David Sanger and Eric Schmitt,"U.S. Cyberweapons, Used Against Iran and North Korea, Are a Disappointment Against ISIS": The New York Times Exposes Israel's Cyber Hack

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In a New York Times article entitled "U.S. Cyberweapons, Used Against Iran and North Korea, Are a Disappointment Against ISIS," David Sanger and Eric Schmitt write:

"Even one of the rare successes against the Islamic State belongs at least in part to Israel, which was America’s partner in the attacks against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Top Israeli cyberoperators penetrated a small cell of extremist bombmakers in Syria months ago, the officials said. That was how the United States learned that the terrorist group was working to make explosives that fooled airport X-ray machines and other screening by looking exactly like batteries for laptop computers.

The intelligence was so exquisite that it enabled the United States to understand how the weapons could be detonated, according to two American officials familiar with the operation. The information helped prompt a ban in March on large electronic devices in carry-on luggage on flights from 10 airports in eight Muslim-majority countries to the United States and Britain."

This was the intel that was leaked by Donald Trump to Russia's foreign minister and ambassador to the US during an Oval Office meeting last month. Israel tried to mitigate the damage by claiming that the intel was HUMINT and that the agent's life had been endangered, but ISIS now knows for certain that the intel was SIGINT, i.e. a cyber hack.

Has an important window into ISIS terror operations been hermetically shut? Have innocent lives been compromised as a consequence? I don't know the answer. I suggest you ask Donald Trump, the Times, or better still, the "officials" who leaked this info to Sanger and Schmitt.

New York Times Editorial, "A Risky American Expansion in Syria": Obama's Dirty Little Secret

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In an editorial entitled "A Risky American Expansion in Syria," The New York Times says of Obama's decision to send 250 more US soldiers to Syria, in addition to the existing 50 "Special Operations" forces currently deployed in a country that no longer exists:

"While American forces will not be leading the ground war in Syria, they will be involved in military operations and working without proper authorization from Congress. Unlike the American troops in Iraq, which are fighting the Islamic State at the request of the Iraqi government, the troops in Syria will be operating in another sovereign nation with no clear legal right."

But what the geniuses at the Times fail to observe is that these troops will primarily be assisting the Kurds, and were the Turks to hear of this dirty little secret (Remember, you didn't hear it from me!), Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan might cease to be one of Obama's best overseas friends.

Now imagine what happens if American troops are killed by ongoing Turkish shelling of Kurdish forces in Syria.

But wait! Just how stupid is this editorial? The Times editorial board goes on to say:

"It has long been obvious that the best way to defeat the Islamic State lies in ending the Syrian civil war between President Bashar al-Assad and opposition forces so that all sides can focus on the terrorists, which Mr. Obama told the Europeans is 'the most urgent threat to our nations.'"

Got it: Assad is not a terrorist, notwithstanding his use of chemical weapons and barrel bombs against Syrian civilians.

Yup, The New York Times is wearing its imbecility on its sleeve.

Thomas Friedman, "When the Necessary Is Impossible": Thick as a Brick

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Yes, would-be Middle East expert Thomas Friedman is thick as a brick.

In a New York Times op-ed entitled "When the Necessary Is Impossible," Thomas Friedman asks "What do you do when the necessary is impossible, but the impossible is impossible to ignore — and your key allies are also impossible?" Friedman writes in response to his own imbecilic question:

"Crushing the Islamic State, or ISIS, is necessary for stabilizing Iraq and Syria, but it is impossible as long as Shiites and Sunnis there refuse to truly share power, and yet ignoring the ISIS cancer and its ability to metastasize is impossible as well."

Unbeknownst to Friedman, Iraq and Syria were never nation-states, but rather entities randomly carved out of the Ottoman Empire by the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement between Britain and France. Today, they are more akin to Humpty Dumpty: There is no putting the pieces back together again. Rather, it is time to acknowledge that the Middle East's 30 million Kurds, long oppressed by Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, deserve their own state.

True, Turkey opposes granting independence to the Kurds, and in 2012, Obama deemed Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan one of his best overseas friends; however, times have changed. As acknowledged by Friedman:

"And if all that isn’t impossible enough, our trying to make Iraq safe for democracy is requiring us to turn a blind eye to the fact that our most important NATO 'ally' in the region, Turkey, is being converted from a democracy into a dictatorship by its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who should now be called 'Sultan Erdogan' for the way he is closing opposition newspapers and putting journalists on trial. But because we need Turkey’s air bases and cooperation to foster a modicum of democracy in Iraq tomorrow, we are silent on Erdogan destroying democracy in Turkey today. Go figure."

Yup, it's time to grant the Kurds their freedom. It's also time for Obama to honor his 2008 promise to recognize the Armenian Genocide if elected president.

But is a sycophantic Friedman capable of criticizing Obama? Not a chance:

"Obama is probably doing about the best one can with ISIS: Degrade it, contain it and downplay it, and keep nudging Sunnis and Shiites to come to their senses. But I have a bad feeling about the ISIS boys. They are networked and they have cast off all civilized norms. And we don’t have the answer for them."

Dancing the tango while Brussels burned is the best Obama can do? In fact, maybe it is the best a self-absorbed Obama can do. Others can do better.

Thomas Friedman, "Does Obama Have This Right?": A Narcissistic Personality Disorder Threatens the West

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A narcissistic personality disorder that threatens the West? No, I'm not talking about Donald Trump, who, even if he wins the Republican nomination, will lose in November. Rather, I am talking about President Barack Obama.

Notified of the massacre in Brussels, a jovial Obama attended a baseball game with Raul Castro in Cuba (even participating in a "wave"), and then boarded a flight for Argentina with his family. Return to Washington to coordinate with the EU? Not a chance. Why should this horrific attack by ISIS interfere with his fun?

Remind you so something? It should. It wasn't so long ago that Obama ran off to a Martha's Vineyard golf course within 20 minutes of delivering a speech decrying the beheading of James Foley by ISIS.

Yes, as I noted on Monday, Obama suffers from a narcissistic personality disorder characterized by a vehement rejection of all criticism, an excessive need for admiration, and a total lack of empathy for others.

Is Obama dangerous with less than a year left of his second term? You bet!

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Does Obama Have This Right?," Thomas Friedman, an Obama sycophant, cautiously criticizes the president:

"Obama’s primary goal seems to be to get out of office being able to say that he had shrunk America’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, prevented our involvement on the ground in Syria and Libya, and taught Americans the limits of our ability to fix things we don’t understand, in countries whose leaders we don’t trust, whose fates do not impact us as much as they once did.

. . . .

That all sounds great on paper, until a terrorist attack like the one Tuesday in Brussels comes to our shores. Does the president have this right?

. . . .

[S]itting here [in Sulaimaniya, Iraq] also makes you wonder if Obama hasn’t gotten so obsessed with defending his hand’s-off approach to Syria that he underestimates both the dangers of his passivity and the opportunity for U.S. power to tilt this region our way — without having to invade anywhere. Initially, I thought Obama made the right call on Syria. But today the millions of refugees driven out of Syria — plus the economic migrants now flooding out of Africa through Libya after the utterly botched Obama-NATO operation there — is destabilizing the European Union."

Friedman's utterly inane solution to the problem:

"Kurdistan and Tunisia are just what we dreamed of: self-generated democracies that could be a model for others in the region to follow. But they need help. Unfortunately, Obama seems so obsessed with not being George W. Bush in the Middle East that he has stopped thinking about how to be Barack Obama here — how to leave a unique legacy and secure a foothold for democracy … without invading."

Assistance to Iraqi Kurdistan and Tunisia will curtail the threat from ISIS? Go back to sleep, Tom.

Like it or not, the United States and Europe are at war with ISIS, and refusal to take ISIS seriously, i.e. enjoying a baseball game in Havana after being notified of the calamity in Brussels, only encourages ISIS to perpetrate additional atrocities, which ultimately will find their way to American shores.

David Ignatius, "Why is Israel so cautious on the Islamic State? A recent war game explains why.": Duh!

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Whose op-ed is more doltish today, that of would-be Middle East expert Thomas Friedman (see my prior blog entry), or that of would-be Middle East expert David Ignatius?

Writing from Tel Aviv, Ignatius informs us in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Why is Israel so cautious on the Islamic State? A recent war game explains why.":

"Rather than attacking Islamic State forces along its northern and eastern borders, Israel pursues a policy of deterrence, containment and even quiet liaison, said a senior Israeli military official. He noted that if Israel wanted to mount an all-out ground attack on Islamic State forces in southern Syria and the Sinai Peninsula, it could wipe them out in three or four hours. 'But what would happen the day after?' asked this Israeli military official. 'Right now, we think it will be worse. So we try to deter them.'"

My goodness, who would have ever guessed? Islamic State forces have killed or wounded one-third of Hezbollah's fighters in Syria, thereby effectively preventing Hezbollah, which has more than 100,000 missiles in Lebanon pointed at Israel, from initiating a new round of fighting with the IDF. I ask you: Should Israel attack ISIS?

Or stated more simply, if Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees are busy battling it out, why interfere? You don't.

Did Obama Carpet-Bomb Ramadi?

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In his 2016 State of the Union Address on Tuesday, President Obama declared (my emphasis in red):

"With nearly 10,000 air strikes, we’re taking out [ISIL's] leadership, their oil, their training camps, their weapons. We’re training, arming and supporting forces who are steadily reclaiming territory in Iraq and Syria.

. . . .

The world will look to us to help solve these problems, and our answer needs to be more than tough talk or calls to carpet-bomb civilians. That may work as a TV sound bite, but it doesn’t pass muster on the world stage."

First, a word about those "forces" being supported by the Obama administration. Claims have been made that the Sunni Iraqi city of Ramadi was "retaken" from ISIS by the Iraqi army. As stated in a Wall Street Journal article entitled "Victory Marks Turnaround for Iraq Army" by Ben Kesling and Matt Bradley:

"The recapture of Ramadi marks a major turnaround for Iraq’s U.S.-trained military, representing its first success against Islamic State as a mostly independent force.

. . . .

Sabah al-Numan, a spokesman for Iraq’s counterterrorism forces, said precise planning and constant coordination with the U.S.-led international coalition and local Sunni tribes tipped the balance on the battlefield.

Past defeats of Islamic State relied on either Iran-backed Shiite militias or Iraqi Kurdish forces known as the Peshmerga. Iraqi army spokesman Yahya Rasool acknowledged that the military had to depend on the powerful Shiite militias for a time, but he said that time has now passed.

. . . .

In Ramadi, U.S. and Iraqi officers excluded Kurdish and Shiite militias to avoid aggravating sectarian and ethnic tensions."

However, as was reported by Jeff Stein in a December 19, 2015 Newsweek article entitled "Ramadi's Dirty Little Secret in the War Against ISIS"

"American commanders have been hailing the advance of the retrained Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) on Ramadi, the key city where they were easily routed some 18 months ago by marauding fighters of the Islamic State militant group (ISIS).

But what they aren’t saying—and are loath to concede, according to well-informed military sources in Washington—is that the security forces of the Iran-backed regime in Baghdad largely consist of Shiite fighters in league with murderous militias that have slaughtered innocent Sunnis after ousting ISIS militants from Tikrit and other battlegrounds in the past year. Ramadi is the capital of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province, and the Shiites are ready to pounce."

But more to the point, some 80 percent of Ramadi was destroyed in the fighting, leaving the city largely uninhabitable. We are told by The New Arab (my emphasis in red):

"'This is what Daesh (IS) left behind in Ramadi,' said Ahmad al-Assafi, one of the Sunni tribal leaders who are fighting the extremist group.

'The attacking forces preferred to destroy everything over suffering casualities [sic] and Daesh booby-trapped everything, the houses, buildings, shops, even electricity poles and sewerage manholes.'

It would cost less to build a city from scratch somewhere else than to rebuild Ramadi, Assafi told The New Arab."

Moreover, as reported by AP in an article entitled "Gains in Iraqi city vindicate US-led strategy, at high cost" by Sinan Salaheddin and Susannah George (my emphasis in red):

"Over the past six months, the coalition has launched more than 600 airstrikes, hitting about 2,500 different targets, U.S. Army Col. Steve Warren, the Baghdad-based spokesman for the coalition, told reporters on Tuesday. He said at its peak there were up to 1,000 IS fighters in Ramadi, and that only 150-250 remain.

But while the airstrikes eventually helped flush out the militants, they smashed large parts of the city into rubble."

And as noted by Evelyn Gordon in a must-read Commentary article entitled "Ramadi, Gaza, and Western Hypocrisy":

"During the Hamas-Israel war of 2014, both Obama Administration officials and their European counterparts repeatedly accused Israel of excessive force over the 'massive' destruction of civilian property in Gaza. But if those officials retain even a shred of intellectual integrity, the recent devastation of Ramadi during a joint Western/Iraqi effort to retake the city leaves them only two options: either hand themselves over to the International Criminal Court as suspected war criminals, or publicly apologize to Israel for all the slurs they hurled at it over far less extensive damage."

Bottom line: Notwithstanding Obama's thinly veiled SOTU criticism of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump's calls to bomb ISIS out of existence, Ramadi was effectively "carpet-bombed" by US-led coalition forces with the assistance of Iranian-backed Shiite militias.

The New York Times, "Americans Attracted to ISIS Find an ‘Echo Chamber’ on Social Media": Little in Common?

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In a lead New York Times article entitled "Americans Attracted to ISIS Find an ‘Echo Chamber’ on Social Media" by Scott Shane, Matt Apuzzo and Eric Schmitt, we are told of an "online community of [Islamic State] sympathizers in the United States" (my emphasis in red):

"As the Obama administration takes on the multidimensional challenge posed by the Islamic State after the killings in San Bernardino, Calif., the online community of sympathizers in the United States is a critical focus. They number in the hundreds, experts say, and fit no single profile. Among those whose flirtations took a serious turn and led to criminal charges are a trio of teenage siblings from Chicago, a former Air Force mechanic in his late 40s from New Jersey, and a mother of two from Philadelphia.

In fact, they have little in common except one thing: the weeks or months spent marinating in the rhetoric and symbolism of the Islamic State, courtesy of Twitter and other Internet platforms."

"Little in common"? They're not mostly Muslims (I recommend going to the link if you want a laugh)?

Thomas Friedman, "#You Ain’t No American, Bro": You Can't Always Get What You Want ... or Even Need

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I agree with Thomas Friedman in his latest New York Times op-ed, "#You Ain’t No American, Bro," that "Trump, by alienating the Muslim world with his call for a ban on Muslims entering America, is acting as the Islamic State’s secret agent." But from there, Friedman's opinion piece is all downhill.

Friedman proceeds to inform us:

"We need moderate Sunni Muslim forces to go house to house against ISIS in Iraq. We need Sunni spiritual leaders to go heart to heart and delegitimize the ISIS message everywhere. And we need Iran to make clear it supports an equitable power-sharing agreement in Iraq between Sunnis and Shiites, so moderate Sunni Arabs will fight ISIS rather than seeing it as their shield against Iran."

"Moderate" Sunni Muslim forces? Apart from the Kurds, tell me where to find them.

"We need Sunni spiritual leaders to go heart to heart and delegitimize the ISIS message everywhere"? I suggest Friedman take a tour of Saudi mosques on any given Friday. This is an instance where you can't always get what you want ... or even "need" for that matter.

"[W]e need Iran to make clear it supports an equitable power-sharing agreement in Iraq between Sunnis and Shiites"? Heck, Tom, Iranian meddling in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Egypt, Bahrain and Gaza is all about a play for Shiite hegemony throughout the Middle East following Saddam Hussein's disappearance from the scene. There is simply no way in hell that Iran is going to support an equitable power-sharing agreement in Iraq.

A solution to the quandary posed by ISIS? Needless to say, Tom Terrific has the answer:

"Apply more pressure on our Sunni allies to join the anti-ISIS fight with troops on the ground; call on the Saudis and other Sunnis to loudly delegitimize ISIS; deploy more U.S. and NATO Special Forces; make clear to Iran that we might have to put the nuclear deal on hold if Iran is not a more constructive partner in Iraq and Syria."

Pressure America's Sunni allies? Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Turkey are busy playing both sides of the fence.

"[M]ake clear to Iran that we might have to put the nuclear deal on hold if Iran is not a more constructive partner in Iraq and Syria"? Hey, Tom, Iran doesn't care. Three weeks ago, Iran test-launched its Ghadr-110 medium range ballistic missile, which can carry a nuclear warhead, in violation of Obama's unsigned nuclear deal with Supreme Leader Khamenei. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council still can't decide how to respond to a prior Iranian ballistic missile test in October.

Heaven help us if Trump wins the Republican nomination. And if Obama heeds Friedman, we're also in deep sh*t.

David Brooks, "How ISIS Makes Radicals": The Rise of ISIS Coincides With the Decline of Progressivism

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About a year ago, I wrote and sought to market an action screenplay, "The Hannibal Protocol," set in Lebanon and Syria, which examined the motivation of ISIS volunteers. Although the screenplay received good feedback from "The Black List" (I have no Hollywood connections), Hollywood would have none of it, believing, as did President Obama, that ISIS had been "contained."

Today, in an interesting New York Times op-ed entitled "How ISIS Makes Radicals," David Brooks examines the motivation of ISIS terrorists and asks how "the Islamic State is able to radicalize a couple living in Redlands, Calif." After presenting us with the tenets of "The True Believer," a 1951 book written by Eric Hoffer, Brooks offers advice as how best to respond to the threat from ISIS:

"The big thing that has changed in the past 60 odd years is that you don’t actually have to join a mass movement any more. You can follow it online and participate remotely.

The correct response is still the same, however. First, try to heal the social disintegration that is the seedbed of these movements. Second, offer positive inspiring causes to replace the suicidal ones. Third, mass movements are conquered when their charisma is destroyed, when they are defeated militarily and humiliated. Then they can no longer offer hope, inspiration or a plausible way out for the disaffected."

Heal the social disintegration among the tens of millions of alienated and impoverished Muslims in the Middle East, Europe, and now, in increasing numbers, the US, too? Good luck.

Offer Muslims a positive inspiring cause, i.e. pry them away from radical Islam? Sorry, but I don't think global warming will do the trick.

Defeat and humiliate ISIS? Obama had the chance; however, as so aptly stated by Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, America's president is a "total pussy." And as further observed by Stacey Dash, the president doesn't "give a shit" about terrorism. (Both Peters and Dash were suspended by Fox News for two weeks for their colorful assessments.)

Brooks fails to observe that the rise of ISIS coincides with the decline of Obama's mass movement for "Change." Regrettably, having sold his followers on the proposition that al-Qaeda and ISIS were on the run, the president finds himself incapable of rallying his troops to defeat "radical Islam," a threat that this false messiah claimed did not exist and still refuses to acknowledge.

New York Times Editorial, "President Obama’s Tough, Calming Talk on Terrorism": Tough as the Pillsbury Doughboy

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In yet another delusional editorial entitled "President Obama’s Tough, Calming Talk on Terrorism," The New York Times begins:

"During his Oval Office address on Sunday night, President Obama sought to reassure Americans that his administration’s expanding campaign against the Islamic State will succeed in reducing threats of terrorism, and he warned against the wholesale vilification of Muslims."

An "expanding campaign"? Fifty special ops soldiers can make a difference on the ground in Syria? I don't think so. (Don't get me wrong: I oppose US boots on the ground in Syria, and I believe NATO was wise to decide against sending its forces to fight ISIS there.)

In addition, as reported by Jacqueline Klimas in a Sunday, May 31, 2015 Washington Times article entitled "U.S. bombers hold fire on Islamic State targets amid ground intel blackout":

"Nearly 75 percent of U.S. bombing runs targeting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria returned to base without firing any weapons in the first four months of 2015, holding their fire mainly because of a lack of ground intelligence and raising questions about President Obama’s key tactic in pushing back an enemy that continues to expand its territory in the war zone."

This information must have those bastards from ISIS shaking in their pants!

And if that's not enough, President Obama declared in his Oval Office speech vis-à-vis America's "strategy" to destroy the Islamic State:

"It is designed and supported by our military commanders and counterterrorism experts, together with 65 countries that have joined an American-led coalition."

Included in Obama's 65-nation coalition against the Islamic State are such big guns as Albania, Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Estonia, Iceland, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Montenegro, Nigeria, Panama, Singapore, Slovenia, Somalia, and Tunisia. The coalition also includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, whose wealthy citizens have been busy funding ISIS.

Yup, Obama's speech was tough and calming, and we can all sleep well at night knowing that the president, when he is not preoccupied on the golf course, is committed to the security of the free world.

David Brooks, "The Green Tech Solution": Ignoring the Elephant in the Room (Not the Republicans)

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"And next week, I will be joining President Hollande and world leaders in Paris for the global climate conference. What a powerful rebuke to the terrorists it will be when the world stands as one and shows that we will not be deterred from building a better future for our children."

- President Obama, East Room of White House, November 24, 2015

A powerful rebuke to ISIS? The "gentlemen" of this terrorist organization give thought to the carbon footprint they leave when they sever heads and hang bodies out to dry on crucifixes? Sorry, but I am beginning to believe that America's president has grown delusional. Moreover, if he was truly serious about global warming, he should have insisted that all of the world's leaders arrive in Paris via commercial jet liners, or better yet, participate by way of conference call.

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Green Tech Solution," David Brooks discusses with his hero Alexander Hamilton (no, Brooks is not delusional) "how the world should move forward to ameliorate climate change." Brooks writes:

"This week’s Paris conference, I observed, seems like a giant Weight Watchers meeting. A bunch of national leaders get together and make some resolutions to cut their carbon emissions over the next few decades. You hope some sort of peer pressure will kick in and they will actually follow through.

I’m afraid Hamilton snorted.

The co-author of the Federalist papers is the opposite of naïve about human nature. He said the conference is nothing like a Weight Watchers meeting. Unlike weight loss, the pain in reducing carbon emissions is individual but the good is only achieved collectively."

Ah yes, the "good" (as opposed to the "bad" and the "ugly") is only achieved collectively.

But more to the point, aren't Brooks and Obama paying insufficient attention to the elephant in the room (and I'm not referring to the Republicans)? As we learn from a March 14, 2015 Economist article entitled "Made in China?":

"BY MAKING things and selling them to foreigners, China has transformed itself—and the world economy with it. In 1990 it produced less than 3% of global manufacturing output by value; its share now is nearly a quarter. China produces about 80% of the world’s air-conditioners, 70% of its mobile phones and 60% of its shoes. The white heat of China’s ascent has forged supply chains that reach deep into South-East Asia. This 'Factory Asia' now makes almost half the world’s goods."

China's efforts to stop global warming? Brooks cites in his opinion piece a September 24, 2015 New York Times article by Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Coral Davenport entitled "China to Announce Cap-and-Trade Program to Limit Emissions":

"President Xi Jinping of China will make a landmark commitment on Friday to start a national program in 2017 that will limit and put a price on greenhouse gas emissions, Obama administration officials said Thursday.

The move to create a so-called cap-and-trade system would be a substantial step by the world’s largest polluter to reduce emissions from major industries, including steel, cement, paper and electric power."

However, as reported in a June 30, 2015 Guardian article by Jennifer Duggan entitled "China makes carbon pledge ahead of Paris climate change summit":

"China will aim to cut its greenhouse gas emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 60-65% from 2005 levels under a plan submitted to the United Nations ahead of crucial climate change talks in Paris later this year.

The pledge has been eagerly awaited as the country is the world’s largest carbon emitter.

China said it would increase the share of non-fossil fuels as part of its primary energy consumption to about 20% by 2030, and peak emissions by around the same point, though it would 'work hard' to do so earlier."

China will "work hard" to reduce carbon emissions by 2030 (Will I live to see the day?), or, is China again blowing noxious smoke up our collective arses? Yup, I'm certain this statement of intentions preceding the Paris conference had those f*ckers from ISIS feeling thoroughly "rebuked" . . . not.

Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, "The Islamic State’s Bahraini Backers": Obama's Bullshit Coaltion Against the Islamic State

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In a blog item yesterday, I observed regarding Obama's coalition against ISIS :

"His 65-nation coalition against the Islamic State includes such big guns as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Estonia, Iceland, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Montenegro, Nigeria, Panama, Singapore, Slovenia, Somalia, and Tunisia. The coalition also includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, whose wealthy citizens have been busy funding the Islamic State."

I failed to mention that the Persian Gulf island nation of Bahrain is also one of Obama's partners in his "struggle" against the Islamic State.

Well, in case you missed it, Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, the director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, declared in a New York Times guest op-ed entitled "The Islamic State’s Bahraini Backers":

"While Bahrain imprisons political activists and rights advocates at home, it also participates in the American-led coalition against the Islamic State. The bitter irony of this is that the Islamic State’s Bahraini recruits come not from among the government’s opponents, but from within its own ranks.

Unlike the United States, Britain and France, where typically the Islamic State recruits among alienated young people, in Bahrain the group finds willing jihadists in the establishment. The most prominent Bahraini member of the Islamic State, the terrorist preacher Turki al-Binali, comes from a family closely allied with the Khalifa royal family. Other recruits have come directly from the security forces of Bahrain. (Mr. Rajab, the human rights advocate, was imprisoned for six months recently for pointing out links between the Bahraini military and the Islamic State.)

Another Binali family member who has defected to the Islamic State, Mohamed Isa al-Binali, is a former Interior Ministry officer. He worked in Jaw Prison, a facility notorious for overcrowding and harsh conditions. One former prisoner told me that he’d witnessed Mr. Binali overseeing the ill treatment of juvenile Shiite inmates, not long before Mr. Binali disappeared in 2014 to join the Islamic State."

A fitting testament to the quality of Obama's coalition and his administration's dedication to human rights? I think so.

Dana Milbank, "Barack Obama, President Oh-bummer": Why Is There a Need for a Syrian State?

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In a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Barack Obama, President Oh-bummer," uber-liberal Dana Milbank, observing the "stylistic gulf" between American President Obama ("discouraging and lawyerly") and French President Hollande ("upbeat and can-do") at a news conference in the White House on Tuesday, concludes (my emphasis in red):

"When Laura Haim of France’s Canal+ TV network asked if there was a deadline for ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, both men had the same policy: no timetable. But what they said after that highlighted their different styles.

Hollande spoke of a new era. “There is a new mind-set now,” Hollande said. “And those who believed that we could wait” now realize “the risk is everywhere . . . . We, therefore, must act.”

Then came President Oh-bummer.

'Syria has broken down,' he said. 'And it is going to be a difficult, long, methodical process to bring back together various factions within Syria to maintain a Syrian state.'

Maybe you can motivate people when you sound so discouraging. But it’s hard."

Query for Obama: Why is there any need whatsoever "to maintain a Syrian state," whose artificial boundaries were fixed in 1916 by France and Britain pursuant the Sykes-Picot Agreement? Isn't it time to recognize a Kurdish state, which would include the northern region of Syria, where its long-oppressed Kurds reside?

Reporting on yesterday's White House press conference, Peter Baker, in a New York Times article entitled "Meeting With François Hollande, Obama Urges Europe to Escalate ISIS Fight," writes:

"Publicly, though, Mr. Obama outlined no concrete new actions that the United States would take, and he suggested that the attacks might finally prompt Europe to approach the threat more seriously. 'We also think, as François said, that there may be new openness on the part of other coalition members to help resource and provide additional assistance, both to the coalition as a whole and to the local forces on the ground,' Mr. Obama said."

"[N]ew openness on the part of other coalition members to help resource and provide additional assistance"?  His 65-nation coalition against the Islamic State includes such big guns as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Estonia, Iceland, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Montenegro, Nigeria, Panama, Singapore, Slovenia, Somalia, and Tunisia. The coalition also includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, whose wealthy citizens have been busy funding the Islamic State.

In fact, Obama is disavowing responsibility for the Middle East disaster he engineered and blowing smoke up our collective asses.

Frank Bruni, "How ISIS Defeats Us": Dracula to the Rescue?

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In a seemingly sensible, balanced, New York Times op-ed entitled "How ISIS Defeats Us," Frank Bruni begins:

"I DON’T know how we win the war against ISIS.

But I know how we lose it. The last week has been a thorough and demoralizing education in that.

We lose it with a response to the Paris carnage and a discussion about the path forward that’s driven by partisan grievances and posturing rather than a mature, nuanced attempt to address Americans’ understandable anxiety and acknowledge that we may not be doing the right things or enough of them."

Bruni doesn't know how to win the war against the Islamic State? Well, fortunately or unfortunately, Russian President Putin thinks he knows how to win. Although Russian air strikes in Syria were initially focused on non-Islamic State rebel forces, including US-backed insurgents, that has all changed after ISIS took down a Russian passenger plane over Sinai on October 31 with a bomb that  killed 224 people. Putin responded to the attack on the A321 jet by declaring:

"Our military work in Syria must not only continue. It must be strengthened in such a way so that the terrorists will understand that retribution is inevitable."

And "true to his word," Putin is now carpet-bombing the Syrian city of Raqqa, which had served as the capital of the Islamic State's would-be caliphate. How many ISIS fighters and civilians have died in the attacks on the city, which once had a population of some 220,000? No one knows.

As you might be aware, Bram Stoker's "Dracula" was based upon a historical figure named Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, who, in his battles with the Ottoman Empire, took to impaling Turkish prisoners of war in order to dispirit enemy forces. Well today, a new Vlad has arisen - actually his name is Vladimir - who is not willing to brook any sh*t from ISIS.

How does the US win or lose against ISIS? Sorry, Frank, the whole situation has spun entirely out of American control.

David Brooks, "Hillary Clinton Takes On ISIS": Bullshit!

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Yes, I'm furious.

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Hillary Clinton Takes On ISIS," David Brooks praises Hillary Clinton's speech on Thursday at the Council on Foreign Relations. Brooks writes:

"The speech was very impressive. While other candidates are content to issue vague calls to get tough on terror, Clinton offered a multilayered but coherent framework, not only dealing with ISIS but also putting that threat within the crosscutting conflicts that are inflaming the Middle East.

For example, instead of just issuing a generic call to get tough on the terrorists, she pointed to the reality that ISIS will be toppled only if there is an uprising by fellow Sunnis. There has to be a Sunni Awakening against ISIS in 2016, like the Sunni Awakening that toppled Al Qaeda in Iraq starting in 2007.

That will not happen while President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria is spreading mayhem, terror and genocide."

Both Hillary and David fail to recognize that the Sunni Gulf states in the past funded the Islamic State and are now turning a blind eye to donations to ISIS from their wealthy citizenry. You see, Saudia Arabia is more afraid of Shiite Iran's ambition to gain hegemony over the Middle East than it is of ISIS. And lest anyone forget, the courtship of Iran has been a cornerstone of Obama's foreign policy, implemented in no small part by Secretary of State Clinton.

Or stated otherwise, by stoking Sunni fears involving American overtures to Iran, Obama and Hillary share partial responsibility for the emergence of the Islamic State.

Worse still, the Clinton Foundation has also been taking money from these same Gulf states.

Assad? Brooks fails to mention how Hillary declared in March 2011:

"There is a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he's a reformer."

Assad a reformer? This comment alone should disqualify Hillary as a presidential candidate.

And today, Hillary Clinton cannot even bring herself to say the words "radical Islam." It's almost akin to Harry Potter and friends trying not to utter "Voldemort."

Brooks goes on to say that the US should be "supporting institutional reform, as Clinton said, throughout the Arab world, to revitalize nations as functioning units. Not an unsustainable stab at nation-building, but better governance from top to bottom." Reform the theocracies and dictatorships which comprise the Muslim Middle East? Good luck at that. We already witnessed what came of the Arab Spring.

My advice to Brooks: Go back to writing about the "great religions . . . based on love." You know absolutely nothing about the Middle East.

David Brooks, "When ISIS Rapists Win": . . . and Iranian Thugs Are Empowered by Obama

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Observing in his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "When ISIS Rapists Win" that the Islamic State "fills the vacuum left by decaying nationalist ideologies," David Brooks concludes:

"So far the response to ISIS has been pathetic. The U.S. pledged $500 million to train and equip Syrian moderates, hoping to create 15,000 fighters. After three years we turned out a grand total of 60 fighters, of whom a third were immediately captured.

It’s time to stop underestimating this force as some group of self-discrediting madmen. ISIS is a moral and political threat to the fragile and ugly stability that exists in what’s left in the Middle East. ISIS will thrive and spread its ideas for as long as it has its land.

We are looking into a future with a resurgent Iran, a contagious ISIS and a collapsing state order. If this isn’t a cause for alarm and reappraisal, I don’t know what is."

A "contagious ISIS"? A pity the president isn't being informed of this. As reported in a Daily Beast article entitled "Spies: Obama’s Brass Pressured Us to Downplay ISIS Threat" by Shane Harris and Nancy A. Youssef:

"Senior military and intelligence officials have inappropriately pressured U.S. terrorism analysts to alter their assessments about the strength of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, three sources familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast. Analysts have been pushed to portray the group as weaker than the analysts believe it actually is, according to these sources, and to paint an overly rosy picture about how well the U.S.-led effort to defeat the group is going."

Be that as it may, maybe Nobel winner Obama should cut a multi-billion dollar peace deal with ISIS, in the hope that they will also discover reason and civility within 15 years? Yeah, right!

More important, what about "a resurgent Iran"? Obama went on record on December 29, 2014, as saying that Iran could become "a very successful regional power." Meanwhile, however, the mullahs continue to hang gay men; stone to death women accused of adultery; oppress Baha'is, Kurds, Christians and Sunni Muslims; threaten Israel with annihilation; arm Hamas and Hezbollah; and execute poets accused of "waging war on God."

ISIS is a curse on humanity, and so is Iran in equal measure, but what Obama decides not to see cannot hurt him.

Owen West, "Why Obama’s Plan to Send Advisers to Iraq Will Fail": Actually, Obama Is More Interested in Neutralizing Israel

In a must-read New York Times guest op-ed entitled "Why Obama’s Plan to Send Advisers to Iraq Will Fail," Owen West, who "served two tours in Iraq with the Marines," explains why Obama's "lily-pad" strategy to prop up Iraq is destined for failure. West writes:

"LAST week President Obama approved an additional 450 troops to join the roughly 3,000 already in Iraq. Living inside secure bases nicknamed 'lily pads,' they will train Iraqi soldiers for a few weeks via lecture and drill instruction. The graduates will then be sent outside the wire to fight the Islamic State.

This strategy is no more resolute than a lily pad, and our generals know it. It is tokenism that reflects confusion at the top, and it will fail.

Mr. Obama has declared that advisers are not combat troops. But in fact, to influence battlefield performance, the adviser’s first job is to set the example in combat. The goal is to instill in the local force a sense of professional aggression — of seizing the offense — that must be demonstrated firsthand.

Put simply, if the president wants to destroy the Islamic State, he will eventually renege on his ephemeral pledge not to engage in ground combat."

I agree with Mr. West that Obama's "lily-pad" strategy will fail; however, the opinion piece does not consider the possibility that Obama and friends don't care if it fails. The "lily-pad" strategy is not designed to succeed. Rather, it is window dressing intended to allow the president to finish his second term of office without making waves and leave the problem to his successor.

Mind you, I am not suggesting that the US return to Iraq with ground forces to confront the Islamic State. Iraq no longer exists as a country, and there can be no motivating Sunni troops in the service of the government to fight the Sunni Islamic State while Iranian-backed Shiite militias are perpetrating atrocities against Sunni villages.

Moreover, it is only a matter of time until one or more US soldiers are captured by the Islamic State, notwithstanding their confinement to "lily-pads." How will Americans react to a video of the beheading of a US soldier available on the Internet? Will Obama again respond by expressing his outrage and then hit the links, as he did in the case of American journalist James Foley?

Does the president want to destroy the Islamic State? I don't know. Meanwhile, he appears more intent upon empowering Iran to neutralize Israel. In this regard, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has just refused US Ambassador Dan Shapiro's request to publicly disassociate himself from former Israeli Ambassador to the US Oren's contention in his new book "Ally" that Obama has abandoned Israel.

Maureen Dowd, "Flickering Greatness": The Price of Narcissism

"Thanks to the service and sacrifice of our brave men and women in uniform, the war in Iraq is over. The war in Afghanistan is winding down. Al Qaeda has been decimated. Osama bin Laden is dead."

- President Obama, Campaign Event, Green Bay, Wisconsin, November 1, 2012

Well, at least bin Laden is dead.

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Flickering Greatness," Maureen Dowd observes that Obama's "future reputation is mortgaged to past neglect." Noting the disdainful response of House Democrats to Obama's Trans-Pacific Partnership, Dowd writes:

"The Democrats — even most of the Congressional Black Caucus, which Obama courted agressively [sic] and which has been protective of him — showed their allegience [sic] to themselves, their principles and their labor allies, and not to their aloof president."

Dowd proceeds to explain Obama's disaster in Iraq (yes, I know - this particular debacle did not originate with Obama):

"So Obama failed to keep his foot on the throat of our Shiite puppets, who balked at leaving an American troop presence there, with immunity, and who treated the Sunnis badly to punish them for the decades when Saddam treated the Shiites badly.

Many Sunnis, including Saddam’s former fighters put out of work by the American viceroy Paul Bremer, felt exposed and unprotected and joined up with Al Qaeda and ISIS."

And regarding the president's decision to send 450 more trainers to what is left of this country, Dowd concludes:

"It appears to be a sad, symbolic move by a country and president fed up with endless war and at wit’s end about how to combat the most murderous terrorists on the face of the earth. If we drowned in quicksand going full-bore for a dozen years beside Iraqi soldiers who did not want to fight, what good will 450 more American trainers do?

A lame duck sending sitting ducks to lily pads is not a pretty sight."

Lily pads? As long as those lily pads are not overrun by an ISIS onslaught on Baghdad, placing American soldiers in captivity. You will recall that when Obama ran off to the links after decrying the beheading of James Foley, it didn't add to his luster.

But what Maureen seems to forget is that it's not just Iraq that has unwound while the first invertebrate to occupy the Oval Office dithered. Libya, Yemen and Syria are now also home to some of the world's most notorious terrorist organization, and Lebanon hangs in the balance. Meanwhile, Obama appears determined to provide Iran with a nuclear arsenal, no matter what concessions need be made.

My goodness, the price that America has been forced to pay by a young narcissist consumed by his own wit.

Will Damascus Soon Fall to ISIS?

Will Damascus soon fall to ISIS or to the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front? It seems that the Russians and Hezbollah think that this is the case. As reported by The Jerusalem Post in an article entitled "Report: Russia turning its back on Syrian regime, not honoring prior agreements":

"'The Kremlin has begun to turn away from the regime,' the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq al-Awsat reported on Sunday, quoting an opposition official.

According to the report, for three months Moscow has been reducing its diplomatic staff in Damascus to essential personnel exclusively and the most recent move saw 100 Russians, along with their families, board a plane at the Latakia airport. Lebanese figures belonging to Hezbollah, as well as Iranian officials, were also said to be aboard the flight. According to the report, none of the personnel, main-stays of the government's War-Room throughout the civil war, have been replaced."

More evidence of the imminent fall of Damascus? Again, as reported by The Jerusalem Post in an article entitled "Assad hanging on, suspicion surrounds report he told Alawites to flee capital," which was published at the beginning of May:

"A report in the Saudi newspaper Okaz on Sunday quoted Lebanese Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas denying an article in the same paper a day earlier quoting unnamed sources claiming that Syrian intelligence told the elite Alawite families to leave the capital within 48 hours for its coastal stronghold of Latakia."

In addition, DEBKAFile is informing us in an article entitled "Iran weighs turning Hizballah’s anti-Israel missiles against ISIS to save Damascus and Baghdad" that "Iran is eyeing the re-allocation of the roughly 1,000 long-range rockets in Hizballah’s store" if the fate of Damascus hangs in the balance, i.e. turning the missiles against ISIS instead of Israel.

Stay tuned.

Charles Krauthammer, "You want hypotheticals? Here’s one.": Obama's Iraqi Balderdash

In an editorial entitled "The Escalation of Unauthorized Wars," The New York Times appears worried by the advances of the Islamic State in Iraq and the renewed escalation of American involvement in that country's war, or wars, depending upon on how one sees it. The Times would have us know:

"'As commander in chief, I will not allow the United States to be dragged into another war in Iraq,' President Obama said at the time [August 7, 2014]. Those words were suspect then. They seem preposterous now.

Over the past nine months, the United States and a small network of allies have carried out more than 4,050 strikes in Iraq and Syria in an attempt to weaken the Islamic State, a stunningly resilient terrorist group that poses an enormous menace to the region and the West. As of April 9, the war had cost American taxpayers more than $2.1 billion, or roughly $8.6 million per day, according to the latest data released by the Pentagon.

. . . .

As the war intensifies, it is more urgent than ever for Congress to approve a new Authorization for Use of Military Force that would provide adequate oversight and clearly articulate the long-term strategy for the fight against the Islamic State. The new mandate should replace the ones the administration is currently relying on and set clear limits that would preclude future administrations from using military force around the globe, anytime, anywhere, without consulting Congress."

Actually, Obama has said a lot of things about Iraq. As noted by Charles Krauthammer in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "You want hypotheticals? Here’s one.":

"Bush bequeathed to Obama a success. By whose measure? By Obama’s. As he told the troops at Fort Bragg on Dec. 14, 2011, 'We are leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people.' This was, said the president, a 'moment of success.'"

And today, Krauthammer would ask Hillary:

"Mme. Secretary: When you arrived at State, al-Qaeda in Iraq had been crushed and expelled from Anbar. The Iraqi government had from Basra to Sadr City fought and defeated the radical, Iranian-proxy Shiite militias. Yet today these militias are back, once again dominating Baghdad. On your watch, we gave up our position as the dominant influence over a 'sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq' — forfeiting that position gratuitously to Iran. Was that not a mistake? And where were you when it was made?"

Answers from Hillary, preoccupied with her silent presidential campaign, or Obama, preoccupied with appeasing Iran, whose forces are all that stand between ISIS and Baghdad? Forget it!