The Rise of ISIS: Extensive Timeline and the Roles Played by Bush, Obama, Turkey and Arab League

Contents

"We say as [Allah's prophet] Ibrahim - peace and blessings be upon him - said to his father [and his people]: "... There has started between us and you hostility and hatred forever, until you believe in Allah alone!" And we say to you as the Prophet Muhammed - peace and blessings be upon him - said: "We have come to you with nothing but slaughter!" So rejoice, oh disbelievers! [grabs butcher's knife] Declare Allah the greatest! Declare Allah the greatest!



"I swear by Allah the Almighty, we will cleanse the Arabian peninsula of you, oh filthy ones! We will conquer Jerusalem, oh Jews! We, the children of Isaac, will conquer Rome [and] take back Andalus [Spain and Portugal]! ... These are our passports, oh Tawagheet (tyrants) in every place! For I swear by Allah that we are Muslims. We are Muslims! We are Muslims! ...



"We praise Allah for his blessings and for gathering us together as the lions of the Islamic State from every corner of the world. We praise Allah who granted us the blessing of pledging allegiance to the ameer [commander] of the believers, Abu Bakr Al-Qurashi Al-Baghdadi..."

Greatest and most impassionate hate speech ever. Given by an ISIS leader after the capture of Fallujah in January 2014 (2014, ISIS video, Clanging of the Swords: Part IV, 2:30).

"Western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey are supporting [largely Jihadi] opposition forces [to Assad]. ...



"If the situation unravels, there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria...



"This creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI [Al Qaeda Iraq] to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will [lead to] unifying the Jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters [such as Jews, Christians and Shiites]."

August 2012, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report, 1.5 years before ISIS and Al Qaeda took over Ramadi and Fallujah and later Mosul. This was written while the CIA apparently was working with Arab League countries as Saudi Arabia and Qatar to arm said "opposition". (PDF)

"If a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn't make them Kobe Bryant."

January 24, 2014, Obama's (populist) reply to the remark that ISIS and Al Qaeda are now in control of Fallujah and Ramadi. He takes no action, similar to countless other occasions.

"The [Jihadi and "moderate"] groups, the armed groups in Syria, got a lot of support. Not just from the United States, but from other partners. ... Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia - a huge amount of money was coming in. ...



"We were watching. We saw that Daesh [ISIS] was growing in strength. And we thought Assad was threatened. We thought, however, that we could probably manage, you know, that Assad might then negotiate and instead of negotiating, he got Putin to support him."

September 21, 2016, reluctant words of Obama's secretary of state John Kerry during a private talk at United Nations headquarters to a group of anti-Assad Syrian activists. The talk caused some controversy when its contents became known.

PART I

2011: the year of hope

The Arab Spring, Cairo, Egypt, 2011.

It's 2011, the year of hope: the situation in Iraq is finally under control; Jihadist groups have been defeated and the U.S. pulls out of the country. Even better, the masses in the Middle East see the bright light of democracy and begin to protest against their evil oppressors everywhere. The first dictator to go is Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. Large freedom celebrations break out. CBS reporter Lara Logan finds out just how thankful the Egyptians are with their newfound freedom; for 40 minutes she is subjected to a near fatal gang rape by a crowd of several dozen over-excited freedom celebrators. Such a thing can't spoil the party, of course, nor the fact that, according to authoritative World Public Opinion (Brookings Institution, Columbia University, Georgetown University) and Pew polls, Egyptians almost universally support:

People in the Middle East also seem highly divided about the concept of democracy and women's rights. Combine that with the greatly heightened crime numbers among immigrants from these regions, including rape numbers more than 20 times higher than West-Europeans, and it is hard to see how Muslims are going to develop a thriving democracy at this point in time, with or without external help. However, let's not be negative!

Muammar Gaddafi in neighboring Libya is disposed of later in 2011. He meets his end after a lovely anal gang rape that is broadcasted around the world. Jihadis soon rule the country with endless streams of African refugees finally having free movement through Libya as a gateway into Europe. In Syria large-scale protests break out against dictator Bashar al-Assad. In Bahrain and Tunisia Amber Lyon is strolling around with her CNN film crew, doing her part in trying to overthrow the regimes here. It's clear: the "Arab Spring" is in full swing.

Rockefeller and Soros favorite Bernie Sanders at Occupy Wall Street in 2011.

Meanwhile, in the United States, westerners rise up against the "1%" in Occupy Wall Street rallies across the country. The "1%" actually supporting these protests through foundations as Tides and allied "alternative" "liberal CIA" media outlets is just a minor detail we shouldn't pay too much attention to. After all, Barack Obama, that symbol of western tolerance and progression, is now in office. With that, he has saved the world from Bush, the "Israel-uber-alles" neocons, and their evil war plans with regard to Iran. Black people finally have a voice too. The borders are open and the entire Third World is invited to come celebrate. And all of it has become possible through the internet, through alternative news, social media, the Tor project, "Generation Z", Wikileaks, and all those selfless, adventurous "hacktivists" of Anonymous.

So, here in 2011 we have Westerners and Muslims fighting together against tyranny and exploitation. It finally looks as if we're all going to live in peace - forever and prosperous - every nation and ethnic group on Earth. The age of enlightenment is just around the corner!

2014: the year of nightmare

The Syrian city of Homs: from the Arab Spring in 2011 to the post-ISIS struggle in 2016.

Three years later. It's 2014. Right from start, in January, the nightmare begins: a seemingly unstoppable Sunni Jihadist monster army consisting of tens of thousands of fighters rises from the ashes in Syria and Iraq, seemingly out of nowhere. The Jihadis take over all of western Iraq and eastern Syria in a matter of months. Soon the world is confronted with film clips of gruesome public executions of "infidels", a refugee stream of over 10 million Syrians, terrorist attacks all over Europe and the United States, and a loss of priceless world heritage sites at Palmyra that stood for thousands of years.

Even worse, at the same time that ISIS arises in Syria and Iraq, allied terrorist groups rear their ugly heads in Libya and Egypt: two supposed "Arab Spring" success stories. Other Muslim countries in northern Africa are also soon infected with the Jihad virus: Mali, Nigeria, Somalia. It took more than a decade, but Bush's prediction after 9/11 of a near endless War on Terror has finally arrived in full force.

The rise of ISIS in Syria - and its oil smuggling through Turkey

Needless to say, a lot of people have been wondering: what on Earth happened? Where did this Jihadist monster army come from so suddenly? And maybe even more important: who is responsible for its sudden rise?

Syria conflict map the day this article was published. See syria.liveuamap.com for daily map updates. It remains hilarious and very telling that on virtually no battle map at any point the Free Syrian Army is listed as distinct from Al Nusra and other Sunni-Salafist-terrorist groups apart from ISIS.

In brief, after Libya's fall in late 2011, tens of thousands of weapons from looted arms depots in this country ended up with the anti-Assad "dissidents" in Syria, including Al Qaeda Syria (Al Nusra) and the Islamic State (ISIS), as well as only slightly more "acceptable" Jihadi groups as Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham, respectively founded in mid 2011 and December 2011. Many Libyan Jihadis followed the arms pipeline from Libya into Syria as well. The arms shipments to anti-Assad elements were soon matched by Iranian, Russian and Chinese shipments to Assad, causing an arms race that started to explode in early 2013. In March of that year ISIS forces in eastern Syria moved west and took control over much of Raqqa. ISIS came as far as the outskirts of Aleppo in north-west Syria that year, but were kicked out here in January 2014 by fellow anti-Assad groups Al Qaeda Syria (Al Nusra) and West-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces because ISIS could not be reasoned with. In that very same period, in the first days of January 2014, ISIS fully moved across the border into an increasingly sectarian-divided Iraq, and took control of Ramadi and Fallujah.

General perception of Obama's campaign towards ISIS, as well as his overall policy towards Iraq. While definitely not inaccurate, Bush, Turkish and Arab League influence on the situation, or the extreme corruption of Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, should not be overlooked. The whole situation is a mess.

At the very least Obama could have prevented the Iraq situation, but the U.S. president maintained a strict hands-off policy until almost all of western Iraq was in the hands of ISIS, including the northern city of Mosul.

In a nutshell, that's how the ISIS situation happened. But we can go into more detail. Much more detail. The shipments in question were organized by Turkey and Arab League countries as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan. Qatar is primarily linked with Al Nusra financing, with Qatari officials and others having described ISIS as a "Saudi project" and in particular of good old "Bandar Bush", the decades-long key CIA asset and friend of the Bush family. That is, until ISIS turned against Saudi Arabia in early 2014, as it did against Turkey, Al Nusra, Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri (the still fugitive and reportedly Far West-linked right-hand of Osama bin Laden at the time of 9/11) and everyone else. Turkey has been linked to support of both Al Nusra and ISIS, not just in the form of arms shipments and the movement of Jihadi militants, but also to medical treatment of wounded militants, ISIS oil imports, the supplying of thousands of tons of explosive material for ISIS' truck bombs and other IEDs, and possibly even the supplying of Sarin gas to Al Nusra militants.

Pakistan and Kuwait, including all afore-mentioned countries, have been linked to Jaysh al-Islam, Ahrar al-Sham and, much later, Jund al-Aqsa. The latter group was only founded in January 2014. Realistically, all three are terrorist groups. Secretary of state John Kerry certainly seemed to think so. The only reason these groups are kept off United Nations terrorism blacklists for the time being is because they have stuck to trying to overthrow Assad. Keeping these groups part of the "legal" opposition to Assad also makes it harder for Russia to legally bomb them.

The United Arab Emirates is another country that stands accused of supporting Jihadi militants in Syria, an accusation voiced by none other than Obama's vice president Joe Biden. While available evidence against the UAE is not particularly strong for the time being, the country - alongside Qatar, the CIA and the late ambassador Chris Stevens - also surfaced as an arms supplier towards Libya to Jihadi anti-Gaddafi militias in the months before the pipeline reversed and Libyan arms and Jihadi fighters started to move towards Syria.

The thing is, both the Arab League and the Syrian "rebel" groups are Sunni-dominated. Sunnis, and certainly its Salafist extremists, happen to not only hate westerners and Jews, but also Shiites - who can be found in Iran, eastern Iraq and western Syria, where they serve as Assad's power base (the Alawites). It must be said, Iraq's Arabic Shiites don't necessarily get along too well either with the Persian Shiites of Iran, but it certainly is orders of magnitudes better than with the Sunnis, with whom the Shiites are locked into a permanent state of war throughout the Middle East. This state of war in part is also why the West is allied with Sunni terrorism-supporting states as Saudi Arabia and Qatar against the Shiite terrorism-sponsoring regimes of Syria and Iran (Hezbollah and Hamas). Because Arab League countries enjoy the protection of the United States, they generally are not too concerned with the development of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, a dangerous obsession of Syria and Iran in particular.

In other words, a break with the Arab League, also because of oil interests, is not considered desirable. That's almost certainly why Obama tried to block the 9/11 families from going after members of the Saudi establishment for their ties to the (equally Sunni) Al Qaeda terrorists who carried out 9/11. In fact, Bandar Bush, the alleged ISIS financier; and Prince Turki, the 25-year Saudi intelligence chief who suddenly stood down two weeks before 9/11, are considered among the chief Saudi suspects of having played a role in the 9/11 plot, not to speak of Prince Turki's Far West Ltd. ties. Interestingly, both were suddenly removed as Saudi intelligence chiefs by the Saudi king immediately before major cases of so-called "blowback", first in the form of Al Qaeda's 9/11 hijackers and later in the form of ISIS. Both Prince Bandar and Prince Turki also go back to the controversial Hun School at Princeton and have been named as decades-long CIA assets who helped finance the CIA's global operations after congress became too nosy in the 1970s with all the congressional investigations into MKULTRA, domestic spying, dirty tricks, Watergate, the Kennedy assassination, and other cases of suspected misconduct. The support for terrorism of Bandar Bush and Prince Turki is additionally interesting, because the latter in particular has always been part of the western superclass, showing up at countless elite conferences and think tanks.

U.S. involvement in Syria goes back quite a few years. In 2005 the Bush administration, with the aid of a network of private think tanks, was able to boot Syria out of Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon in an event known as the Cedar Revolution. Along with Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya, this was one of the objectives set out by the Bush administration after 9/11. That is, according to the well-known "seven countries in five years" claim of General Wesley Clark, the former NATO commander.

From April 2009, and thus since before the "Arab Spring", the State Department's Barada TV was broadcasting into Syria to incite protests and armed dissent against the Assad regime. By itself this wasn't going to result in the removal of Assad. As Obama pointed out, "an opposition made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth [can't] battle not only a well-armed state but also a well-armed state backed by Russia, backed by Iran [and] a battle-hardened Hezbollah." Of course, you can give the opposition a little help in the form of rifles and anti-tank missiles, especially when it involves religious extremists.

Throughout 2012 the CIA under Obama and MI6 under David Cameron helped coordinate the afore-mentioned Turkey-Arab League arms shipments from Libya to Syria. The CIA didn't just get arms from Libya, but also brokered a $1.5 billion arms deal with Eastern European countries, involving "AK-47s, mortar shells, rocket launchers, anti-tank weapons and heavy machine guns." Most likely this deal explains the huge numbers of AK-47 rifles in ISIS' possession. One assumes these arms raise less eyebrows in the West than M-4s or M-16s.

Free Syrian Army (FSA) soldiers with U.S.-supplied TOW missiles and Barrett .50 cal sniper rifles. Many, if not the majority of pre-2015 FSA fighters joined ISIS and Al Qaeda Syria - and certainly cooperated with them.

Looking at these individuals and based on the fact that the vocabulary of these TOW crews in YouTube combat videos is pretty much restricted to "Allahu Akbar" utterances of varying pitch and volume, one wonders how "moderate" anyone really thought these rebels were.

Anti-tank missiles also made it to Syrian rebels from late 2011. Starting no later than February 2012, the U.S., Great Britain and France - three countries deeply involved in getting rid of Gaddafi in Libya - were training Free Syrian Army units in Jordan to be infiltrated into Syria. These units went on to decimate Assad's tank forces with TOW missiles, an extremely low profile but highly successful campaign. By May 2013 each month more than 100 tanks of Assad were lost to these missiles. At this point - May 2013 - approximately 2,000, or 27 percent, of Assad's entire 7,300 tank and BMP force had been destroyed in this manner. Even in 2017, when looking at the live war map of the Syrian conflict at syria.liveuamap.com, one can spot numerous instances in which tanks of Assad are destroyed with anti-tank missiles by a variety of FSA and Jihadi militias. Considering these operations have played such a key role in decimating Assad's tank army - once among the largest in the world - it's quite bizarre that virtually no attention has been given to it.

Even more strange, all this CIA conspiring is reported to have happened from late 2011 and throughout 2012 when Obama is said to have kept his entire administration from getting involved in the Syria conflict, blocking all aid, even "non-lethal", and even barring his State and Defense departments from liaising with the Free Syrian Army. This attitude caused major friction with secretary of state Hillary Clinton, secretaries of defense Leon Panetta (also Obama's former CIA director) and Chuck Hagel, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Martin Dempsey and, of course, much of the media, the Washington Post at the forefront. Yet, the CIA, whether directly or indirectly - through private fronts, assets, cut-outs and Arab League countries - appears to have been doing its usual thing. The reports are right there in the New York Times.

Quite predictably, "moderate" West-trained Free Syrian Army army forces not only sold their arms on to their "brothers" in Al Nusra and ISIS (and probably the other Jihadi militias just mentioned), but many also joined these groups. In mid 2014, with ISIS having greatly grown in strength, it was even reported that the Free Syrian Army hardly existed anymore due to the number of defections to Jihadi groups. Even before that, many soldiers in these FSA units were joking that they were fighting a Jihad with arms and training provided by the West.

Throughout the 2013-2015 period, ISIS financed its war effort with captured oil wells and illegal oil trade with Turkey, looting, taxation, extortion, and the establishing of monopolies on essentials as food and energy. Generally it is estimated that ISIS brought in over $1 billion a year in this period, allowing it to provide its fighters and terrorists with very decent monthly wages.

However, the fact remains that the initial success of ISIS came through literally billions in covert arms shipments to the region, in addition to covert training programs of the West to take out Assad's tank army. States as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey have been the main culprits behind arming these extremist elements, but considering the extent of cooperation between the Free Syrian Army and these extremist groups - not to mention the alleged involvement of the CIA and MI6 in Arab League arms shipments to Syria - one has to conclude that the United States, Great Britain and France are almost just as guilty as these Middle Eastern countries in allowing the rise of ISIS. Since early 2013, newspapers regularly reported how "non-lethal" and "lethal" aid were ending up with extremists, either directly through Turkey and the Arab League or through Free Syrian Army "moderates" selling materiel on to their "brothers" of ISIS and Al Nusra. The West knew and did nothing.

Then again, based on a September 2016 statement at a private United Nations meeting of John Kerry, Obama's secretary of state, we get the impression that the Obama administration didn't mind the growth of ISIS alongside the Free Syrian Army, this in the hope of pressuring Assad to leave the country:

"We were watching. We saw that Daesh [ISIS] was growing in strength. And we thought Assad was threatened. We thought, however, that we could probably manage, you know, that Assad might then negotiate and instead of negotiating, he got Putin to support him."

Unfortunately, apart from Assad refusing to leave as dictator of Syria, ISIS couldn't be controlled. The West, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and even Al Qaeda all had to find this out the hard way. The only reason Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries joined the "anti-terrorism" alliance against ISIS in September 2014 is because ISIS had begun a campaign to destabilize Saudi Arabia. However, ISIS oil trade routes weren't targeted, allowing the terrorist group to greatly expand its territory from May to August 2015. Turkey became the victim of a first major ISIS bombing in July 2015, reluctantly forcing it into the still not particularly effective anti-ISIS campaign.

In November 2015 ISIS attacked Paris, killing 130 citizens. It appears this attack conclusively ended the secret ISIS oil pipeline into Turkey and forced the West to actively close it down and fight ISIS in a more serious manner than before, despite the fact that Assad still was in place and wasn't going anywhere soon. One of the reasons that Assad remained in place is because Obama and the West failed to instate a no-fly zone over the country to "protect civilians", which could have been done after the August 2013 sarin gas attack in Ghouta (where rebel/Jihadi groups were active). This was two years before Russia began its airstrikes in Syria, which first happened in September 2015. The lack of air cover would have allowed anti-Assad forces to be much more effective and appears to have been part of the original plan for the coup against Assad by Obama's State Department. [1] Obviously, Senator McCain also really loved that idea. The alternative, handing ISIS, Al Qaeda, or even the Free Syrian Army surface to air missiles such as the Stinger, Mistral, or Starstreak, is extremely tricky, because these groups are just as likely to shoot down civilian airliners.

Erdogan's Turkey: helped ship Libyan arms to Al Qaeda Syria and ISIS to be used against the Kurds and Assad since late 2011. Bought and transported billions in ISIS oil in 2013-2015. Has become increasingly antagonistic towards Russia and the West over the years.

Turkey's megalomaniacal dictator-to-be Tayyip Erdogan, an incredibly erratic NATO "partner", caused further problems in November 2015 when he allowed the shoot-down of a Russian fighter jet. Russia immediately responded by bringing its hyper-advanced S-400 surface to air missile system into Syria, along with dozens of advanced T-90 tanks that cannot be taken out by the older TOW systems the U.S. had been shipping to Syrian rebels.

To this day it is not known to what extent the West supported Erdogan's overseeing of the ISIS oil trade. It is also not known to what extent his apparent support for Al Nusra and potential hand in the August 2013 Ghouta sarin gas attack (or the creation of a roughly similar incident) was sanctioned by elements in the West. What we do know is that his initial refusal to fight ISIS was controversial, as was his refusal to prevent ISIS massacres on the Kurds just a mile from his border (he even kept the border closed to refugees). His anti-democratic proclivities and reactionary behavior towards Russia, which deepened Russian involvement into Syria, also appear to not have been appreciated by the West.

The situation with Erdogan only got worse after a seemingly justified-but-failed CIA coup in June 2016. Among other things, Erdogan has been attacking countries as the Netherlands and Germany of operating like Nazi regimes for not being allowed to campaign here for his new presidential system and even began attacking the West for supporting ISIS. That last accusation might well be true, but is clear that Erdogan has been among the most ruthless players in the whole Syria conflict. The primary question that remains is to what extent the West knew about and allowed Turkey and the Arab League to support ISIS and Al Nusra as a counter-weight to Assad.

In brief, the summary here explains:

how the ISIS nightmare - at least the Syrian aspect - hit the world so suddenly in mid 2014;

how despite continued NATO-Arab League bombings, ISIS continued to expand its territory in Syria in mid 2015;

and how ISIS was able to carry out a number of major terrorist attacks in the West starting in November 2015.

The short answer is that the West was looking to see if ISIS could force Assad out of office, a dream that was largely quashed in November 2015 with the Paris attack, Turkey's downing of a Russian fighter jet, and Russia's subsequent entry into the war in the side of Assad.

In addition, it looks as if the war against ISIS has been progressing so slowly even after November 2015, because the NATO-Arab League alliance has needed time to replace lost territory with newly-created Free Syrian Army units, including Jaysh al-Nasr in the north-west, the Kurd-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces in the north and north-east, and the New Syrian Army in the south.

None of that is a certainty, but all of it certainly is a possibility.

The rise of ISIS in Iraq: terrorist invasion, Sunni rebellion - or both?

As we move to Iraq, a little historical, demographic and natural resources information might come in handy. Sunnis constitute roughly 17% of Iraq and live in the west of the country, adjoining the Sunni population in eastern Syria. The Kurds in the north make up a similar percentage, with the Shiites in the east and south-east constituting 63% of the population. Saddam Hussein, the dictator who ruled the country from 1979 to 2003, was a Sunni who brutally suppressed the Shiite and Kurd populations. Apart from preventing sectarian tensions and challenging his rule, Hussein had good reason to keep the Kurds and Shiites of Iraq under his thumb: literally all of Iraq's oil fields can be found in the eastern half of the country, from the Shiite south (Basra) and center (East-Baghdad) to the Kurdish north (Kirkuk). Ironically, over the border in Sunni Syria, also quite a few oil fields can be found. But in Sunni Iraq? Hardly anything.

Now that we have these basics established, let's look at ISIS in Iraq. The first ISIS myth, especially with regard to Iraq, is that there ever existed an organized, standing, terrorist monster army of 100,000 soldiers or more that invaded from Syria in late December 2013 and overran all of western Iraq in a matter of months. Yes, compared to the situation in the late 1990s with Osama and his 300 terrorists, a group of several thousand ISIS militants can definitely be labeled a "monster army". However, the fact is that under ordinary circumstances this terrorist army would not have stood the slightest chance against Iraq's military, which at the time consisted of 250,000 foot soldiers, thousands of America-made hummers, dozens of M1A1 Abrams tanks, a number of Cessna planes with Hellfire missiles and also some recently-acquired Hind and Havoc attack helicopters. ISIS consisted of little more than several thousand militants armed with AK-47s who moved around in columns of unarmored Toyota, Nissan and Ford trucks. Easy pickings one would say. So, how did ISIS take over Iraq's western Anbar province so rapidly?

If we break it down to the core issue, the reason that it was so easy for ISIS and Al Qaeda, two Sunni terrorist groups, to spill over the border into Iraq is because the Sunni population in Iraq's western province of Anbar was relentlessly suppressed by succeeding Shia governments. For years the Bush and Obama governments maintained fantasies of an "inclusive" Iraqi government in which Shia and Sunni representatives would govern together in peace. As anyone could have predicted beforehand, this didn't exactly work out. Hussein, a Sunni, fell, the majority Shia started to take revenge on the minority Sunni population, and subsequently the Sunni population either allied with ISIS or Al Qaeda, or at the very least came to see these groups as the lesser evil to the "Maliki militia".

The "Maliki militia" is a reference to army and police forces of Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister from May 2006 to September 2014. The initially very obscure Maliki was brought to power with help from the United States in order to get rid of Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Iraq's first truly independent prime minister in 2005 and 2006. The second al-Jaafari came to power, sectarian violence in the form of Shia death squad activity against the Sunnis greatly increased. Each month hundreds of Sunni residents were found on the streets of Baghdad, tortured to death with acid and drills. Despite a lessening of these extremes, unfortunately also Maliki was never particularly concerned with the welfare of the Sunnis.

As time went by, Maliki became more and more corrupt. By the early 2010s he and his cronies were laundering billions in oil revenues that should have gone to the population. They were also setting up billion dollar contracts for government properties that would never be build. In addition, with encouragement of fellow Shiite state Iran, Maliki forced America to withdraw its forces from Iraq. True, outgoing president Bush signed the papers in December 2008: the United States would fully and completely leave Iraq before December 31, 2011, passing the ball a month later on to Obama as to how to carry this out effectively, along with the entire multi-trillion dollar War on Terror. Obama tried to renegotiate that deal with Maliki, but Iraq's prime minister wanted to hear nothing of it. Maliki even disrespected the United States by increasing the number of raids on U.S. corporations in the Green Zone as American military strength in Iraq dwindled. Parallel to this, Maliki increased the purging of Sunni elements from the Iraqi government.

Really already well before the U.S. fully left Iraq, the writing was on the wall as to Maliki's agenda and the consequences it would have. In fact, it was clear even before his predecessor, prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, came into office in May 2005. By that time a brutal Sunni insurgency, led by Al Qaeda Iraq, had reared up. Car bombs were beginning to explode at Shia weddings, funerals and market places.

The United States reacted by training and arming various Shia-dominated militias, among them the notorious Wolf Brigade (soon renamed Freedom Brigade), which came to serve a counter-insurgency force against the Al Qaeda militants. Any potential terrorist the United States captured was handed over to these units if they refused to talk (or if they happened to not know anything). Brutal torture in a network of secret prisons ensued. General David Petraeus, the future CIA director at the time responsible for training and equipping Iraq's security forces, set up these forces. Rather obvious CIA asset Colonel James Steele, a personal envoy of secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, was put in charge of them as the chief U.S. liaison. Incredibly, a number of journalists have reported how they interviewed Steele at one of these secret compounds with the screams of tortured insurgents or suspected insurgents audible in the background.

Even more incredible, in the 1990s Steele was intimately part of the CIA clique of Felix Rodriguez in El Salvador, which was arming and training Contra death squads while allowing payments for their services in planes full of cocaine. Rodriguez was the personal envoy of U.S. vice president George H. W. Bush and his national security advisor Donald Gregg, two "former" top CIA officers themselves.

Suppressing the terrorist insurgency by allowing Shia militias to torture far too many innocent Sunnis, many of which were showing up dead all around town each morning, didn't work too well. So in 2007 a new tactic was devised. This time the United States allied itself with the Sahwa, or Sons of Iraq, a coalition of Sunni tribal leaders in the western province of Anbar that apparently had grown tired of terrorist groups as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Strengthened with U.S. dollars - 80,000 members of the Sahwa were put on the U.S. payroll for a total sum of $25 million per month - and U.S. promises of an equal Sunni role in the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government, the Sahwa fought alongside the U.S. military in the 2007-2008 period, finally resulting in the crushing of Al Qaeda Iraq and the Islamic State, which were terrorizing the Americans and Shia alike.

Early March 2012: ISIS training in Iraq's southern desert roughly 100 miles west of Ramadi and Fallujah. The immediate target is the assassination of a "Safavi" (Shia/Iranian) officer in Haditha. Militants transport themselves by Toyota and Ford 4x4 trucks at this point.

Unfortunately for these Sunni tribal leaders, in November 2008, one month before signing its strategic withdrawal agreement, the Bush government handed the budget for the Sahwa over to the Maliki government, which, anti-Sunni as it was, wasted no time in gutting the Sahwa's finances, and with that, its military and policing capabilities. Needless to say, the Sahwa felt betrayed. The decision also saw a return of ISIS and Al Qaeda already before the U.S. had fully withdrawn its soldiers from Iraq in December 2011. Certainly when U.S. troop strengths started to dwindle, Al Qaeda and ISIS recruited many young Sahwa members and forced their leaders into cooperation. Sahwa leaders who resisted were accused of treason and targeted for assassination.

The Maliki government continued to make the situation worse with its corruption and suppression of the overall Sunni population, not just the Sahwa. While Sunni grievances grew day by day over a period of many years through the abuses of the "Maliki militia", several incidents in particular are credited with having sparked the Sunni "Anbar Campaign", a rebellion that happened to coincide perfectly with the "invasion" of ISIS. A list:

December 15, 2011: Three days before the last American soldiers leave Iraq, Maliki orders the arrest of Sunni vice president Tariq Al-Hashimi, who promptly flees the country to meet with Saudi Arabian and Qatari rulers, before settling in Turkey.

Three days before the last American soldiers leave Iraq, Maliki orders the arrest of Sunni vice president Tariq Al-Hashimi, who promptly flees the country to meet with Saudi Arabian and Qatari rulers, before settling in Turkey.

December 21, 2012: The Maliki government orders a raid on the home of Sunni finance minister Rafi al-Issawi, who earlier, in the summer of 2012, obstructed a $7 billion load fraud by the Maliki clique.

The Maliki government orders a raid on the home of Sunni finance minister Rafi al-Issawi, who earlier, in the summer of 2012, obstructed a $7 billion load fraud by the Maliki clique.

March 2013: After surviving two roadside bombs and a fire set to his Green Zone office that destroyed all evidence of the Maliki loan fraud, Issawi resigns from the Maliki government.

After surviving two roadside bombs and a fire set to his Green Zone office that destroyed all evidence of the Maliki loan fraud, Issawi resigns from the Maliki government.

April 23, 2013: Maliki's forces storm Hawija, a Sunni protest camp in a village near Kirkuk, leaving dozens dead and wounded.

Maliki's forces storm Hawija, a Sunni protest camp in a village near Kirkuk, leaving dozens dead and wounded.

July 2013: After ISIS breaks out hundreds of prisoners from the Abu Ghraib and Taji Base prisons near Baghdad during its "Breaking the Walls" campaign, the Maliki government responds with a mass arrest of Sunni males.

After ISIS breaks out hundreds of prisoners from the Abu Ghraib and Taji Base prisons near Baghdad during its "Breaking the Walls" campaign, the Maliki government responds with a mass arrest of Sunni males.

December 28, 2013: After three days of protests against the Maliki government, Sunni tribal chief and Iraqi member of parliament Ahmad al-Alwani, despite parliamentary immunity, is dragged from his home in central Ramadi by Maliki's security forces. Alwani's brother and five guards are killed in the process.

After three days of protests against the Maliki government, Sunni tribal chief and Iraqi member of parliament Ahmad al-Alwani, despite parliamentary immunity, is dragged from his home in central Ramadi by Maliki's security forces. Alwani's brother and five guards are killed in the process.

December 30, 2013: 44 Sunni members of parliament resign in protest over the Alwani incident while ISIS starts its attack on Ramadi and Fallujah, which are being shelled by the Maliki government. ISIS receives a lot of help from sleeper cells within the population to attack Maliki's police and army forces in the back.

The take-over of Ramadi and Fallujah in early January 2014 is where the ISIS conquest of Iraq began. It would be relatively quiet until June 2014 when cities as Mosul and Tikrit were taken over and the world at large really became aware of the ISIS threat.

However, as the reader can see, the ISIS invasion largely comes down to a popular rebellion of Sunnis against the Shia-dominated Maliki government. In fact, it is impossible to find ANY reliable newspaper articles reporting about a major ISIS invading force from Syria entering Iraq around this time. I say "reliable", because "liberal CIA" alternative media outlet Counterpunch, which also happens to be rabidly anti-Israel, did write on June 24, 2014 in an article entitled Did Obama Know that ISIS Planned to Invade Iraq?:

"Today's head-scratcher: How could a two-mile long column of jihadi-filled white Toyota Land rovers barrel across the Syrian border into Iraq–sending plumes of dust up into the atmosphere –without US spy satellites detecting their whereabouts...? And why has the media failed to inquire about this massive Intelligence failure?

Top: ISIS trucks in the desert during ISIS' "Breaking the Walls" campaign of 2012-2013.

Bottom: ISIS truck convoy moving into captured Fallujah in January 2014.

The article doesn't produce any sources as to the origin of these columns of vehicles, which can be spotted in a number of photos and videos, including ISIS' Clanging of the Swords propaganda videos (the entry into Fallujah is documented in part IV). Not a single mainstream or even alternative media source has explained where exactly these trucks originated from before entering Ramadi and Fallujah. One is tempted to think Highway 1, which runs for hundreds of miles from the Syrian border to Ramadi, but it appears this highway was controlled by the Iraqi government. Highway 12 then, a little to the north, which also runs from Syria to Ramadi? No, that's not possible either, because this highway is filled with cities that ISIS only began to attack after capturing Ramadi.

In other words, it appears ISIS could only have gotten to Ramadi by driving hundreds of miles through the desert and/or by slowly setting set up shop locally in and around Ramadi and Fallujah in the weeks prior to the take-over of these cities. There has been a very obscure report that an ISIS invasion force crossed the border from Syria into Iraq at Rabia just before the attack on Mosul in June 2014, but overall, details on how and when ISIS soldiers crossed into Iraq are extremely obscure to this day. So in that regard Counterpunch is right that the media has forgotten to investigate it, even at the time of this article, three-and-a-half years after the rise of ISIS.

As for the pick-up truck controversy, it must be acknowledged that these trucks could have come from anywhere: Iraqi or Syrian dealers, supplied to ISIS through friendly businessmen; State Department aid to the Free Syrian Army (which included several dozen Toyota trucks), which subsequently was diverted to ISIS. Shipments could have come from Saudi Arabia or Qatar, either directly or indirectly. But who really knows?

About the only thing that can be found on the origin of ISIS in Iraq is an October 31, 2013 report of the ultraright publication the Washington Times, which explained that at that point up to 12,000 ISIS and Al Qaeda militants were active just over the border in Syria, that they maintained their own oil revenue streams and had been "bringing heavy weaponry from Syria into Iraq" over the past year. No details on how ISIS accomplished this or where these weapons (and trucks?) were stored. But at least it's something.

Based on the intelligence that also made it to the Washington Times, none other than famous "retired" CIA covert operations officer Robert Baer went to Anbar province to talk to various Sunni tribal chiefs, as well as "[former] officers from Saddam Hussein's army". These leaders explained to him that they had no desire to stop ISIS and Al Qaeda until these groups had fulfilled their purpose of instating a Sunni-inclusive central Iraqi government. Certain leaders of this group claimed to be more influential than ISIS, but it is hard to say what exactly is true of that. In any case, at least until mid 2014, the anti-Shia alliance in Iraq reportedly consisted of the following elements:

ISIS , with its primary stronghold across the border in Syria;

, with its primary stronghold across the border in Syria;

Al Qaeda , also with its primary stronghold across the border in Syria (and a competitor of ISIS);

, also with its primary stronghold across the border in Syria (and a competitor of ISIS);

Sunni tribal sheikhs , mainly from Iraq's western Anbar and Nineveh provinces;

, mainly from Iraq's western Anbar and Nineveh provinces;

the Sunni umbrella group, the General Military Council of the Iraqi Revolutionaries , alternately called the Military Councils of Iraqi Revolutionaries;

, alternately called the Military Councils of Iraqi Revolutionaries;

the Naqshbandi Army of former Hussein officers, which reportedly taught ISIS and Al Qaeda military tactics, infiltration and counter-intelligence techniques;

of former Hussein officers, which reportedly taught ISIS and Al Qaeda military tactics, infiltration and counter-intelligence techniques;

the 1920s Revolution Brigade, an anti-American terrorist group, the leader of which, Muthanna al-Dari, is the son of Association of Muslim Clerics head Harith al-Dari.

The latter three groups were primarily reported on in mid 2014, when ISIS famously captured the city of Mosul. We haven't heard much of them since. It appears these groups played a role in infiltrating Sunni governing circles in Mosul before the ISIS attack, with claims existing that ISIS only really fully controlled a number of neighborhoods in Mosul - never the whole city - and thus that strict Sharia Law and punishments were only doled out in these districts. Unfortunately, not much information is available regarding this situation. And if, or how, it changed.

Most impassionate hate-speech ever. Hitler got nothing on big boss Ali of ISIS and his butcher's knife after capturing Fallujah in January 2014. Anyone looking to date his loyal underlings: Mousthapa, Mehmed, Abdullah, or Umar? They particularly enjoy lengthy beach walks in Tel Aviv.

The capture of Mosul remains particularly bizarre, because here 800 ISIS militants were able to capture a city only because it was abandoned by 30,000 Iraqi soldiers before most of the fighting even started. Considering warnings of an ISIS attack on Mosul had been coming in in the months, weeks and days prior to the actual attack, the fall of Mosul and western Iraq as a whole can easily be labeled as one of the most extreme military failures in all of military history.

The fact is, the Kurds were eager from the beginning to keep ISIS out of Mosul. And at least in the days preceding the attacks, the Americans, under U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq Brett McGurk did try to organize a counter-offensive. Even Mosul's Sunni intelligence chiefs and Sunni governor got word to Maliki's generals and Maliki himself that ISIS was plotting to take over the city. An enormous amount of tactical details were provided to Maliki. But the prime minister refused to take action. And with that, Maliki, whatever his exact motives were, is primarily to blame for the loss of Mosul.

In the end it appears the loss of Mosul comes down to the corruption and sectarian warfare that prevailed in the Maliki government:

Maliki appointed his (Shia) generals based on loyalty instead of competence. These generals were primarily occupied with harassing and extorting Sunni civilians. They were also involved in schemes to increase funding of their own units, for example by charging Baghdad for ghost soldiers who were never enlisted.



Maliki and his Shia generals preferred a fall of Mosul to ISIS rather than take advice from and aid the increasingly influential Sunni-Baathist leadership of the city. Similarly, they would not allow any well-organized Kurdish force into the city for fear it would refuse to leave afterwards. If ISIS happens to take over the city, it would mean international support for a bloody military campaign and the removal of any existing Sunni power base, something that would have sounded like music to Maliki's ears.

Certainly the corruption and incompetence of the Maliki government and his top generals is hard to wrap one's mind around. The top military commander in Mosul is informed that the ISIS attack will take place within days and promptly leaves for vacation. Other commanders flee the city as well, leaving their troops with the parting message, "Just figure it out."

Two weeks later the commander of an Iraqi army unit at the border town Qaim flees the battlefield under the pretext that he's going to get supplies for his men. The supplies never arrive and the unit has to withdraw in the face of the ISIS onslaught. When the soldiers are finally provided with water, far away from the battlefield, their top commander, a general of prime minister Maliki's Bani Malik tribe, stops by for a media op in which he is captured personally handing out water to his troops, alongside the commander who fled the battlefield. The troops threaten to kill both, forcing the two commanders to leave.

Top: Three of over 2,300 U.S. hummers captured by ISIS in Iraq in 2014, along with 50 M198 howitzers and about several dozen M1A1 tanks.

Bottom: ISIS Toyota trucks of a type that were sent to the Syria by the U.S. State Department as "non-lethal" aid to "moderate" FSA forces.

Small: ISIS Ford F250 from a Texas plumbing company, mounted with an anti-aircraft gun.

This last incident involved a Shiite military unit, not even a Sunni one. Add this on top of the daily complaints about "Maliki's militia" among Sunni citizens, the laundering of billions of dollars in oil revenues, the fabrication of billions of dollars in bogus state contracts, and is it any surprise that a) a popular uprising ensued in Sunni Iraq and b) 80% of Maliki's soldiers defected from his army?

Well, yes, it remains hard to understand how anyone can lose 200,000 soldiers from an army of 250,000 to defections in a matter of months. Or how a much more powerful army than ISIS can leave behind 2,300 hummers, "at least" 40 M1A1 tanks, 52 M198 Howitzers, an unknown number of Mine Resistant Armored Personnel carriers (MRAPs) and 74,000 machine guns as it is fleeing Mosul. Overnight ISIS was supplied with over a billion dollars in U.S. military equipment.

As a result, within days surrounding cities were overran with ISIS militants driving hummers, with countless other hummers being used as nearly unstoppable car bombs. If the United States and Germany hadn't supplied thousands of AT-4 and Milan anti-tank missiles at this point to resistance groups, ISIS could have pushed considerably further into eastern and northern Iraq than it did.

But, of course, there also were the Iranians to help stop ISIS.

Iran in Iraq, and how Obama was booted out

Here we have arrived at another important aspect of the ISIS crisis: Iranian involvement in both Iraq and Syria. Immediately after the fall of Mosul on June 10, 2014 and an almost complete collapse of the Iraqi army in all of western Iraq, the Shiite Maliki government allowed the Iranians to field its Quds special operations force inside Iraq to combat ISIS on the ground. Overseen by the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, the Quds Force in Iraq played an important role in preventing a further collapse of Iraq. A problematic issue, however, is that within months this Quds Force in Iraq came to involve no less than an estimated 100,000 to 120,000 men, more than twice the remaining 48,000 Iraqi soldiers. Equally problematic is that Soleimani reports directly to Iran's terrorist Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the appointed-for-life religious leader who - instead of Iran's president - is the one really in charge of the country's security and military services.

In no time, Iranian propaganda and presence in Baghdad became so strong that locals jokingly began referring to it as "Tehran". Also, reports emerged that Iran-backed militias were carrying out assassinations and running death squads against overly critical politicians or civilians, especially Sunnis.

Large picture: General Soleimani with Ayatollah Khameini. Small pictures, top and bottom: Soleimani with Iranian presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hassan Rouhani.

The hidden hand of Iran, and General Qasem Soleimani in particular, has been present in Iraq for a long time. Incredibly, the U.S.-propped up prime minister Nouri al-Maliki used to be a long-time leader in Damascus, Syria of the Iran-allied Dawa Party. That's two enemies of the United States in one. Dawa not only struggled against Saddam Hussein, but, on the orders of Ayatollah Khomeini, in the early 1980s was a chief conduit for the implementation of suicide bombings. Dawa, for example, was behind the 1981 Iraqi embassy bombing in Beirut, the first major Islamic suicide bombing to ever happen. Did Maliki play some kind of logical role in that terrorist attack? Considering that he, since becoming prime minister, is known to have protected Dawa and other Iran-linked terrorists involved in attacks on American and Sunni targets, that's entirely possible. In fact, a certain Dawa terrorist named Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, considered the mastermind behind the 1983 suicide bombing of the U.S. embassy in Kuwait, became Maliki's advisor and neighbor in the Green Zone. Also, back in 2006 when the United States supported the virtually unknown Maliki for the prime ministership, he lied to the Americans about not being able to speak Farsi and about not having a close association with Iran.

Although it apparently didn't have much choice at the time, because the even more sectarian Ibrahim al-Jaafari would only step down if someone from his own Dawa Party would succeed him as prime minister, putting Maliki in power has been the responsibility of the Bush administration.

Less than four years later, Obama could have gotten rid of the increasingly disliked, sectarian and corrupt Maliki, but, as would become the norm, Obama showed an incredible lack of interest in shaping Iraq's future, apparently even when it came to upholding basic democratic rights - or in this case when a little pressure could be rewarded with having a democratically elected, pro-U.S. leader back in power. In March 2010, in an enormous upset, Ayad Allawi, the pro-U.S. prime minister of Iraq in 2005 and 2006, won the parliamentary elections with two seats more than the Iran-backed Dawa Party of long-time prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. Maliki, however, broke the constitution by conspiring with Iran's General Soleimani in refusing Allawi the prime ministership. Obama hardly protested the matter. A number of U.S. diplomats resigned in protest, with Allawi remarking:

"I needed American support. But they wanted to leave, and they handed the country to the Iranians. Iraq is a failed state now, an Iranian colony."

Not dissimilar to Bush's betrayal of the Sahwa in 2008, Obama's refusal to support Allawi resulted in a shattering of Allawi's Sunni coalition. Many members now scrambled to remain in the grace of Maliki by accepting prestigious positions that yielded little political influence. In addition to his position as the illegitimate prime minister of Iraq, Maliki appointed himself to interior minister and defense minister. As American soldiers were leaving Iraq, Maliki began to use his newfound influence to get rid of these Sunni opponents in his government.

It gets worse. In order to secure his backing, Soleimani forced Maliki to promise to boot every last American soldier out of Iraq, to shut down the Iran desk of the CIA-backed Iraqi National Intelligence Service, and to release hundreds, if not thousands, of soldiers of the Sadr Army, a relatively pro-Iran militia that has a long history of fighting the Americans. Maliki implemented all these directives. At the same time, Maliki promised but ultimately ignored all of Obama's conditions to support Maliki for a second term as prime minister: amnesty for thousands of Sunni prisoners, a dismantling of prison sites where Americans believe Sunnis are tortured, and bringing in a number of Sunnis into his government.

The moment the United States left Iraq in December 2011, Soleimani set up shop in the Green Zone and traveled the country at will. Then, in 2014, with Obama ignoring all his key administration officials - and pleas from Iraqi officials - by not intervening in the ISIS onslaught for the first 7 months, Soleimani is able to strengthen Iran's position even more by bringing in 100,000 or more Quds Force militia members into Iraq to fight ISIS. As a result of Obama's non-involvement policy regarding the ISIS invasion and delays in the delivery of Apache helicopters and F-16 planes, Maliki is also forced to acquire SU-25 jets from Russia and Iran, many of them flown by pilots from these countries.

Needless to say, for many years at this point many voices in the U.S., both liberal and conservative ones, have been criticizing Obama for having handed Iraq to Iran. The criticism on his policy, and the "Islamophobia" pushing under his rule, may also have something to do with the fact that the number of Americans who believed Obama to be a (closet) Muslim rose from 16% in 2012 to 29% in 2015, with 43% of Republicans and 54% of Trump supporters stating this belief. [2]

Iran in Syria

January 2016: General Qasem Soleimani talking to troops in Al Hadir, Syria, located just south of key ISIS frontline Aleppo. A member of the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution is filming the meeting.

Iran has also been sending ground troops, including Quds Force members and Hezbollah militants, into Syria to fight ISIS here. Estimates range from a few thousand militants to in the neighborhood of 70,000. Once again General Qasem Soleimani has been the key officer in charge. Traveling around the Syrian frontline, the general was "slightly wounded" in the country in November 2015.

Similar to the situation in Iraq, Iranian troops, combined with Russian airstrikes, have been absolutely crucial in the survival of the Assad regime, because its once massive tank army has been decimated by Free Syrian Army units and Jihadis equipped with western supplied anti-tank missiles. As already discussed, NATO and Arab League airstrikes against ISIS have been suspiciously ineffective for the most part.

In early 2017 Israel started to regularly make the news for implementing bombing runs into Syria. An often reported target was advanced weapons shipments from Iran to militant groups as Hezbollah.

Iran can only remain an influence in Syria as long as Assad's minority Shiite sect, the Alawites, remain in power. Thus, obviously Iran is doing what it can to keep Assad on the throne. Another very good reason would be that as long as the West is busy with Assad, they're less likely to focus on Iran. Unfortunately for Iran, Alawites only live in a small western patch of the country that is devoid of any significant oil and gas fields. Everything in that regard is owned by the Sunnis and Kurds living in the east.

How to partition Syria and Iraq

To this day it is unknown what the West, choking in its own political correctness, actually wants to achieve in a post-Assad Syria. There's no organized, moderate opposition. Almost every Sunni the West tries to train turns into a Jihadi The only powerful group of moderates are the Kurds, who have no real interest in overthrowing Assad and won't be able to hold on to all the Sunni regions they're fighting in. A post-Assad Syria is most likely going to be the same story as with Iraq: Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds don't want to live in one country with each other.

Maybe the solution here is to let the country disintegrate along sectarian lines. It should be a relatively natural process. And having small, relatively poor countries certainly would be more easy to control in terms of weapons of mass destruction development. They have less money, smaller armies, less access to high technology and cutting edge scientists, etc. Gaddafi, for example, tried to make a nuclear bomb in the 1980s, but was ultimately forced to give up because his country simply was too poor to acquire the necessary scientific and engineering skills.

Maybe Iraq should split up too. The oil rich and relatively moderate and pro-West Kurd region already has declared de facto independence from Baghdad since the ISIS crisis, administering its own oil sales - a very good thing considering the extreme corruption that developed in Baghdad under prime minister Maliki.

Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Joe Biden, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and soon Obama's vice president, actually proposed such a plan in 2007. The Biden-Gelb plan did not call for a full split, however. Had it not been rejected by the Bush administration, it most likely would not have properly worked at all. The plan still called for the Shiites handing 20% of their oil proceeds to Sunni Iraq, something which they'll never agree to in the long run. After all the tyrannical suppression, the terrorism, the death squads, and that on top of that the political and religious differences, this is not a particularly likely solution to succeed.

It might be much more practical to:

separate, oil rich Shia Iraq into a separate country that can keep the name Iraq, and help the country keep its independence from Iran;

unite oil-rich eastern Syria and oil-starved western Iraq, both Sunni regions, into one country, let's say Sunnistan;

hand north Iraq and north-east Syria, both oil rich regions, to the Kurds;

and reduce Syria to the oil-starved Shiite Alawite state in western Syria.

NATO and the Arab League should promise to uphold the integrity of these borders: the Turks and Kurds will have to stop fighting. The Sunnis will not be allowed to invade the Alawites. Persian Iran will not be allowed to dominate Arab Shiite Iraq. And so on.

One would think at the very least this is a plan - or variations of it - that should be talked about a lot more.

Questions about Bush and Obama with no answers

It's tempting to call out Obama over his Iraq policy. It seems rather obvious that he needed to keep Iraq relatively stable, at least until ISIS in Syria had gotten rid of Assad. Then again, what can you really say when you don't have every single important fact at your disposal? One fact can change the entire strategy of a war. Maybe Obama really didn't want to use ISIS as a tool. Or, maybe some economist calculated that ISIS would have to be allowed to plunder Mosul and other Iraqi cities in order to have the resources to take on Assad. Not that I consider this likely - I just invented this theory a minute ago - but it is one of many scenarios that could change one's position on Obama's strategy. In the end, what the heck do outsiders know? In this article I just summarized the facts from sources as far as they are available. Any covert political agendas? Any deep state intrigue? I have no insights in that. So maybe I shouldn't join the right in throwing Obama under the bus. After all, it is George Bush who decided to invade Iraq under the most questionable of circumstances. And it is Bush who stabilized Iraq only long enough to sign a withdrawal treaty and "save" his name, so maybe in 4 or 8 years his brother Jeb might run for the White House without too much opposition.

Something else I'm left wondering about after putting together this article and these timelines - and something that greatly overlaps with ponderings about the international deep state - is what historians are going to write in our history books. How can anyone truly explain what has been going on on this planet since 9/11 unfolded? A "War on Terror"? Seriously? Invading Muslim countries and bombing and torturing suspected terrorists here is going to solve our problem of Muslim terrorism? You couldn't see coming increases in terrorism and massive budget deficits? Also here the left is hardly any better, with its non-criticism of the "War on Terror" and an added obsession with Third World immigration, complete with "Islamophobia" propaganda.

Obviously, history books will omit anything that cannot be explained. Or the books will present some kind of "reasonable" debate as to what our political leaders might have been thinking. But let's face it, certainly since 9/11, we the people are more confused than ever. Here are some questions about the Bush administration that may never be properly answered:

Why did the Bush administration really invade Iraq? And is it a coincidence that invading Iraq and privatizing its oil reserves were priority numero uno of his administration since the first National Security Council meeting of January 30, 2001, nine months before 9/11? [3]

invade Iraq? And is it a coincidence that invading Iraq and privatizing its oil reserves were priority numero uno of his administration since the first National Security Council meeting of January 30, 2001, nine months before 9/11? [3]

Why did the Bush administration really invade Afghanistan, considering plans for an Afghanistan invasion were already on his desk in the weeks before 9/11? [4] Just out of terrorist concern? Or did Caspian Sea oil pipelines have something to do with it?

invade Afghanistan, considering plans for an Afghanistan invasion were already on his desk in the weeks before 9/11? [4] Just out of terrorist concern? Or did Caspian Sea oil pipelines have something to do with it?

How is it possible that the Bush administration wasn't prosecuted over its fabrications with regard to tying Iraq's Saddam Hussein to renewed weapons of mass destruction production and so-called ties to the 9/11 hijackers?



Why were the Pakistani ISI and Saudi intelligence largely shielded by the 9/11 Commission of ties to the 9/11 terrorists?



How is it possible that the media has allowed glaring holes to exist in the 9/11 Commission report and the NIST reports on the World Trade Center towers?



Is it really a coincidence that Saudis close to the Bush presidential and CIA clique, most notably Prince Turki al Faisal al Saud and Prince Bander bin Sultan al Saud, have been tied to the events of 9/11, as well as the Russian apartment bombings that put Putin in power, and now, the rise of ISIS?



Why wasn't the Bush administration forced to step down in light of the bizarre and certainly beyond incompetent behavior of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld on the morning of 9/11?



In other words: isn't the whole War on Terror and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq based on an event - 9/11 - that only happened because the Bush administration and its Saudi friends wanted it to happen?



Similar to Bush, the public is left to wonder about Obama's true motives, especially with regard to his Iraq policy. Maybe it's not as extreme as with the Bush administration, but at the same time his foreign policy might be more puzzling in terms of finding a rational explanation for some of his decisions. Questions that can be asked include:

What did Obama know about Jihadis being financed as anti-Assad militants in Syria? And when did he know it?



Wasn't Obama, and certainly many of his administration members, not secretly interested in seeing if ISIS could dislodge Assad?



Was Obama really concerned about not allowing Syria to descent into a sectarian, Jihadist civil war, as had happened in Libya? He doesn't appear to have been too concerned about it in Iraq.



Doesn't he think a Muslim country bogged down in Jihadist civil war is far less dangerous than a stable Muslim country, certainly a Shia one, with a central dictator that down the line will almost invariably try to develop nuclear-tipped ICBMs?



Why did Obama ignore so many signs all these years that ISIS was spilling into Iraq and was about to destabilize this country? A country thousands of veterans had lost their lives for and many more thousands their limbs or mental sanity.



Did Obama not secretly like it that African and Arab refugees were spilling into a graying Europe by the millions through Libya and Syria as a result of his policies?



Does Obama really believe in the "Islamophobia", "intolerance" and "populist" propaganda against the native white masses who are fed up with Third World immigration and the crime waves and culture shocks it brings?



How much influence did Obama have over the CIA, its private and governmental contacts around the world, when it comes to certain foreign policy agendas? I mean, is he briefed about the fact that the entire online and offline alternative media and conspiracy network is ran through combined superclass-CIA black programs?



Based on the connections of his parents and his own very extensive "liberal CIA" connections, to what extent is Obama himself CIA? And with that just playing a role, similar to thousands of other of national security trolls?



Is it possible that Obama and administration has partly been role-playing its foreign policy non-involvement and internal differences to keep the public away from what the CIA is doing and shield the president from any kind of fall-out?



In light of these unanswered questions, I have to admit I still don't truly know how the rise of ISIS was possible, apart from saying that under Bush it was the result of a self-serving agenda and that under Obama it was the result of an incompetent, half-implemented foreign policy.

Strategic solutions

Despite not being able to explain what is going on in the minds of different presidents, what I can do is spent a few minutes putting together a coherent foreign policy agenda that anybody is free to debate. Let's see:

In general

Put key members and outside neocon advisors (such as former CIA director James Woolsey) of the Bush administration on trial for having fabricated evidence to go to war with Iraq.



Reinvestigate 9/11 along the lines ISGP laid out in articles on the 9/11 Commission and the NIST reports on the World Trade Center towers. Also investigate the online and offline conspiracy network, because it looks like the ENTIRE network surrounding Alex Jones, Coast to Coast AM, Rense and 9/11 Truth will have to be send to prison for treason.



Replace the "War on Terror" with something along the lines as "War on Weapons of Mass Destruction".



Use stealth bombers to drop massive amounts of leaflets over countries you wish to stop from developing weapons of mass destruction, so that the population at large understands that they are free to shape their own destiny unless their leaders develop weapons of mass destruction. Counter domestic propaganda and censorship in this same manner.



Use stealth bombers to drop massive amounts of psychedelics over the Middle East in particular. Who knows, the subsequent hippie culture might solve everything by itself.



Get rid of the Assad family in Syria if they refuse to go into exile, preferably by stealth assassination instead of mass bombing. The Asseds have taunted the West too much and have no desire to curb the use of weapons of mass destruction. You can't allow that to go unpunished. See below for more on Syria.



With Syria gone (possibly in flames, but no more WMD threat), Iran's nuclear program restrained until at least 2027, focus on neutralizing the North Korea threat. Preferably with help from China and Russia, but ultimately the nuclear blackmail of North Korea cannot be allowed and will have to lead to the dismantling of the regime.



Do NOT destroy Iran, even though we would have the right, because of its clear attempts to develop nuclear weapons and its hate-mongering against the Jews in particular. It should be a last resort, until the late 2020s we're safe, and it will cost too much money.



In addition, and maybe even more important, if Iran implodes, the Sunni Muslims have basically "won" the Sunni-Shia war and might well redirect their never-ending frustrations with "infidels" towards the West. Just wait until the conventional oil is out of the region and hope no large amounts of shale oil is found in the Middle East.

In addition, and maybe even more important, if Iran implodes, the Sunni Muslims have basically "won" the Sunni-Shia war and might well redirect their never-ending frustrations with "infidels" towards the West. Just wait until the conventional oil is out of the region and hope no large amounts of shale oil is found in the Middle East.

With every non-western country that has tried to develop weapons of mass destruction: get all scientists and engineers with WMD/NBC knowledge out of the country - one way or another - and completely destroy the infrastructure used to develop WMDs, from university programs to engineering facilities.



Syria

Assassinate or bomb Assad, to make clear to the entire world that production and certainly use of weapons of mass destruction will not be tolerated. As listed in an appendix on Assad's Syria, Assad continually uses chemical weapons, appears to have hidden portions of his program, and in the past tried to develop nuclear weapons in conjunction with North Korea and Iran. This should not be allowed on principle alone.



Get all scientists and engineers with WMD/NBC knowledge in Syria out of the country - one way or another - and completely destroy the infrastructure used to develop WMDs, from university programs to engineering facilities.



See what happens. If another Shiite/Alawite strongman happens to arise after a period of internal struggle, so be it. Until he tries to develop weapons of mass destruction, we do nothing. The Sunnis need an enemy besides the West to focus on. Let them and wait until the conventional oil reserves of the West dry up, which will take a number of decades.



If the Shia Alawites are in danger of a genocide by the Sunnis (ISIS, Al Qaeda), initiate the process to break Syria up into an Alawite, Sunni and Kurdic region. Any group trying to attack another will see its militias bombed into oblivion.



Indefinitely ban nuclear power from the country. Promote clean energies: solar, wind, hydro, tidal, etc.



Make sure the country gets its birth rate under control.



Provide humanitarian help where needed and when it is not used to wage war.



Iraq

Make sure the oil keeps flowing to the West for the benefit of the people, but only protect (western) oil company revenues when they deserve it or when it is in the interest of the people.



Allow the Kurds to break away from the rest of Iraq. Protect them militarily from Turkey and Baghdad when needed.



Then break up Syria into an Alawite, Sunni and Kurdic region. If that works out, start talks to merge Sunni Iraq with Sunni Syria. Look the other way when the Arab League starts to sponsor Sunni militias and terrorism against Shiite Iraq and Iran if these states try to prevent the independence of Sunni Iraq.



Indefinitely ban nuclear power from the country. Promote clean energies: solar, wind, hydro, tidal, etc.



Make sure the country gets its birth rate under control.



Provide humanitarian help where needed and when it is not used to wage war.



That wasn't so hard, was it? I'm not claiming this will get us to paradise, but at the very least my opinions on foreign policy are clear and can be debated with or by anyone. So why can't politicians be this straightforward for once? Or the media for that matter? Very strange.

DETAILED TIMELINES

Timeline 1990s-05: Syria building WMDs

1990s - Mar. 2011 Failed "peace" negotiations between Syria and the United States and Israel until Syria experiences the Arab Spring and western countries don't feel the need to talk anymore. As the following information will show, Syria never had any intention of peace with these countries and continued its secret cooperation with Iran, Hezbollah and North Korea. Jul. 17, 2000 Bashar al-Assad becomes president and dictator of Syria after his father, Hafez al-Assad, who has ruled the country since 1971, dies. Initial hopes that Bashar will realign Syria with the West soon turn out to be a pipe dream. Jan. 2002 President George Bush puts Syria on his "Axis of Evil" list, along with Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea and Cuba. 2003 - 2011 Syria and Iran are supporting Jihadist militias in Iraq that fight the Americans.



Syria's Assad family is overseeing Al Qaeda training camps in eastern Syria and allowing *ihadis to cross into and out of U. S.-occupied Iraq. [5] Iran does the same thing from its side, but at the same time is also running terrorist operations against the U.S.-backed Iraqi and Shiite-dominated central government to weaken and eventually dominate it. [6]



The Iran-Syria operations result in thousands of dead U.S. soldiers in the 2003-2011 period. May 2004 After almost a year of preparation, Bush imposes harsh sanctions on Syria for the country's support of Jihadist militias in Iraq, its occupation of Lebanon and its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. [7]



Due to the increase in terrorism, a project to train tens of thousands of ordinary police officers is shelved after a year of giving it a try. Six U.S. police officers overseeing the program since May 2003 are send home. [8] Early 2005 With Sunni / Al Qaeda terrorism strongly increasing in Iraq, U.S. general David Petraeus sets up an anti-terrorist counter-insurgency "police force" / death squad under the Iraqi Interior Ministry. The program has a $2 billion budget. The first gift the police units receive is a fleet of 150 brand new Dodge Rams. Colonel James Steele and Colonel James Coffman are appointed to oversee it on a day-to-day basis. [9] Secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld personally invites Steele, the U.S.' top expert on brutal counter-insurgency operations, to come to Iraq, while Petraeus, who similarly takes orders from Rumsfeld, briefly was one of Steele's students in the mid-1980s in El Salvador. At the time Steele worked with vice president George H. W. Bush, Bush's national security advisor Donald Gregg, the CIA's Felix Rodriguez and Colonel Oliver North in anti-Contra operations, including the Iran-Contra aspect. Steele was training Central America's "anti communist" death squads, which in turn were also involved in cocaine trafficking into the United States.



Unsurprisingly, these "police" units overseen by Steele will quickly become notorious among Sunni residents in major Iraqi cities for their death squad behavior. The units viciously torture just about every potential "insurgent" they arrest in the hope of obtaining more information on terrorist networks. The reality is that much of the torture will increasingly come down to sectarian warfare, with the Shiites dominating these units just looking to get back at Sunnis, who were in charge under Saddam Hussein.



The most notorious police unit is the Wolf Brigade (soon renamed "Freedom Brigade") [10], which almost entirely consists of members of the Badr Organization, a Shiite militia eventually responsible for close to a thousand seemingly random kidnappings of Sunnis every month, most of whom found back on the streets, tortured to death with drills and acid. [11]



The United States makes extensive use of these units by informing captured Al Qaeda *ihadis and other militants that if they resist the interrogation process in any way, they'll be handed over to the Wolf Brigade or related police unit, which will torture these individuals in a network of secret prisons. Both the Iraqi and American leadership know all about this secret prison system. [12] It also doesn't appear to be the biggest secret in the world, as number of Iraqi officers and even journalists personally witness Colonel Steele in the presence of Iraqis being viciously tortured by these police units. [13]



Looking at the fact that Steele was able to walk into Iraqi cabinet meetings without bothering to introduce himself, one gets the impression he represented the CIA-linked "shadow government" at its finest. [14] Additionally, one can wonder why Donald Rumsfeld, who personally brought Steele to Iraq, provided a wholefully inadequate background on Steele to President George Bush and vice president Dick Cheney in September 2005, when Steele was coming back to the United States again.



In between his counter-insurgency operations in Central America and Iraq, Steele served as a vice president of Enron with a focus on overseas gas pipelines and power plants. In 1995 he started to work for the Mosbacher family, which, like Rumsfeld, has been part of the Bush clique and belonged to the elite Pilgrims Society. In 2015, one of Mosbacher and Steele's energy projects in Liberia ended up in the media over allegations of fraud and sexual exploitation of native workers. [15]



Looking at the briefing of Steele to Rumsfeld, which will end up with Bush and Cheney, Steele is primarily worried about rising sectarian tensions, in part the result of a "gang mentality" among Iraqis that requires "strong leaders". The majority Shia are increasingly trying to infiltrate top government positions and military and police units. Steele specifically mentions "thugs like the commander of the Wolf Brigade who has been involved in death squad activities, extortion of detainees and a general pattern of corruption." According to Steele, "it is essential that the Sunnis are not disenfranchised to the point where they turn to the insurgents on a large scale to protect their interests."



Predictably, the Sunnis will become disenfranchised by the Shias, with the United States not having a choice to back the Shia government - which holds all the oil - against the Sunni Al Qaeda and Islamic State terrorists. Despite that, it does appear that the United States, including Steele, in their own special way, have tried to be a moderating influence in the country. May 2005 Ibrahim al-Jaafari becomes prime minister of Iraq, with Baqir Jabr al-Zubeidi his interior minister. Shia death squad activity against Sunni residents strongly increase. 2005 Bashar al-Assad legalizes the old Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) and includes them in his government. Inspired by Hitler and the Nazis, the SSNP has a decades long history of terrorism against the West and the Jews. Most SSNP members are Christians, but they cooperate with the Shiites of Iran and Syria (Assad's Alawites). ISIS and Sunnis in general are their enemies. Feb.-Apr. 2005 Bush completely breaks off diplomatic ties with Syria after the assassination of Saudi business partner and former Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri [16], who, as it will later turn out, was shadowed by dozens of Hezbollah operatives divided into several groups over a period of about six months. Even domestic investigators looking into Hariri's death are shadowed and assassinated with car bombs. [17] Considering Syria has occupied Lebanon since 1976 with Hezbollah being Syria and Iran's Shiite intelligence and special operations force in Lebanon, it seems rather obvious who assassinated Hariri.



Almost immediately Lebanon's Cedar Revolution breaks out. Supposedly involving mass protests against Syria's occupation of Lebanon, the protests actually involve little more than small-scale, Beirut police-sanctioned [18] events specifically set up for international television. [19] Involved in funding and coordinating the pro-West protests groups that do exist are U.S. ambassador Jeffrey Feltman [20], a protege of superclass members Lawrence Eagleburger (Kissinger Associates) and neocon Israel lobbyist Martin Indyk; the CIA and European intelligence agencies [21], the Spirit of America NGO [22], with its deep ties to top U.S. Army commanders and the CIA-tied NGOs National Endowment for Democracy and Freedom House; and seemingly the Soros/Brzezinski-linked Committee for a Democracy in Lebanon. [23] Parallels are drawn to color revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia.



It appears that 2005 also is the year that U.S. funds begin to flow to the Assad opposition within Syria. [24] Apr. 2005 Syria has completely left Lebanon. Almost immediately CIA, neocon and Brzezinski-linked NGOs as the U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon and Freedom House are making their entrance into the country while U.S. army officers are looking for ways to get Hezbollah out. As the economy takes a downward turn, it doesn't take long for even anti-Assad Lebanese to become critical about the new U.S. role in the country. [25] May 20, 2006 Nouri al-Maliki becomes prime minister of Iraq after a ton of intrigue and lobbying by U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and his special assistant Ali Khedery to get rid of his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who helped increase sectarian tensions. [26] Khalilzad is a think tank elitist with long-standing ties to Zbigniew Brzezinski. The young Khedery, an advisor to no less than five U.S. ambassadors in Iraq, came from Bush's circle in Texas and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Afterwards he became a key advisor to oil companies in Iraq. [27]



Jaafari only agreed to leave quietly if his successor would come from his Dawa party, a Shiite group outlawed under Saddam Hussein that has cooperated with Iran and, alongside Hezbollah, pioneered Islamic suicide bombings in 1980-1981 on orders of Ayatollah Khomeini. Many of these suicide attacks, some of which claiming hundreds of lives, were also aimed against the Americans. To this day the party receives financing from Iran. Bush, Khalilzad and the CIA scrambled to find an acceptable successor and ended up with Nouri al-Maliki.



Maliki was a major opponent of (the Sunni) Saddam Hussein, lost many friends, and lived in exile as head of a pro-Iran Dawa cell in Damascus from 1980 to 2003. He was part of numerous assassination plots against Hussein, all of which failed. After the 2003 invasion, he became the deputy leader of the Supreme National Debaathification Commission of the Iraqi government.



Upon becoming prime minister, Maliki protects old Dawa terrorists as Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, convicted of the 1983 U.S. embassy bombing in Beirut and other attacks against American interests; and individuals as Qais al-Khazali, a leader of an Iran-backed militia that carried out hundreds of attacks against American targets. The Americans imprisoned Khazali, but the second the U.S. left Iraq, Maliki released him.



When informed by the Americans of the latest Sunni massacre by Shiite death squads in Baghdad, which in 2006 happen almost every day, Maliki always has an excuse to not act: "No evidence", "They must have been acting against terrorists", etc.



In other words, U.S. hope that Maliki was a "tough guy" able to resist Iranian encroachment onto the Iraqi government and that he would be fair to the Sunnis were a far cry at best.



Another major problem would be that Maliki lied to the U.S., and U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad in particular, about not being able to speak Farsi. His claims to not be close to the Iranians and the Hezbollah terrorist group were also refuted by a close aide of his. The U.S., Kurds and Sunnis still see him as the least problematic option.



As time goes by, Maliki transforms into an incompetent, nepotist, extremely corrupt, dictatorial sectarian hardliner. [28] Sep. 16, 2007 Blackwater guards, who just experienced a car bombing close to a team of delegates they were protecting, kill 17 civilizations at random, causing widespread discontent among Iraqis towards the Americans. Blackwater guards have been operating with full immunity, an order signed by Iraqi government overseer Paul Bremer in 2004. A State Department investigator is threatened with death and evacuated from Iraq. [29] Sep. 6, 2007 Israel destroys a secret nuclear power plant of Syria that is being constructed by North Korean technicians and financed to the tune of $1 to $2 billion by Iran as a backup to their own uranium enrichment program. The attack is codenamed Operation Orchard. Turkish prime minister Erdogan is subsequently used as a conduit to explain the Israeli position to Syria. Apr. 2009 The State Department-financed Barada TV news network starts beaming into Syria to incite protests and armed dissent against the Assad regime. The network is part of the Syrian exile community in London, which will receive about $6 million for Barada TV and related activities over the next few years. [30]

Timeline 2011-: Obama, CIA, Turkey and Arab League build up

Nov. 2008 The Bush government stops paying the Sons of Iraq (the Sahwa) and hands the portfolio over to Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, a devout Shia. It doesn't take long for abuse to set in.



The Sahwa are a group of Sunni tribes in Iraq's western Anbar province who in 2007 and 2008 fought alongside the U.S. in the "Sahwa Awakening" and played a key role in putting an end to terrorism of Al Qaeda Iraq and the newer Islamic State (ISIS). [31]



This in turn also greatly decreased Shiite death squad activity against Sunni civilians. It will be relatively quiet until in 2013 sectarian violence flares up again. [32] Dec. 14, 2008 Bush and Maliki sign the U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, in which the United States agrees to start withdrawing troops from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009 (when Obama has come into office) and to have all U.S. forces leave Iraq before December 31, 2011. Late 2009 Maliki purges the Sunni-dominated and CIA-allied Iraqi National Intelligence Service. Its head, General Mohammed Shawani, flees to the U.S. Sep. 3, 2009 Conference between Turkey, Syria and Iraq about Turkey's continued effort to dam up the springs of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers into Syria Iraq, not only causing major drops in river levels, but also an increase in pollution and lower numbers of fish. [33] Since 1975, Turkey's dam building efforts has cut water flows into Syria by 40% and into Iraq by 80%. A huge drought in Syria forced large numbers of unemployed Sunni farmers to Shiite/Alawite-dominated cities, which is suspected of having been one of the causes of the civil war in this country. [34] 2010 For the past two years the Maliki government has refused to properly employ, pay, or arm the Sunni Sons of Iraq, making them targets Al Qaeda Iraq and ISIS for assassination. Many of the younger Sons of Iraq join these terrorist groups. This is not too out-of-character considering before the U.S. alliance in 2007 and 2008, these Sunni tribes were also largely allied with Al Qaeda and ISIS. [35] Mar. 26, 2010 Finally the parliamentary election results are in, showing that the pro-West former prime minister Ayad Allawi has won with two seats from sitting prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. However, Maliki conspires with Iran, through the ever-present General Qasem Soleimani, to remain prime minister and form a new government - against constitutional principles. On top of that, Maliki makes a deal with the Iranians to shut down CIA influence and expel all U.S. forces from Iraq by 2011. The Obama government decides to not protest, thinking it's too troublesome to back Allawi against Maliki and Iran. Several U.S. diplomats are outraged about the decision and one even resigns. Allawi: "I needed American support. But they wanted to leave, and they handed the country to the Iranians. Iraq is a failed state now, an Iranian colony."



The Americans try to have Maliki agree to three basic conditions for his second term: amnesty for thousands of Sunni prisoners, a dismantling of prison sites where Americans believe Sunnis are tortured, and bringing in a number of Sunnis into his government. Maliki ignored all of the requests. [36] Feb. 15, 2011 Beginning of the Libyan Civil War when protests against Gaddafi get out of hand. Mar. 6, 2011 Start of the uprising against Syria's Bashar al-Assad when his regime incarcerates and tortures 15 young student protesters of prominent families who wrote graffiti on walls in the city of Daraa. A week later, the protests spread to Damascus and Aleppo and even to the east of the country to Hasakah and Der Zor. Bloody crackdowns and eventual civil war ensues.



The State Department-financed Barada TV network increases its broadcasting time to Syria's Assad opposition. [37] Aug. 23, 2011 Formation of the Syrian National Council, an umbrella group for opposition figures to president and dictator Bashar al-Assad.



Founding spokesperson and executive member is Bassma Kodmani, with a decades-long history involving Sciences Po, the French CFR (IFRI), the Ford Foundation and Bilderberg (2008 and 2012). Since 2005 she has also been executive director of the Arab Reform Program of the CFR's U.S./Middle East Project of George Soros, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Kissinger protege Brent Scowcroft and other top elites. [38] mid 2011 Reports surface that Libyan armories are being looted by unknown rebel group, with Jihadist groups as Al Qaeda being among the prime suspects. The looting involves tens of thousands of mortar shells, artillery rounds and anti-tank missiles. Most worrying is that SA-7b Grail shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles and the very modern, vehicle-launched SA-24 Grinch anti-aircraft missiles also are among the loot. [39] Mid 2011 Founding in Syria of Jaysh al-Islam, a Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia-backed Sunni Salafist group [40] fighting the Assad government, particularly in the Damascus area, including the Ghouta district, infamous for the August 2013 sarin gas attack. The group is actually founded by a prominent Saudi, has received major financing from Saudi Arabia, training from Pakistan [41] and is generally allied with the Al Nusra Front / Al Qaeda Syria, the only difference being that it does not call for a global Jihad or attacks on Saudi Arabia. Similar to the allied Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Islam is primarily concerned with the removal of Assad and replacing it with a Sunni Salafist regime.



While officially not a terrorist group, U.S. secretary of state John Kerry has designated it as such [42] while at the same time the U.S. and other western allies have prevented Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham from being put under on a United Nations terrorism blacklist, which would officially allow Russia to attack it. [43] Oct. 20, 2011 Gaddafi is murdered by rebels after a NATO strike on his convoy puts him in the hands of enemy forces. At this point, most of the country has already been under rebel control for months. Oct. 21, 2011 Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki informs Obama that he will not allow permanent U.S. bases in Iraq to aid long-term stability. Pressure from Iran, a Shiite state largely allied with the fellow Shiite Nouri al-Maliki, has played a key role in this decision. In addition, while the heads of all parties prefer a small number of Americans to remain present, Maliki argues he can't sell the idea if American soldiers are not subject to local (Islamic) law. Obama, obviously, can't agree to this, so all U.S. forces are withdrawn. Maliki's argument appears to have been an excuse. [44]



Many military men are angry about the full withdrawal. Lieutenant General Michael Barbero, the deputy commander in Iraq until January 2011, explained that the U.S. had to restrain Maliki and his repressive proclivities towards the Sunnis and Kurds all the time. When the Americans left, all communication and refereeing went out with them. "Everything that has happened there was not just predictable—we predicted it." [45] Oct.-Nov. 2011 As U.S. forces are withdrawing from Iraq, the Maliki government secretly arrest 600 Sunni Baath Party members, later claiming they work with Al Qaeda. Dec. 2011 As U.S. forces have almost withdrawn from Iraq, Maliki's son is increasing the the number of raids and evictions of U.S. contractors from the Green Zone. USAID is among them. Earlier in the year, Green Zone contractors were already attacked by suicide bombers, with suspicions that Maliki did nothing about them because he needs the political support of the anti-American Shiite militia leader Muqtada Sadr in parliament to remain in power and also because he has come to see the Americans as an obstacle to his own political ambitions. [46] Dec. 15, 2011 Iraqi government forces under prime minister Nouri al-Maliki try to arrest Iraqi vice president Tariq Al-Hashimi, one of the few Sunnites in Maliki's government. Hashimi is accused of using his bodyguards to stage more than 150 attacks on Shia opponents, including a female lawyer and a general in the Iraqi army.



Hashimi flees to (Sunni) Qatar to meet with Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, then to (Sunni) Saudi Arabia to meet with Prince Saud Al Faisal and eventually receives asylum in Turkey. Right in this period, these three countries are beginning to arm ISIS and Al Qaeda (Al-Nusra) in eastern Syria. Hashimi will later come out in support of the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army. Dec. 18, 2011 The last American troops leave Iraq. Dec. 2011 Founding in Syria of Ahrar al-Sham, a Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia-backed Sunni Salafist group [47] which will become the dominant Syrian Islamic Front army fighting Assad over the next years. It generally consists of about 10,000 to 20,000 fighters and is allied with Al Nusra / Al Qaeda Iraq, the only difference being that it does not call for a global Jihad against non-believers, but strictly for the replacing of Assad with a Sunni Salafist regime.



Similar to Jaysh al-Islam, Ahrar al-Sham has been labeled a terrorist organization by secretary of state John Kerry while at the same time being protected by the U.S. and the West from being put on a United Nations terrorism blacklist. Jan.-Apr. 2012 The first military cargo planes from Qatar (reportedly the first), Saudi Arabia, and Jordan begin to fly arms from airfields in Tripoli and Benghazi to the Free Syrian Army militias, which sells these weapons on their Jihadist "brothers" as Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and Al Nusra. Many of the shipments end up in Syria through airports in Turkey. [48]



The CIA - and with that one assumes the Obama administration - has sanctioned these shipments. [49] Feb. 2012 First reports that FSA rebels are being trained on bases in Jordan and Turkey for infiltration into Syria. In Turkey the part of the training takes place near Incirlik Air Base near Adana, where U.S. personnel is stationed. The U.S., U.K., France are all said to be involved in the training, which includes anti-tank tactics. Many of the trainees will soon run off to ISIS. Similarly, reports surface that Saudi Arabia is building up ISIS. [50] Mar. 5, 2012 After a period of training deep in the desert, ISIS attacks a police station in Haditha, Iraq, to carry out an assassination. Already at this point ISIS is transporting itself on Toyota and Ford 4x4 trucks. [51] Two years later Haditha will become one of the first battlegrounds in the ISIS takeover of western Iraq. Mar. 25, 2012 The U.S. and Turkey announce a plan to provide the Syrian rebels with "non-lethal" aid. At that point it becomes clear that the U.S. has already been providing "humanitarian" and "non-lethal" to the rebels, including communications equipment. [52] Mar.-Jun. 2012 A United Nations peace plan for Syria fails. Obama, secretary of state Hillary Clinton and the Arab League expect Assad to withdraw his forces from city centers and essentially hand over power to an interim government. Assad will only comply if the rebels/Jihadis put down their arms and the West, Turkey and the Arab League provide written statements to cease their covert support to the rebels. Support to the rebels by these elements is ignored/denied and in no-time and by June the fighting continues in full. Summer 2012 Iraqi finance minister Rafi al-Issawi stops a fraudulent $7 billion government-linked plan that appears to have been approved by prime minister Nouri al-Maliki himself. A few months later government troops storm Essawi Green Zone-located office, set fire to it, and destroy all evidence of the fraud.



For years now evidence has been piling up that the Maliki government is hopelessly corrupt and trying to implement a dictatorship. According to Essawi, ""Iraq is filled with gangs, filled with militias, filled with corrupt people." The siphoning off of oil revenues and the production of fake multi-billion dollar government contracts are among the problems. To protect himself, Maliki is filing scores of defamation suits against journalists, judges and members of parliament. He even attempts to make it illegal to criticize a head of state. [53]



In addition, 80% of Iraq's oil is exported while the majority of do not have enough affordable energy for basics as light and cooking. [54] The situation in Kurdistan, which is increasingly operating unilaterally, is better. It is said here that "the leaders steal about twenty per cent, but eighty per cent makes it to the people. In Baghdad, the percentages are reversed." [55] Jul. 2012 -

Jul. 2013 ISIS' "breaking the walls" campaign in Iraq: a year-long, extensive and rather successful bombing and prison break campaign to free Jihadi terrorists imprisoned by the Americans and Shiite-dominated Iraqi government. They have been abused and tortured by both the Americans and Shiites and are looking for revenge at the very least. Aug. 2012 In a prophetic report of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), then under JSOC veteran General Michael Flynn, Obama is warned about the likely rise of a unified Jihadist army in Syria and Iraq with his current policy in place. Specifically, Obama is warned that "the Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria", that these elements are being supported by "the West, Gulf countries, and Turkey", and that if the situation here deteriorates further, that there might arise "a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria." Furthermore, the DIA warns Obama that this might renew the Jihadist insurgency in Iraq:







"ISI could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organization in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to un