "Sephardi" Jews look like Arabs and often still speak Arabic because their families lived in Arab countries for thousands of years. Yet the Sephardim are much better educated and economically successful than their Moslem cousins. So is Israel as a whole. Many Arabs will admit that Israel must go because it embarrasses the Moslem world. The despots that still run most Arab countries encourage this concentrated hatred of Israel, and blaming of Israel for the regions problems, as a way to deflect criticism of their own miserable misrule. The whole "Israel is the biggest problem in the Middle East" issue is a scam, to enable local tyrants to keep their people down, and many of the people are starting to wise up. 

Part of that awakening is a growing "Arab Reform Movement" in the Middle East that believes the problems in the Arab world are internal, not external. The fact that an increasing number of Arabs support this movement, and that governments are not trying to exterminate it, is encouraging. But the reform movement is pushing against centuries of conservatism, and opposition to the kinds of things that Westerners take for granted. Meanwhile, Most Arabs still prefer to believe in conspiracies and fantasies, rather than deal with the reality of their situation. 

Israelis are appalled at how so many in the West are either ignorant of these realities, or simply refuse to believe it. There's a comprehension gap here that the Israelis fear will lead to serious attempts to destroy Israel and kill lots of Jews. After World War II, most Jews said "never again" (to mass murder like the Nazis engaged in against the Jews.) But here it is, all over again, except this time the Nazis are speaking Arabic, and aren't nearly as well organized. 

Navy stands up first cyber type command

Oct. 1, 2014 

Rear Adm. Diane Webber became the first cyber type commander Oct. 1, when the Navy Information Dominance Forces command was stood up. (Robin Hicks / Navy) 

Submarines have a three-star type commander who oversees their force. So do ship crews, aviation squadrons, and expeditionary sailors likes Seabees and divers.

Now Navy hackers have their own, too.

The newest TYCOM stood up Tuesday with the creation of Navy Information Dominance Forces, which will align several different cyber and technology commands under one roof.

NAVIDFOR, as it will be known, will consolidate missions, functions and tasks from Navy Cyber Forces Command, Fleet Cyber Command, Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command and the Office of Naval Intelligence, according to a Wednesday release from NCF.

“The standup of the NAVIDFOR TYCOM directly supports integration of ID capabilities throughout the Navy and is a natural progression in the development of an ID force capable of delivering assured command and control, battlespace awareness and integrated fires,” said Rear Adm. Diane Webber, the newly minted NAVIDFOR commander, in the release.

The shift gives information dominance the same kind of command structure that other weapons systems fall under, the way surface ships’ manning and training is overseen by Naval Surface Forces. Ditto for aircraft training and manpower falling under Naval Air Forces.

“NAVIDFOR’s establishment is the next step in the evolution of ID as a Navy warfighting discipline,” Webber said.

Webber, who has been commanding officer of NCF since Sept. 2013, will serve just a few days with NAVIDFOR. Rear Adm. Matthew Kohler, director of intelligence operations at ONI, will relieve her on Friday.

He’ll oversee NAVIDFOR’s initial organization as the Navy works toward its goal for full operation by Dec. 31.

Satellite Imagery Shows the Disappearance of the Aral Sea

The Aral Sea was once the fourth largest lake in the world. Watch it dry up.

Angela Fritz

Washington Post

September 30, 2014

Satellite imagery shows the dramatic change that the Aral Sea has undergone since 2000. Each frame is a snapshot of the Aral Sea in the month of August since 2000, through 2014. The black outline illustrates where the shoreline used to extend to in 1960. (NASA)

Dramatic satellite imagery illustrates the radical transformation that the Aral Sea has undergone over the past 15 years.

The Aral Sea, which spans the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, used to be the fourth largest lake in the world. Fed by snow melt which arrived at the lake by rivers, it once supported a large fishing economy — an oasis in one of the driest regions of the world.

Ships lay abandoned across the former Aral Sea. (NASA)

Scientists estimate that it’s now just 10 percent of its former size. Especially dry conditions in 2014 have caused the eastern lobe of the southern portion of the Aral Sea to dry up completely for the first time in modern history.

In the 1960s, the rivers that fed the Aral Sea were diverted into the desert by the Soviet Union. NASA describes what a devastating toll this took on the communities around the sea:

Although irrigation made the desert bloom, it devastated the Aral Sea. As the lake dried up, fisheries and the communities that depended on them collapsed. The increasingly salty water became polluted with fertilizer and pesticides. Blowing, salty dust from the exposed lakebed became a public health hazard and degraded the soil. Croplands had to be flushed with larger and larger volumes of river water. The loss of the moderating influence of the Aral Sea made winters colder and summers hotter and drier.

In an attempt to salvage what was left of the northern portion of the lake, the Dike Kokaral was built in 2005. Lake levels appear to be increasing in the North Aral Sea, which is somewhat evident in the animation above. The water there is fed by the Sur Darya river, which flows from mountains in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

NASA has also posted images of the Aral Sea just before its great demise in 1964:

Image of the Aral Sea on August 22, 1964, from the Argon reconnaissance satellite. (NASA)

White House Stands by Dempsey After McCain Questions General's 'Credibility

By JOHN T. BENNETT

Sep. 30, 2014 

Despite criticism from some on Capitol Hill, the administration has expressed support for Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey. (Staff Sgt. Sean K. Harp / Army)

WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama is standing by his top military adviser amid sharp criticism from a prominent Republican senator.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey ruffled feathers on Capitol Hill earlier this month when he suggested, if circumstances warranted, he would advise Obama to send US ground troops to Iraq to fight the Islamic State (IS) group.

He also agitated some lawmakers by endorsing the White House’s plan to train and arm some Syrian rebels in Saudi Arabia to take on the violent Islamic group back home.

Some members from both parties are expressing frustration that the White House and Pentagon are finally ready to arm those opposition forces — after lawmakers called for just such a move for several years during that country’s bloody civil war.

Former Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was particularly perturbed that Dempsey told a Senate panel that Obama’s plan to use the rebels to fight IS inside Syria did not include strikes against Bashar al-Assad’s air defense systems.

“He might have credibility with some,” McCain told reporters just before a seven-week congressional recess began, “but that’s not with me.”

McCain for years has been a top critic of Obama and his approach to foreign policy and national security issues and crises. He and other GOP lawmakers are skeptical that Obama’s plan to counter the Islamic State goes far enough.

The veteran senator said, when pressed, that he has been frustrated by past advise Dempsey has given the commander in chief.

The White House is standing by Dempsey.

America's Big Military Mistake: Cutting Land Forces Too Quickly

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/americas-big-military-mistake-cutting-land-forces-too-11381?page=show

Michael O'Hanlon

October 1, 2014 

Is ground warfare becoming obsolete? History and the present international enviornment tell us otherwise.

In recent years, ground warfare has again gotten a bad name in the United States.

This is understandable. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been very costly in lives, treasure, and enduring injury—physical and mental—to American troopers and their families. The outcomes have been mediocre. As a result, the White House’s 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance, backed up by thePentagon’s 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, argued that American ground forces would no longer be sized for the possibility of large-scale stabilization or counterinsurgency missions.

Meanwhile, new possibilities in the realm of drones, cyberwar, space technologies, precision strike, and commando operations have led to the contention that ground warfare is perhaps becoming obsolete. A recent Chief of Naval Operations wrote a paper last year calling for an active-duty Army only half the size of its recent wartime peak. Ongoing budget pressures, with the pending return of sequestration in 2016, have many defense planners wondering if the Army can in effect become the bill payer for the modernization needs of the other military services.

This debate is understandable at one level. On another, it is potentially dangerous. We have seen periods like it before. In the 1920s, the advent of the airplane was going to make all forms of combat on land obsolete. That turned out badly wrong. In the 1950s, nuclear weapons were going to replace traditional ground forces for many missions. That left the Army unprepared for Vietnam in the 1960s, and it resorted to a firepower-heavy form of warfare that was arguably its least impressive wartime performance in American military history. In the 1980s and 1990s, fresh off Vietnam, the Army itself decided not to prepare for such counterinsurgency scenarios any longer. That worked out fine for Operation Desert Storm in 1991 but much less well for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As we look to the future, while it is possible that the Army can decline a bit more in size than present plans would counsel, we have to be wary about rushing to major change. Already, the Army is headed towards an active-duty strength of no more than 450,000 soldiers, 10 percent less than in the Clinton years and 20 percent less than in the late Bush/early Obama period. Some Pentagon options investigated in 2013 would have cut it back much further, to 380,000 or so. These options may rear their head again if sequestration really returns in 2016.

My own research on the future of land warfare, after examining American alliance relationships, and strategic interests around the world, is leading me to examine ten scenarios in some detail, as one thinks about the long-term future of the Army. Not all would require American ground forces, or even an American military response of any kind, necessarily. Some might benefit from substantial allied help. And some are less in the category of wars we might really fight, than of scenarios that we need to keep unthinkable for would-be aggressors (such as the first two on the list below) . But to my mind, none can be dismissed lightly, as possible concerns for future U.S. Army, Army Reserve, Army National Guard, and Marine Corps planning in the years ahead:

- A Russian invasion threat to the Baltic states.

- A second Korean war, including possible Chinese involvement.

The Instrumentalisation of History

https://medium.com/the-bridge/the-instrumentalisation-of-history-90768b23d356

This post was provided by Dr. Huw Davies, a Senior Lecturer at King’s College London’s Defence Studies Department. This post was written in response to Mike Denny’s recent post, “Islamic State on the Road to Waterloo” and was originally posted on the Defence Studies Department’s new blog, Defence-In-Depth.

History is a dangerous thing. Parallels between contemporary events and history are all too easy to arrive at. In unskilled hands, historical events can be manhandled to seemingly deliver lessons and solutions to apparently intractable contemporary problems. This is ‘instrumentalising’ history. In reality, history can be misleading, its so-called ‘lessons’ proving counter-productive if their context is not properly understood.

In the last decade, numerous such ‘lessons’ have been bandied around as a means of resolving some of the more stubborn issues facing the West. Historians, armchair strategists and soldiers alike have looked to Britain’s long and turbulent history in Afghanistan as a means of suggesting solutions to the ongoing Taliban insurgency.

Similarly, Lawrence of Arabia has been held up as a panacea of how to resolve the newly emerged threat from Islamic State. Imperfect parallels have been drawn between the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic era and the rise of IS. Hawkish politicians cannot help but draw ill-fitting analogies between the actions of Hitler toward Czechoslovakia and Poland in the 1930s, and Vladimir Putin and Russia’s recent entanglements in Georgia and Ukraine.

In part, this is a media-generated hyperbole, as seemingly easy parallels lend themselves to sensational stories. But used as a means of detecting a way forward, as an influence on policy-making, history incorrectly understood is very dangerous.

The first casualty of instrumentalising history is almost invariably the context in which that history occurred.

Comparison of Revolutionary France with the rise of the Islamic State is an interesting proposition. Sure, it is fascinating to note the rise of a revolutionary organisation bent on the transformation and subjugation not just of one country but an entire continent, and which uses gruesome public beheadings as a means of creating terror and provoking war.

But the extended argument is basically a call to arms, in favour of the use of Western ground forces in the developing campaign against IS militants. I find this a difficult thesis to agree with, and one that reflects the instrumentalisation of history for subjective ends.

Britain’s strategy in the war against Revolutionary France and then Napoleon, so the argument goes, saw the British initially try to defeat France by means of seapower alone. But although British command of the sea was virtually unassailable after 1805, Britain was eventually forced to deploy ground troops in a war in the Iberian Peninsula. Britain also assembled no fewer than seven coalitions of the Great Powers of Europe in order to defeat Napoleon.

The parallel invoked here is that the United States is the only power capable of, or willing to, assemble an international coalition to defeat IS. That coalition would lack moral backbone if the US, and by extension her western allies, did not deploy ground forces to Iraq and Syria.

The only way to defeat a land-power, whether Napoleonic France or the Islamic State, is on land. The truth of this assertion is unchallengeable, but the context in which these decisions were taken is.

But the parallel, and therefore the lesson, falls apart when the context in which Britain fought the Napoleonic War is understood. Until 1807, Britain hoped to contain Napoleonic France – hence the use of maritime power to isolate France economically.