US-Backed Terrorists "Struggle" After Returning from Syria

May 25, 2019 (Gunnar Ulson - NEO) - Upon reading the Financial Times article, "Isis fighters struggle on return to Balkan states," you might almost forget the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was and still is a hardcore terrorist organization guilty of some of the most heinous terrorism carried out in the 21st century.



The article begins, claiming:

In a village in the Kosovar countryside, Edona Berisha Demolli’s family have gathered to celebrate her return from Syria where she and her husband fled to six years ago to fight for Islamic militants Isis. 

 “I am exhausted,” said Ms Demolli, as her relatives served guests slices of celebratory chocolate and vanilla cake and children played in the yard. “I thank God, the Kosovo state, and the US for bringing me home,” she said, referring to the pressure Washington put on countries to take their fighters back from camps across the Middle East and the logistical assistance they provided to that end.

The Financial Times would note that some 300 Bosnians joined ISIS and that Kosovo has set up barracks to accommodate returning fighters.

The article would end by quoting Besa Ismaili, a lecturer at Kosovo’s Faculty of Islamic Studies:

“You don’t have to approve of what they did, but you have to reach out to them to prevent further radicalisation, and their children need to develop a bond to the country.”

It is difficult to imagine how extremists who left their home country to fight alongside ISIS could be yet "further radicalized."

We can suppose "further radicalization" might mean a second deployment in yet another of Washington's proxy wars around the globe. It could be argued that returning fighters who receive assistance in reintegrating into society and escaping any real consequences for their actions will do very little to dissuade them or others in their community from doing it again.

Escaping Justice 

The Financial Times in its sympathetic narrative begets questions surrounding an inescapable truth regarding the central role the United States and its allies played in facilitating the transfer of foreign extremists to and from the battlefield in war-torn Syria.

The article specifically mentions (and through the words of a former extremist, thanks) the US for its logistical assistance in returning ISIS militants to their respective countries.

We can only imagine if terrorists invaded the United States, killed Americans, destroyed American infrastructure and fought against US troops, just how slighted Washington would feel if a foreign nation intervened and spirited these terrorists away, especially back to their countries of origin and beyond Washington's ability to exact justice.

But that is precisely what the US has denied Damascus.

America's Terrorist Foreign Legions 

The US aiding terrorists in their return to the Balkans will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the real rather than feigned relationship between Washington and Al Qaeda whom ISIS is merely a rebranded offshoot of.

In the 1990s as the US meddled in the Balkans, it provided weapons and aid to the so-called "Kosovo Liberation Army" (KLA), an analogue to the so-called "Free Syrian Army" in Syria today. Both were nothing more than public relations fronts. Behind it were regional Al Qaeda affiliates.

In Iraq, as US Influence Ebbs, Iran's Flows

March 31, 2019 (Gunnar Ulson - NEO) - In the dead of Christmas night last year, to evade possibly being shot down, US President Donald Trump made a surprise, whirlwind visit to US troops in Iraq.

He visited Al Asad Air Base about 100 miles west of Baghdad in Al Anbar province, or about halfway between Baghdad and the Syrian border where US forces are also operating. Between Al Asad and Baghdad are the notorious cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, hotbeds of resistance after the 2003 US invasion, and since then, hotbeds of extremism fueling the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq.

The base is home to about 5,000 US service members. 

As in Syria, America's presence in Iraq seems to be clinging to areas where extremism and separatism are greatest. In many instances, it is the US openly and deliberately encouraging both, especially in Kurdish territory stretching over both nations, but also in areas dominated by Sunni Muslims where extremist fronts like Al Qaeda and IS believe they can find support.

The fact that President Trump visited American forces in the dead of night, meeting no one from the actual Iraqi military or government, helps illustrate the increasingly isolated position the US holds in Iraq.

While the US claims it is fighting extremists from Syria to Iraq and beyond, with Syrian, Russian, Iranian and Iraqi forces clearing these extremists out of virtually all corners of Syria and Iraq except where US forces occupy, it seems the US isn't fighting extremism, it is cultivating it. 

Enter Iran

Several months later, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani made his first official visit to Iraq. His trip brought him to the center of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. There he met with top representatives of the Iraqi government including Iraqi President Barham Salih. He also travelled through the city to visit Al-Kadhimiya Mosque, a particularly important pilgrimage site for Shia'a Muslims.

President Rouhani had previously commented on Trump's swooping in at night and his failure to meet with any actual Iraqis in an open and official capacity. The Washington Post would quote President Rouhani as also stating:

“You have to walk in the streets of Baghdad ... to find out how people will welcome you.”

In addition to meeting Iraqi representatives and leaders, and travelling through Baghdad, President Rouhani also signed agreements involving "oil and gas, land transport, railways, agriculture, industry, health and regarding the central bank," the Washington Post would report.

French news portal France24 would note in their article, "Iraq attempts balancing act as Iran’s Rouhani arrives for first official visit," that:

Last year, Iran's exports to Iraq amounted to nearly $9 billion. Tehran hopes to increase the roughly $13 billion volume in trade between the two neighbouring countries to $20 billion. Also, some 5 million religious tourists bring in nearly $5 billion a year as Iraqis and Iranians visit Shiite holy sites in the two countries.

The article would note the growing ties between the two nations and the growing influence Iran has over Iraq in contrast to America's ebbing presence there.

Iraq-Iran Ties are Built on Mutual Interests - US Ties are Built on Fabricated Threats 

The Trump-Rouhani visits and the stark contrast between the two illustrates another very important point.

President Trump would openly admit the US was in Iraq to "to watch Iran," the New York Times would report.

Syria: Is US Fighting ISIS or Liquidating Assets?

March 30, 2019 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - That the "final stronghold" of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS) resides in US occupied territory in Syria says it all.

From US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) memos dating back to 2012 noting efforts to create a "Salafist" [Islamic] "principality" [State] in eastern Syria precisely where ISIS rose and now clings to its "final stronghold," to the obvious fact that ISIS' fighting capacity was only possible through extensive state sponsorship - it was already clear that the US and its partners in regime change against Syria had been using terrorists including ISIS as proxy ground forces.

Now the US claims it has cornered and is on the verge of defeating ISIS - despite the terrorist group having been cleared out of virtually every other corner of the nation by Syrian, Russian, Iranian, and Hezbollah forces long ago.

In reality, the US is merely liquidating assets it had harbored, protected, armed, and funded throughout the 8 year proxy war until no longer politically feasible.

CNN in its article, "Thousands of ISIS troops surrender amid attack on final stronghold in Syria," uncritically claims:

At its height, ISIS controlled huge swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq. The US-led coalition has been working for years to oust the group from cities and towns.

CNN omits entirely any mention of the source of ISIS' fighting capacity and the fact that its supply lines led directly out of NATO-member Turkey and was overseen by US special forces and intelligence agencies.

CNN also omits that it wasn't until the 2015 Russian military intervention when Russian air power attacked and cut ISIS supply lines that ISIS began suffering defeat across Syrian territory - first and foremost in territory being retaken by Syrian forces and its allies.

In territory illegally-occupied by the US, it appears that ISIS militants and other extremists were simply being shuffled around. In other cases, US forces attacked the Syrian military and their allies when attempting to cross into US-occupied territory in pursuit of ISIS forces. This game has carried on to the point of absurdity with the largest and most powerful military in the world only now creeping in last across the finish line of its own supposed battle against ISIS.

What Becomes of Surrendering and Fleeing ISIS Militants? 

CNN also claims:

More than 3,000 ISIS fighters have surrendered amid a pitched battle by US-backed forces to retake the last ISIS stronghold in Syria.   

The article also notes that many more may attempt to flee. The US has not made it clear what will happen with these fighters, or others "fleeing" from the supposed US-backed offensive. In certain cases, it seems Washington has singled interest in sending foreign fighters back to their countries of origin - which means many will simply be reintegrated into society where local intelligence agencies will keep tabs on them, use them for domestic distractions, or redeploy them to Washington's next proxy war when required.

A recent Iraqi military deployment near the Syrian-Iraqi border consisting of Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) amid the ongoing US offensive in Syria indicates that at least Baghdad believes Washington's "defeat" of ISIS is more likely another attempt to shuffle valuable proxy fighters around on the battlefield - and this time - back into Iraq and in particular, into Al Anbar governorate where the US still maintains a military presence and where they will continue receiving defacto US protection.

US Wants ISIS Sponsors to Rebuild Iraq

February 16, 2018 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Like a local mafia that breaks car windows by night and repairs them by day, the United States has enlisted its Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) partners - namely Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates - to "rebuild" in Iraq in the wake of the defeated, self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS) these same states sponsored.

Reuters in an article titled, "Coalition members must help Iraq rebuild, Tillerson says," would report (emphasis added):

The U.S. leads the coalition and hopes that after a three-year fight to defeat the militants it can count in large part on Gulf allies to shoulder the burden of rebuilding Iraq and on a Saudi-Iraqi rapprochement to weaken Iran’s influence in the country, which is run by a Shi‘ite led government. 

The article also reports (emphasis added): 

Donors and investors have gathered in Kuwait this week to discuss efforts to rebuild Iraq’s economy and infrastructure as it emerges from a devastating conflict with the hardline militants who seized almost a third of the country.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would be quoted by Reuters as claiming: 

If communities in Iraq and Syria cannot return to normal life, we risk the return of conditions that allowed ISIS to take and control vast territory.

Yet even a causal student of history, military affairs, or modern warfare knows that armies tens of thousands strong, with regional, even global recruiting, training, and logistical networks do not spring up out of poverty or economic ruination. The operation capacity demonstrated by ISIS is only possible with significant state sponsorship.

US Enlists Those Who Sponsored ISIS to Rebuild Iraq 

Mention of Kuwait serving as a venue for "donors and investors" seeking to "reconstruct" Iraq is particularly ironic for those who remember the UK Telegraph's 2014 article titled, "How our allies in Kuwait and Qatar funded Islamic State."

The article states (emphasis added):

Islamic State (Isil), with its newly conquered territory, oilfields and bank vaults, no longer needs much foreign money. But its extraordinarily swift rise to this point, a place where it threatens the entire region and the West, was substantially paid for by the allies of the West. Isil’s cash was raised in, or channelled through, Kuwait and Qatar, with the tacit approval and sometimes active support of their governments.

And while the article attempts to frame Kuwait and Qatar's state-sponsorship of terrorism as a betrayal of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, the fact remains that such sponsorship was not only well known to Western intelligence and political circles, it was the GCC's ability to raise massive legions of terrorists that formed the cornerstone of the US-GCC alliance against Libya, Syria, Iran, and Shia'a majority Iraq beginning in 2011.

US Plans Slash and Burn of Middle East to "Minimize" Iranian Influence

December 18, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The US is attempting to sell to the public the next phase of its continued occupation and military operations across the Middle East. Predicated on claims of "rebuilding" Iraq and "fighting terrorists" in Syria, it is in actuality a plan to perpetuate for as long as possible the upheaval currently consuming the region in hopes of overextending and exhausting Iran - and by extension - Russia.

Iranian Roadblock to Western Hegemony

The United States in its pursuit of global hegemony has placed particular focus on encircling, containing, undermining, and if possible, overthrowing the socioeconomic and political order of Iran as a means to secure for itself primacy over the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

Since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the British followed by the Americans have pursued a multi-generational policy of divide and conquer across MENA.

Nations Ango-American influence could not outright conquer and co-opt such as the Persian Gulf monarchies - or create in the case of Israel - have been either picked apart and left in ruins through direct or indirect military interventions, or have spent decades staving off open and concerted efforts to divide and destroy their respective nations. These nations include Yemen, Libya, Iraq, and Syria most recently, as well as Egypt, Lebanon, Algeria on and off throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

Iran - above all other nations in the region - reserves a special place for Western attention. Its large population, geography, economy, and military might has provided it space and time to incrementally grow its power and influence throughout the region and the world to dimensions difficult for the West to overcome and dominate.

With 80 million people, a GDP of nearly $400 billion, and an army over half a million strong, Iran is not Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, nor Libya. And as the technological disparity among nations in regards to conventional military capabilities closes, the West finds itself in an increasingly disadvantageous position in regards to coercing Iran directly through force.

Because of this emerging reality, US policy versus Tehran is shifting from attempting to justify a military confrontation it is no longer certain it can win, to a policy of containment and limited conflict similar to America's maneuvering in Asia Pacific regarding Beijing.

US Plans to "Minimize" Iran's Influence in the Middle East 

A piece in The Nation Interest penned by Brookings policymakers titled, "A blueprint for minimizing Iran’s influence in the Middle East," attempts to summarize America's current plans regarding the containment or "minimization" of Iranian influence.

In Iraq, the US appears poised to extend its military presence under the pretext of aiding and rebuilding the country. It even suggests proposed aid levels comparable to those given to Afghanistan - a nation where, despite immense aid and a continuous US military presence since 2001 - still has seen and suffered the arrival and spread of the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS).

West's "Kurdistan" Policy Not Adding Up

October 23, 2017 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - On one hand, the United States is demanding that Iranian-backed militias "leave" Iraq, claiming the fight against the self-titled "Islamic State" (IS) is over. On the other hand, the US and its European partners are still funneling weapons, cash, direct military support and organizing training for Kurdish factions in Iraq's northern region to "beat back" IS.



Additionally, US contractors are attempting to take control of Iraq's western highways connecting the nation to neighboring Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The contractors are to provide both security and rebuild destroyed infrastructure, also citing IS' continued presence as a pretext for America's continued presence in the country.

In other words, the United States is attempting to claim IS is both defeated and also yet to be defeated, attempting to craft a narrative that excludes Iraqi cooperation with Iran, Syria and Russia who are also operating in the region against IS and other militants, and gives the US and its partners exclusive control over Iraq and its future.

Artificial Conflict 

CNN in its article, "Tillerson: Time for Iranian-backed militias to leave Iraq," would claim:

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, anticipating an end to the fight against ISIS, said Sunday it was time for Iranian-backed militias to exit the war-torn nation of Iraq. 

"Those militias need to go home," Tillerson said. "Any foreign fighters in Iraq need to go home and allow the Iraqi people to regain control of areas that had been overtaken by ISIS and Daesh that have now been liberated. Allow the Iraqi people to rebuild their lives with the help of their neighbors."

 And while Secretary Tillerson notes that the Iraqi people should be allowed to rebuild their lives "with the help of their neighbors," he apparently means, all of the Iraqi people's neighbors except Iran and Syria.

Secretary Tillerson's remarks were made in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, giving a significant clue as to which neighbors he meant Iraq should get help from. However, it was Saudi Arabia who provided the very militants the Iraqi people have been fighting with arms, cash, equipment and training in the first place.

CNN would even note that:

At the same time, at least 1,500 Saudis had traveled to Iraq and Syria to join ISIS over the years, and Baghdad had long accused Saudi Arabia of turning a blind eye to Sunni militants crossing its territory to enter Iraq to take part in the country's sectarian conflict. 

In 2007, the US military reported that around 40% of all foreign militants targeting US troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces had come from Saudi Arabia. Half of the Saudi fighters who arrived in Iraq during that time went there to be suicide bombers, the US military said.

What this apparent contradiction indicates is that the conflict in Iraq was never about defeating a spontaneous militant threat, but was instead a proxy conflict engineered by Washington with the help of partners like Riyadh, aimed against Tehran and its allies.

Kurdistan, the Other "IS" 

If IS and other militant organizations fighting in Iraq and neighboring Syria represent one proxy of US, European and Persian Gulf interests, the Kurdish factions in northern Iraq seeking to carve out an independent "Kurdistan" are another.

US Mercenaries, Iraqi Highways and the Mystery of the Never-Ending ISIS Hordes

October 23, 2017 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - While the US and European media provided little explanation as to how militants from the self-titled Islamic State (IS) managed to appear, expand and then fight for years against the combined military power of Iraq, Syria, Iran and Russia, it was abundantly clear to many analysts that the IS organization was not only receiving state sponsorship, but it was receiving reinforcements, weapons and supplies from far beyond Syria's and Iraq's borders.

Maps of the conflict stretching over the last several years show clear corridors used to reinforce IS positions, leading primarily from Turkey's southern border and to a lesser extent, from Jordan's borders.

However, another possible vector may be desert highways in Iraq's western Anbar province where US military contractors are allegedly to "provide security" as well as build gas stations and rest areas. These highways contributed to the current conflict and still serve as a hotbed for state sponsored terrorism. Whether these US-controlled and improved highways pose a significant threat for a reorganized effort by the US and its regional allies to divide and destroy Iraq and Syria seems all but inevitable.

US Mercenaries "Guarding" Iraqi Highways 

Al Monitor in an April 2017 article titled, "How Iraq is planning to secure key border road," would claim:

 Due to the imminent threats to the road, which is one of Iraq’s vital economic lines as it connects Basra in the south to Jordan in the west, Iraq commissioned an American company to secure and rebuild the road. The contract also included reconstructing bridges, 36 of which are destroyed.  

The article would elaborate, stating:

A security source from the Iraqi intelligence service told Al-Monitor, “The American company will only secure the two roads reaching Terbil from Basra and Baghdad and will build gas stations and rest areas, in addition to building bridges and cordoning off the roads with barbed wires, as per distances that would be determined later.”  

Al Monitor would claim that Iraq's popular mobilization units found themselves unable to oppose the move made by the central government in Baghdad. It would also note that Iraq's Hezbollah Brigades claimed, in opposition to the plan, that:

The road connecting Iraq and Jordan is a strategic gateway allowing the US and forces seeking to control it to tighten their grip on Anbar and the potential Sunni region as per a US-Gulf plan.  

One could imagine future potential scenarios including these rebuilt roads, complete with gas stations and rest areas, leading from Jordan and Saudi Arabia and providing an efficient route for future wars waged either directly or by proxy against Iraq. The infiltration of fighters and supplies, for example, would be greatly expedited should the US and its partners decide to shift their efforts along this new axis.

Beyond this more obvious threat comes the fact that US-Jordanian-Saudi influence would be greatly enhanced with stronger logistical lines leading into Iraq's western regions.

How the US Might Use its New Highways  

The Islamic State's de facto invasion of Syria and Iraq was a more massive and dramatic replay of an earlier surge of foreign militants into the region, following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.

It would be America's own Combating Terrorism Center at the West Point United States Military Academy in two reports published in 2007 and 2008 (.pdf) respectively that would describe in detail the networks some of Washington's closest regional allies used to flood post-war Iraq with foreign fighters.

While these fighters indeed attacked US soldiers, what they also did was disrupt a relatively unified resistance movement before plunging Sunni and Shia'a militias into a deadly and costly "civil war."

America's Predictable Betrayal of the Iran Deal

America's withdrawal from the "Iran deal" doesn't prove that Iran is a threat to world peace and stability - instead - it proves that America cannot be trusted. 

October 18, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - In a recent public statement, US President Donald Trump announced the United States' decertification of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) also known as the "Iran Deal."

Fox News and AP in their article, "Trump decertifies Iran nuclear deal, slaps sanctions on IRGC in broadside at ‘radical regime’," would claim:

 “I am announcing today that we cannot and will not make this certification,” Trump said during a speech at the White House. “We will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more terror, and the very real threat of Iran's nuclear breakthrough.” 

Friday's announcement does not withdraw the United States from the Iran deal, which the president called “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.” 

But the president threatened that he could still ultimately pull out of the deal.

The agreement regarded Iran's nuclear technology program, seeking assurances from Tehran that its use of nuclear technology would remain peaceful - and in turn - pressure placed on Iran both politically and economically - particularly economic sanctions - would be reduced.

While the argument stands that Western nations already possessing nuclear weapons, coercing non-nuclear nations to abandon ambitions to acquire parity - while Western forces occupy and ravage nations both east and west of Iran's borders is as hypocritical as it is unjust - the deal itself was nothing more than a means to advance - not hinder or reduce - Western aggression versus Iran.   

The "Iran Deal" Was Always Meant to be Broken 

President Trump's announcement fulfilled nearly a decade-long ploy to draw Iran into what US policymakers as early as 2009 called a "superb offer" designed solely to portray the US as having tried diplomacy before changing tack toward more direct economic, political, and military aggression. 

In a 2009 report titled, "Which Path to Persia?: Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran" (PDF), corporate-financier funded US policy think tank the Brookings Institution would explicitly call for a deal to be offered by the US to Iran only to be intentionally broken and used as a pretext for direct military confrontation.

The report would propose (emphasis added):

...any military operation against Iran will likely be very unpopular around the world and require the proper international context—both to ensure the logistical support the operation would require and to minimize the blowback from it. The best way to minimize international opprobrium and maximize support (however, grudging or covert) is to strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were given but then rejected a superb offer—one so good that only a regime determined to acquire nuclear weapons and acquire them for the wrong reasons would turn it down. Under those circumstances, the United States (or Israel) could portray its operations as taken in sorrow, not anger, and at least some in the international community would conclude that the Iranians “brought it on themselves” by refusing a very good deal.

The exactitude by which this 2009 policy has been executed - transcending two US presidencies - and leading precisely to the edge of an impending US-Iranian confrontation in the Middle East already being fought out in proxy across Syria, Iraq, and some may argue, Yemen - should leave no doubts as to what happens next.

US Troops Already in Place to Fight Long-Planned Confrontation with Iran

US troops are now operating all along Iran's so-called "arc of influence" across the Middle East - thanks in part to the self-proclaimed "Islamic State" (ISIS) and America's alleged efforts to combat it. As was predicted at the onset of ISIS' entrance into the conflict, the US has used the terrorist organization's presence across the region to justify its initial and now expanding occupation of Syria and its continued interference in Iraq.

However, what the US has done instead of actually fighting ISIS - from Syria to Iraq - is divide and weaken Iran's regional allies - dragging them into a protracted and destructive conflict, exhausting their numbers and taxing their logistical and economic underpinnings. At the same time - however - they have created the circumstances in which Russia has intervened directly and on a scale eclipsing and complicating US involvement in both terms of diplomatic legitimacy and in terms of military force.

With Kurdish factions receiving US support and attempting to carve out territory straddling the Syrian-Iraqi border - also under the guise of "fighting" ISIS - the US and its partners are now attempting to introduce a new narrative - that Kurdish independence is under threat not by ISIS, but by Iranian-backed armies on both sides of the border.

Logistics 101: Where Does ISIS Get Its Guns?

June 10, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Since ancient times an army required significant logistical support to carry out any kind of sustained military campaign. In ancient Rome, an extensive network of roads was constructed to facilitate not only trade, but to allow Roman legions to move quickly to where they were needed, and for the supplies needed to sustain military operations to follow them in turn.

Image: The other half of the war is logistics. Without a steady stream of supplies, armies no matter how strong or determined will be overwhelmed and defeated. What explains then ISIS' fighting prowess and the immense logitical networks it would need to maintain it? 

In the late 1700's French general, expert strategist, and leader Napoleon Bonaparte would note that, "an army marches on its stomach," referring to the extensive logistical network required to keep an army fed, and therefore able to maintain its fighting capacity. For the French, their inability to maintain a steady supply train to its forces fighting in Russia, and the Russians' decision to burn their own land and infrastructure to deny it from the invading forces, ultimately defeated the French.

Nazi Germany would suffer a similar fate when it too overextended its logical capabilities during its invasion of Russia amid Operation Barbarossa. Once again, invading armies became stranded without limited resources before being either cut off and annihilated or forced to retreat.

And in modern times during the Gulf War in the 1990's an extended supply line trailing invading US forces coupled with an anticipated clash with the bulk of Saddam Hussein's army halted what was otherwise a lighting advance many mistakenly believed could have reached Baghdad had there been the political will. The will to conquer was there, the logistics to implement it wasn't.

The lessons of history however clear they may be, appear to be entirely lost on an either supremely ignorant or incredibly deceitful troupe of policymakers and news agencies across the West.

ISIS' Supply Lines

The current conflict consuming the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Syria where the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS) is operating and simultaneously fighting and defeating the forces of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, we are told, is built upon a logistical network based on black market oil and ransom payments.

The fighting capacity of ISIS is that of a nation-state. It controls vast swaths of territory straddling both Syria and Iraq and not only is able to militarily defend and expand from this territory, but possesses the resources to occupy it, including the resources to administer the populations subjugated within it.

For military analysts, especially former members of Western armed forces, as well as members of the Western media who remember the convoys of trucks required for the invasions of Iraq in the 1990s and again in 2003, they surely must wonder where ISIS' trucks are today. After all, if the resources to maintain the fighting capacity exhibited by ISIS were available within Syrian and Iraqi territory alone, then certainly Syrian and Iraqi forces would also posses an equal or greater fighting capacity but they simply do not.

America Admittedly Behind ISIS "Surge"

May 25, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Taking advantage of a Syrian military stretched thin to protect everywhere at the same time, high concentrations of well-coordinated Al Qaeda forces, based in NATO-member Turkey as well as in US-allies Jordan and Saudi Arabia, have attacked across several fronts. The tactical and strategic gains are minimal compared to the initial stages of the West's proxy war against Syria beginning in 2011, but the Western media is intentionally fanning the flames of hysteria specifically to break both support for Syria from abroad, and fracture resistance from within.

This latest attempt to overwhelm the Syrian people, its government, and its armed forces comes with several shocking revelations. Previously, veteran award-winning journalists foretold the coming conflict in Syria, warning how the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel were openly planning to use Al Qaeda as a proxy force to overthrow Syria first, then Iran and how it would unfold into a cataclysmic sectarian war. There were also signed and dated policy papers advocating the use of terrorism and the provocation of war to directly target Iran after Syria and Hezbollah had been sufficiently weakened.

However, now, there is a US Department of Defense (DoD) document confirming without doubt that the so-called "Syrian opposition" is Al Qaeda, including the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS), and that the opposition's supporters - the West, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar - specifically sought to establish safe havens in Iraq and eastern Syria, precisely where ISIS is now based.

America is Behind ISIS 

Looking at maps recently produced by the Western media and Western policy think tanks, it can be seen clearly that Al Qaeda/ISIS is streaming out of NATO and US ally territory, forming up in these two safe havens, and aimed both at the Syrian government and Iran.

Despite the Western narrative of "moderate rebels," the West itself has been increasingly admitting that such "rebels" do not exist. They also admit that to establish "stability," they must begin openly working with "questionable actors."

Michael O'Hanlon, a signatory of the Brookings Institution's "Which Path to Persia?" policy paper calling for terrorism and intentional provocations to overthrow the government of Iran, stated in a USA Today op-ed titled, "Michael O'Hanlon: American boots needed in Syria," that:

In the short term, this strategy requires an acceleration of our train and equip program for Syrian opposition fighters — including perhaps a bit less puritanical approach in who we are willing to work with. Most Syrian moderates are tired of waiting for us, or already dead given our delays in helping them. So we may have to tolerate working with some questionable actors to get things started.

Ramadi and America’s Fracturing of Iraq

While Washington waxes poetic about the need to more forcefully confront ISIS and destroy its military and terrorist infrastructure, the actual policies it has pursued are designed to achieve just the opposite.

May 23, 2015 (Eric Draitser - NEO) - The Western media has been consumed in recent days with the news that Islamic State militants have captured the strategically critical city of Ramadi in Iraq. The narrative is one of incompetence on the part of Iraqi military forces who, the corporate media tells us, are simply either ineffectual or hopelessly corrupt. Some analysts and pundits, especially those on the right who oppose Obama for various reasons, have used the fall of Ramadi to legitimize their claims that Obama’s “weakness” on the ISIS issue brought events to this point.

While there is truth to the assertion that Iraqi military forces are riddled with severe problems, from sectarianism in the command hierarchy, to poor training and, at times, organizational disarray, none of these issues is singularly responsible for the loss of Ramadi. Nor is it entirely accurate to say that Obama’s alleged weakness is really the cause.

Rather the primary reason, the one which the media carefully avoids including in their reportage, is the political and military sabotage of Iraq perpetrated by the United States in pursuit of its long-term agenda.

Indeed, while Washington waxes poetic about the need to more forcefully confront ISIS and destroy its military and terrorist infrastructure, the actual policies it has pursued are designed to achieve just the opposite. Instead of promoting unity of command and execution within the Iraqi armed forces, the Pentagon, Congress, and the White House have done everything to fracture Iraq’s political and military structures, fomenting rather than mollifying sectarian conflicts. Then the Washington Post can publish editorials blasting Iraqi fecklessness, and calling for a more robust US military presence. In this way, the US policy of promoting division and weakness within Iraq has directly led to the dire situation in Ramadi and throughout the country.

How Washington is Destroying Iraq…Again!

The fall of Ramadi has provided ammunition to opponents of Obama whose central argument – if such insanity can be believed – remains that the US should wage further war in Iraq. Leading warmongers, Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, both claim that the failure is due to Obama’s “big mistake” in not leaving behind troops in 2011. Graham described US policy as “a failure of Obama’s military strategy,” while McCain referred to it as “one of the most disgraceful episodes in American history… [The] policy…is not enough of anything,” Aside from the obvious absurdity of their claims, McCain and Graham, and the media narrative surrounding the entire issue, are a perfect illustration of the utterly backwards narrative presented by the corporate media to the American public.

US "Fighting"Terror Group with Fictional Leaders

US claims to be waging war against "Islamic State" whose various "al-Baghdadi" leaders do not exist. 

January 29, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - In 2007, the New York Times revealed that long-vilified "Islamic State" leader Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi did not exist, and that the creation of this fictional character was a ruse to obfuscate the role of foreigners in the creation and perpetuation of "Al Qaeda in Iraq." 

Image: The "Mandarin" from Ironman 3. Art imitating life, or life
imitating art as ISIS and its leadership are revealed as fictional? 

In an article titled, "Leader of Al Qaeda group in Iraq was fictional, U.S. military says," the NYT reports that: 

Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, the chief American military spokesman, said the elusive Baghdadi was actually a fictional character whose audio-taped declarations were provided by an elderly actor named Abu Adullah al-Naima.

The NYT would also reveal the purpose of the deception:

The ruse, Bergner said, was devised by Abu Ayub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, who was trying to mask the dominant role that foreigners play in that insurgent organization.  

The ploy was to invent Baghdadi, a figure whose very name establishes his Iraqi pedigree, install him as the head of a front organization called the Islamic State of Iraq and then arrange for Masri to swear allegiance to him. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy, sought to reinforce the deception by referring to Baghdadi in his video and Internet statements.

The admission by US military leaders, reported in the NYT, reveals that the so-called "Islamic State" was nothing more than an appendage of Al Qaeda - with Al Qaeda itself directly armed, funded, and backed by stalwart US allies, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Despite the NYT and the Pentagon's admissions, the entire ruse has continued, on an exponential scale.

US Intentionally Raised and Unleashed Al Qaeda Upon Iraq and Syria 

Al Qaeda's current presence in Iraq and Syria, and their leading role in the fight against the Iranian-leaning government's of Damascus and Baghdad, are the present-day manifestation of a Western criminal conspiracy exposed as early as 2007.  Revealed by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his 2007 article,  "The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?" it was stated explicitly that (emphasis added): 

ISIS' Bloody Footprints Lead From NATO Territory

December 17, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - It was reported recently that Germany's broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) investigated what turned out to be hundreds of trucks a day carrying billions of dollars in supplies,  flowing into Syria and directly into the hands of the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS). 

Turkey, a NATO member since 1952, has played a pivotal role in the destabilization and destruction of neighboring Syria. Since 2011, Turkey has allowed its territory to be used as a transit and staging point for sectarian terrorists flowing from around the world and into Syria in what could be described as a defacto NATO invasion by proxy. 

In 2011, after the Libyan conflict drew to an end in favor of NATO, terrorists it had armed and provided air cover for in North Africa were promptly shipped to Turkey where they then slipped into Syria to engage the Syrian government and its military. Since then, an untold number of terrorists have used not only Turkey as a staging ground, but also Lebanon and Jordan.

In addition to literal terrorists being harbored in NATO territory, security agencies of NATO members including the US and UK, have been active along the Turkish-Syrian border arming, funding. and equipping what they call "moderate rebels." These moderate rebels have recently been revealed as affiliates of or organized directly organized beneath both Al Qaeda and ISIS. 

DW's report does not implicate merely Turkey in aiding and abetting ISIS, but exposes the fact that ISIS' supply lines lead from within NATO itself - in other words, ISIS is a creation, perpetuation, and agent of NATO. 

US Never Intended to Defeat ISIS

November 20, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - A torrent of "foiled" terror plots have recently inundated headlines across the Western World. In Rochester New York, the FBI netted a man they claimed was plotting a shooting spree targeting US service members. In Australia, over 800 security agents swooped in on 15 ISIS suspects whom the Australian government claimed were plotting to randomly behead a member of the public. In the UK, 4 suspects allegedly linked to ISIS were arrested before carrying out a plot Scotland Yards claims was aimed at the Queen of England herself.

According to Western security agencies, in addition to ISIS' regional campaign of brutality stretching from Lebanon, across Syria, and into Iraq, it is also working ceaselessly to carry out attacks against targets within the US, across Europe, and even in the Pacific.

US Policymakers Claim ISIS is Neither a Threat Nor Necessary to Defeat

Considering the hysteria generated by ISIS' alleged global exploits, it should then be infinitely curious to readers who happen across US policymakers claiming that ISIS may pose a threat, but constitutes by far a lesser threat than Iran or Syria - the two principle nations leading the real fight against ISIS and its international sponsors. Furthermore, US policymakers claim there is no urgency to defeat ISIS, and it should instead be "contained." Of course, this "containment" will be within states targeted by US-backed regime change - serving as a convenient agent of destruction, destabilization, and perhaps even regime change itself.  

Image: A growing chorus among US policymakers and the Western media are claiming that ISIS poses a minimal threat even amid simaltaneous efforts to ratchet up public hysteria. The West also claims it is no longer necessary to "defeat" ISIS and it should instead be "contained" - inside nations targeted for regime change by the US, allowed to continue fighting America's enemies by proxy ... or in other words, ISIS should continue serving as the West's private mercenary army. 

US-Armed Syrian Opposition "Surrenders" to Al Qaeda?

November 18, 2014 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - Al Qaeda affiliates are suddenly now Islamic State (ISIS) affiliates, and entire groups of militants the US has been arming, funding, and training are "surrendering" to Al Qaeda, bringing along with them a large number of US weapons. Is this a failure of US foreign policy? Or is this simply a rhetorical means to explain away what appears to be an immense army of extremists the US is once again building up to direct at one of its enemies, just as it did in Afghanistan in the 1980's? 

Al Qaeda Morphs into ISIS

In late September, just in time to aid the US in its fumbling justification for bombing Syria, terrorists allegedly beheaded a French tourist kidnapped in the North African nation of Algeria. The timing, as with previous ISIS executions, was impeccable, lending maximum propaganda value, not to the terrorist organization, but to the United States which has utilized each grisly murder as a means for direct and continued military intervention on both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi border. 

The BBC in their article, "French hostage Herve Gourdel beheaded in Algeria," would report that: 

The beheading, the spokesman says, is to "avenge the victims in Algeria... and support the caliphate" proclaimed by IS in Iraq and Syria.

Jund al-Khilafa (Soldiers of the Caliphate) pledged allegiance to IS on 14 September. 

Until then it had been known as part of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which grew out of an Algerian militant group and is now active across North and parts of West Africa.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, was directly associated with terrorist groups armed and backed by NATO in the 2011 invasion and bombardment of Libya in efforts to overthrow the government of Muammar Qaddafi in Tripoli. 


In a 2007 West Point Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) report and a 2011 CTC report, "Are Islamist Extremists Fighting Among Libya's Rebels?," AQIM is specifically mentioned as working closely with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and it was predicted most notably by geopolitical analyst Dr. Webster Tarpley, that even before NATO began dropping bombs on Libya that by doing so, they would be thrusting not only LIFG into power, but empowering a regional network of extremists, including AQIM. AQIM's presence shortly thereafter in northern Mali, flush with weapons from Libya and a new sense of purpose as well as the fact that AQIM continues to menace the region years later is the complete fulfillment of this prediction.

Both AQIM and LIFG are listed by the US State Department as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) but were in fact leading the fight against the Libyan government in 2011 with NATO weapons and air support. It would be France itself that would drop weapons into the country illegally to bolster their fighting capabilities during the conflict, and clearly, after the conflict both inside Libya's borders and beyond them.

ISIS is America's Dream Rebel Army

US policy paper reveals desire for construction of full-scale extraterritorial army to invade Syria. Such an army is being built in Iraq and Turkey and it's called "ISIS."  

November 10, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The corporate-financier funded and directed policy think tank, the Brookings Institution, has served as one of several prominent forums documenting and disseminating US foreign policy. It would host in part the architects of the so-called "surge" during the nearly decade-spanning US occupation of Iraq, as well as battle plans for waging a covert war against Iran now well under way.

Part of this covert war against Iran involved the arming and backing of listed terrorist groups, and in particular, the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) which has killed US servicemen, American civilians, as well as countless innocent Iranians over the decades. Among those signing their name to this plan found within Brookings' "Which Path to Persia?" report, was Kenneth Pollack. Now, in efforts to overthrow the government of Syria, also a stated and integral part of undermining, isolating, and destroying Iran, Pollack has revealed another element of the plan - to create a full-scale proxy military force outside of Syria, then subsequently invading and occupying Syria with it.

In the report titled, "Building a Better Syrian Opposition Army: How and Why," Pollack cites the so-called "Islamic State" or "ISIS" as the ultimate impetus for expanded US intervention. However, upon looking at Pollack's proposal, it merely looks as if the US is using ISIS as a pretext to more overtly intervene in order to overthrow the government of Syria - not in fact neutralize ISIS.

After a considerable preamble assuring readers that the aim of creating a "better Syrian opposition army" would exclude sectarian extremists and result in the same "success" the US had in training the Iraqi army, the document explains:

...building a new Syrian army is best not done in Syria itself. At least not at first. The program would need the time and sanctuary to perform the necessary training, reorganization, sorting  and  socialization  into  a  new  Syrian  army  without the distractions and pressures of Syria itself.  The  Saudi  offer  to  provide  facilities  to  train 10,000 Syrian opposition fighters is one of reasonable possibility, although one of Syria’s neighbors would probably be preferable. Jordan already serves as  training  ground  for  America’s  current  training program and it would be an ideal locale to build a real Syrian army. However, Turkey could also conceivably serve that purpose if the Turks were willing.

Clearly, not only is this already being done as admitted by Pollack himself, it is being done on a scale already eclipsing Pollack's alleged plan - the only difference is it is being done through the use of sectarian extremists - not the imaginary, nonexistent secular professionals Pollack uses as a marketing gimmick to sell this scheme.

US Destroying Syria’s Oil Infrastructure Under Guise of Fighting ISIS

November 1, 2014 (Maram Susli - NEO) - The US is considering bombing pipelines in Syria, which it claims is in an attempt to cut off the huge profits being made by ISIS from captured oilfields.

The Independent quotes Julieta Valls Noyes, the deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs during a visit to London, that ISIS was making $2 million a day off oil sales and that the US would consider airstrikes as well as “kinetic strikes against some pipelines" and "actual physical action to stop the flow”.

The trouble with this justification for destroying Syria’s oil pipelines, is that ISIS does not have the capability to use the pipelines to transfer oil. ISIS transports the stolen oil on the back of trucks, and sells it on the black market in Turkey. 

This is admitted in the same Independent article that quoted Ms. Noyes. 

The Independent claims:

Isis has sold some of the fuel from seized facilities back to the Damascus regime through local deals, while shipments had been sent into Turkey for the black market, with the Erdogan government accused of turning a blind eye to the illicit transactions. 

If the US truly intended to stop ISIS oil profits, they would bomb these oil convoys, which are easily spotted via conventional surveillance flights already allegedly taking place as part of ongoing Western operations. The US agenda behind destroying Syria’s pipelines has very little to do with ISIS oil profits, and far more to do with destroying Syria’s oil infrastructure.

In fact, the statistic that ISIS is making 2 million dollars a day from the sale of crude oil is an estimate from a single consulting company (IHS) based in Colorado in the United States. The US administration is choosing to quote this as if it were without a shred of doubt. It’s far more likely that the scale of the profits has been overblown to deflect from the fact that ISIS is receiving funding from state actors such as Turkey, Qatar and other Persian Gulf states, while at the same time providing an excuse to target Syrian infrastructure. 

ISIS: America's Terrorist Mercenaries

October 28, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Generally historical revision takes place long after events unfold and the victors attempt to bury humiliating or inconvenient truths. Today, in the age of information, these would-be victors are finding it increasingly necessary to revise history in real-time through a strategy of increasingly repetitive, but decreasingly effective propaganda. 

Phase I: Justifying Chaos 

It was only in 2007 that US foreign policy openly sought to pursue war against Iran, Syria, and Lebanon's Hezbollah, while undercutting pro-Iranian factions in Iraq which at the time the US was still occupying. Failing to accomplish this directly, the US planned a not-so-covert proxy war that would include funding, politically backing, and even arming groups ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood to militants aligned with Al Qaeda itself. 

This is perhaps best summarized by the prophetic 2007 report "The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?" written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh and published in the New Yorker.

It stated (emphasis added): 

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda. 

Hersh would also go on to chronicle American political and financial support that was being provided to the Muslim Brotherhood, even then under then US President George Bush. In all, the supposedly "spontaneous" uprisings referred to by the Western media as the "Arab Spring" in 2011 were being engineered years ahead of time - not in an attempt to promote peaceful pro-democratic aspirations, but to serve as cover for ultra-violent foreign-backed inssurections that would leave a trail of destruction stretching along Africa's northern coast, all the way to the borders of Iran, Russia, and even China.

US War on Iran Takes Bizarre Turn

Image: Logo of the terrorist MEK, backed for years by the
US as part of a covert war against Iran. Though greatly
diminished by joint Iraqi-Iranian security operations, the
terrorist organization still enjoys support from the highest
levels of Western government. 

October 19, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - It is not merely hyperbole when it is said the US created terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda or the so-called "Islamic State." It is documented fact. The current conflict in the Middle East may appear to be a chaotic conflagration beyond the control of the United States and its many eager allies, but in reality it is the intentional, engineered creation of regional fronts in a war against Iran and its powerful arc of influence.

It is not Western policy that indirectly spurs the creation and perpetuation of terrorist organizations, but in fact, direct, intentional, unmistakable support.

This support would manifest itself in perhaps the most overt and bizarre declaration of allegiance to terrorism to date, US Army General Hugh Shelton on stage before terrorists of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) and their Wahabist counterparts fighting in Syria, hysterically pledging American material, political, and strategic backing. MEK was listed for years by the US State Department as a foreign terrorist organization, but has received funding, arms, and safe haven by the United States for almost as long.

General Hugh's speech titled, "Making Iranian mullahs fear, the MEK, come true," was most likely never meant to be seen or fully understood by Americans. In titled alone, it is clear that US foreign policy intends to use the tool of terrorism to exact concessions from Tehran. If the true nature of America's support for terrorist organizations like MEK were more widely known, the current narrative driving US intervention in Iraq and Syria would crumble.

Image: MEK is just one of many terrorist organizations, that despite being listed by the US State Department as such, still receives weapons, training, cash, and political support from the US government. This is a pattern seen repeated in Libya and most recently in Syria - each case spun and excused with a myriad of lies wrapped in false, constantly shifting narratives.

Why Regime Change Won't Stop ISIS in Syria...

Because it didn't stop ISIS terrorists in Iraq or Libya. Try Washington instead. 

Image: Libya's Tripoli International Airport in flames - the product of US
regime change and the predictable, genocidal chaos that followed. The
airport is no longer in use.  

October 14, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - US corporate-financier funded policy think tanks have been taking turns in recent weeks floating the narrative that the next logical step to stopping so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS) terrorists in Syria is removing the Syrian government from power - this despite the fact that the only cohesive, organized force in the region capable of fighting ISIS terrorists is the Syrian government and its Syrian Arab Army. 

Kenneth M. Pollack a policy writer at the Brookings Institution and a signatory of the noxious 2009 "Which Path to Persia?" report Brookings produced which advocated arming and funding listed terrorist organizations to fight Iran under the cover of street protests (exactly how the US went about plunging Syria into its current crisis), has recently penned his thoughts on what should be done in Syria. Titled, "An Army to Defeat Assad: How to Turn Syria's Opposition Into a Real Fighting Force," Pollack claims: 

...there is, in fact, a way that the United States could get what it wants in Syria -- and, ultimately, in Iraq as well -- without sending in U.S. forces: by building a new Syrian opposition army capable of defeating both President Bashar al-Assad and the more militant Islamists. 

Pollack correctly assesses that the real US goal, as it has been since 2011 when it triggered street mobs as cover for terrorists aligned to Al Qaeda, is to remove Syrian President Bashar al Assad from power. The US State Department would openly claim as much, using ISIS as a nebulous pretext for toppling the Syrian government. The Hill in an article titled, "State: Assad must go for ISIS to be defeated," claims: 

State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said on Friday that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) cannot be defeated as long as Syrian President Bashar Assad remains in power.

Harf would go on to say: 

"The best thing that the Syrian people can have going forward is not ISIS, it's not the Assad regime, but it's a new transitional government that leads them to a better future and ends this horrible bloodshed we've seen over the last three years."

Image: The Syrian Arab Army has already been fighting ISIS and other Western-backed terrorist organizations since 2011. It represents Christians, Sunnis, Shia'a, Alawites, Druzes, and the secular from all across Syrian society - united in defending the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic. While the West feigns a desire to topple the Syrian government to replace it with a more "inclusive government" to help stop ISIS - it is clear that regime change was its goal long before it coined "ISIS" and walked it upon the world's stage.