Tag Archives: Iran

America Escalates the War Against Al-Qaeda in Syria

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on November 11, 2016

On the right: Abdullah al-Muhaysini (source)

The United States and therefore the international Coalition is about to step up its operations against Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS), al-Qaeda’s recently rebranded Syrian branch. This is a necessary policy, but pursued in isolation—without replacing the capacities that JFS provides to the insurgency—this action will strengthen the coalition supporting the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the actors chiefly responsible for the humanitarian abomination in Syria that has deliberately given rise to the security menace of the Islamic State (IS) and the flow of refugees into Europe that has destabilized Western security. Assad’s coalition also includes the Islamic Republic of Iran, a more significant global terrorism threat than IS which has repeatedly attacked the West. Continue reading →

The Coalition’s Flawed Endgame Strategy for the Islamic State

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on November 6, 2016

After some (perhaps wilful) confusion over the timing, the operation to expel the Islamic State (IS) from Raqqa City, its Syrian capital, got underway this morning, running concurrent with the effort to evict IS from its Iraqi capital, Mosul. There are deep concerns about the methods adopted in both cases. The ground forces the U.S.-led Coalition has chosen to support in Raqqa cannot lead to sustainable stability in Syria, something that is essential to defeat IS. While the Mosul operation has proceeded generally to plan, there are increasing signs of trouble within the operation itself and the most troubling aspect—the aftermath—still appears to be unplanned. Beyond this is the continued assault on Aleppo City by Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its Russian and Iranian patrons that is systematically destroying the forces needed if there is to be any settlement to Syria’s war that ends the space given to international terrorists. Continue reading →

Al-Qaeda Signals A Return to Iraq, Incites Against An American-Iranian Conspiracy

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on November 4, 2016

Al-Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, gave a speech on August 25, 2016, entitled, “Fear Allah in the Matter of Iraq” (or “Fear Allah in Iraq”). Released by al-Qaeda’s As-Sahab Media Foundation, the speech is the third installment of the “Brief Messages To A Victorious Nation” (or “Brief Messages To A Victorious Umma”) series. A translation of the speech was released by Al-Muwahideen Media, a pro-Qaeda channel, last month and is reproduced below with some editions in transliteration and important sections highlighted in bold. Continue reading →

Art, Identity Politics, and Unmaking the West

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on November 2, 2016

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Sohrab Ahmari’s The New Philistines is a crisp and concise polemic. While the book’s focus is “a crisis in the art world,” Ahmari’s dissection of modern art’s failure has implications for the trajectory of the entire liberal Western project.

As Ahmari notes, the complaint that bad art is being considered good is as old as civilization. Ahmari argues persuasively, however, that what is going wrong now is “qualitatively worse than all that came before” because the custodians of our heritage have not redefined the standards of objective beauty and at least a search for truth but have discarded them.

In place of the old standards is a cult of identity politics—a mix of “radical feminism, racial grievance, anti-capitalism, and queer theory”—that has no need for truth-seeking; “truth” is only a means of inflicting upon people an order that is racist, sexist, and homophobic by design, according to the identitarians, which is why their pre-set answers and simply inept art is acceptable, because it advances the cause of challenging this unjust system.

Identity politicization is “one calamity among many” in the art world, yet it has implications far and wide. The identitarians’ own relativistic logic divides the human species into competing tribes whose only interest should be a search for power. With this, the identitarians lay bare their illiberal heart and the danger they pose well beyond the art world.

Ahmari has three chapters. The first covers the reopening of Shakespeare’s Globe and its takeover by the identitarians. The second examines Artforum, the leading contemporary arts magazine in the United States. And in the third Ahmari gives a tour of the London arts scene. Continue reading →

Russia Moves in For the Kill in Syria

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Originally published at The Henry Jackson Society

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on October 21, 2016

Vladimir Putin’s Russia is “deploying all of the Northern fleet and much of the Baltic fleet in the largest surface deployment since the end of the Cold War,” a NATO diplomat told Reuters on Wednesday night. These Naval assets are designed to buttress a final offensive by the remnants of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, which is effectively controlled on the ground by the Islamic Republic of Iran and an assortment of foreign Shi’a jihadists, against the insurgent-held east of Aleppo city, crushing once and for all the strategic threat posed by the rebellion to the regime, a threat that had already been all-but ended in the first months of Russia’s intervention. Nearly a year ago the U.S. began a political process with the Russians intended to end the war and begin a political transition. Moscow has subverted this process, using force to buttress its political efforts to secure Assad in power. The timing of this attack is seemingly intended as one final humiliation for President Barack Obama. Continue reading →

Martyr for the Cause

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on October 20, 2016

Mohamedou Ould Salahi

Mohamedou Ould Salahi, a Mauritanian, was released from Guantanamo Bay back to his home country on Monday. This comes as part of Barack Obama’s effort to drive the number of inmates at the detention centre down as far as possible before his Presidency ends. Salahi is the first detainee transferred since the mass-exodus in August, leaving sixty men at Guantanamo, nineteen of them already approved for transfer. Salahi is among the many detainees who claims he is innocent and that he has been maltreated in custody, and he has written a book, Guantánamo Diary, to that effect. The known facts about Salahi’s pre-detainment behaviour suggest caution should be exercised in accepting his version of events. Continue reading →

The Demise of Ahmad Mabruk: Al-Qaeda in Syria and American Policy

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on October 4, 2016

Ahmad Mabruk in Jabhat al-Nusra's "Heirs of Glory" video, March 2016. (Source: The Long War Journal)

Ahmad Mabruk in Jabhat al-Nusra’s “Heirs of Glory” video, March 2016. (Source: The Long War Journal)

Ahmad Salama Mabruk (Abu Faraj al-Masri) was an al-Qaeda veteran, close to the organization’s leadership. The United States killed Mabruk in Syria on 3 October 2016 in a drone strike near Jisr al-Shughour in northern Syria. This is the second time in a month the U.S. has killed off a senior al-Qaeda jihadist, and sheds some light on the strength of the U.S. policy in Syria. Continue reading →

Abandoning Syria to Assad Helps Al-Qaeda

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on September 23, 2016

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The deeply problematic attempted Syrian ceasefire agreement between the United States and Russia last week never really took hold and was finally torn asunder on Monday by Russia and the regime of Bashar al-Assad blitzing an aid convoy and launching massive, indiscriminate aerial attacks on rebel-held areas in Aleppo. Last night, the pro-Assad coalition commenced a renewed assault on Aleppo actually as the parties met to discuss putting the ceasefire back online.

It had been surreal that it was the U.S. insisting that “The ceasefire is not dead”. What it exposed was the lack of Western will to restrain the Assad regime, which al-Qaeda, especially, is exploiting, offering its services in the fight against Assad, and building a sustainable presence in Syria that will threaten the West for many years to come. Continue reading →

Syria’s Flawed Ceasefire Comes Crashing Down

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on September 21, 2016

A version of this article was published at The New Arab

Humanitarian convoy in Aleppo after the airstrikes by pro-regime coalition, 20 September 2016

The United States and Russia reached an agreement over Syria on 9 September that was supposed to lead to a week of reduced violence—a ceasefire or “cessation of hostilities” (CoH). During this time, there would be free distribution of humanitarian aid—followed by joint operations against the rebranded al-Qaeda branch in the country, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS), formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra. This agreement was essentially ignored by Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which Russia had pledged to restrain, and on Monday the agreement was torn up by the regime, returning Syria to all-out war. Continue reading →

Fifteen Years After 9/11

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on September 11, 2016

Originally published at The International Business Times

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Fifteen years on from the 11 September 2001 terror attacks on the US, al-Qaeda is better-positioned than ever before. Its leadership held, and it has rebuilt a presence in Afghanistan. More importantly, al-Qaeda has built powerful regional branches in India, North Africa, Somalia, Yemen and Syria.

Rebranding itself away from the savagery of Iraq, al-Qaeda has sought to embed itself in local populations by gaining popular legitimacy to shield itself from retribution if, or when, it launches terrorist strikes in the West. This is proceeding apace, above all because of a failure to assist the mainstream opposition in Syria, sections of which were forced into interdependency with al-Qaeda to resist the strategy of massacre and expulsion conducted by the Assad regime. Continue reading →