Tag Archives: Iraq

Removing Assad Is The Only Way To Disarm His Regime Of Its WMD

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 3, 2014

These rows of murdered children are just some of the 1,400 people massacred with sarin on the morning of Aug. 21, 2013 by the Assad regime

President Obama said on April 28, in Manila: “we’re getting chemical weapons out of Syria without having initiated a strike.” This was by way of defending not launching airstrikes to punish the Assad regime after the massive gas attack near Damascus last August. Put aside the clear evidence that the regime has simply switched the using chlorine gas. This seemed dubious on its own terms. Under the deal orchestrated by the Russians, Assad became a partner in disarmament; as soon as that process comes to an end, the Western interest in keeping Assad’s regime in place is eliminated. And so it proved.
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The Tragedy of Tony Blair

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 24, 2014

Tony Blair at Bloomberg on April 23

There’s a case to be made that Tony Blair is the most important figure in the development of the concept of “humanitarian intervention” since the end of the Cold War. When adumbrating his doctrine at the Chicago Economics Club in April 1999, Blair made very clear that this was no wild-eyed utopianism. Continue reading →

Film Review: My Brother The Islamist (2011)

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 21, 2014

Rich Leech

Rich Leech

Following Robb Leech, whose step-brother, Rich, has been converted to Islam, the film shows the path of the “white,” middle-class (in the British sense), apparently-irreligious Westerner who succumbs to the call of faith. T Continue reading →

Who Are The Khawarij?

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 17, 2014

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Since the Syrian rebellion went to war with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in January, there has been a parallel campaign of political warfare by the rebels and al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, to delegitimize ISIS. This has often taken the form of referring to ISIS as Kharijites or the Khawarij.

This Khawarij are an ancient sect who broke from the Rashidun (Rightly-Guided) Caliphate in the name of righteous revolt in 658, and continued their campaign against the caliphate—by then in the hands of the Umayyads—for a century and more. Regarded as perhaps the first terrorists in Islamdom (by another definition it would be the Nizaris, a.k.a. “The Assassins”), the connotations of the Khawarij label are extremism and deviance, particularly a tendency to excommunicate (make takfir against) Muslims not only for sins that do not merit excommunication, but simply for reasons of political exclusivism. Continue reading →

Book Review: Cruelty and Silence (1993) by Kanan Makiya

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 7, 2014

 

Kanan Makiya, an Arab author who writes of the decline of the Arab world as a story where Arabs have the primary agency, can be disorienting to read in the modern context. The first part of Cruelty and Silence deals with the cruelty of the Arab world in general and the Saddam Hussein regime in particular, Continue reading →

ISIS Prepares the Ground for War Against the Syrian Rebellion

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 6, 2014

The spokesman for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, gave a speech on 30 September 2013, entitled, “Lak Allah Ayatuha al-Dawla al-Mazluma” (لك الله أيتها الدولة المظلومة), roughly: “God Is With You, O’ Oppressed State” (The English translation released by Fursan al-Balagh Media gives the title as, “May Allah Be With You, O’ Oppressed State”.) The speech is primarily a ferocious attack on the Syrian rebel groups, accusing them of being part of a Western-led conspiracy, which includes the media stations of Arab governments and their “mouthpieces” throughout the region, to manipulate the coverage of ISIS such that it blackens their name and turns Muslims away from them.

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ISIS’s Spokesman Attacks Al-Qaeda’s Ruling That ISIS Should Leave Syria

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 4, 2014

The spokesman of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, made a speech on 19 June 2013, a transcript of which is reproduced below. Al-Adnani’s speech was entitled, “Fadharhum wa-ma yaftarun”, variously translated as: “So Leave Them Alone With Their Devising”, “Leave Them Alone with their Fabrications”, and “Ignore Them and Their False Allegations”. Continue reading →

Al-Qaeda Rules on the Dispute Between ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 3, 2014

Ayman al-Zawahiri, September 2013, AFP/Getty Images

Ayman al-Zawahiri, September 2013, AFP/Getty Images

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the then-Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), released an audio statement on 8 April 2013 asserting his authority over Jabhat al-Nusra, which was set up as the Syrian wing of ISI. Al-Nusra’s leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, rejected al-Baghdadi’s hostile takeover on 10 April and swore allegiance—renewed, in his telling—to al-Qaeda. The leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, ruled on this matter in a letter dated 23 May 2013, which was released to, and translated by, al-Jazeera, on 9 June 2013. Al-Zawahiri’s letter is reprinted below with some editions for clarity and some important sections highlighted in bold. Continue reading →

Jabhat al-Nusra Rejects the Islamic State of Iraq’s Takeover

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 2, 2014

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On 10 April 2013, Jabhat al-Nusra’s leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, put out a speech, published by al-Manara al-Bayda, entitled, “About the Fields of Syria”. In the speech, al-Jolani rejected the statement from thirty-six hours earlier by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, which revealed officially that al-Nusra was a front-organization for the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), and then al-Baghdadi asserted his authority publicly over al-Nusra, dissolving ISI and al-Nusra into a new group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). This dispute would ultimately lead to ISIS being expelled from al-Qaeda’s network after it refused the orders of al-Qaeda’s leadership to return to Iraq and leave al-Nusra as al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria. A translation of this speech by jihadology.net is reproduced below with some minor editions for clarity and some interesting sections highlighted in bold. Continue reading →

Obituary: Tony Benn

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on March 26, 2014

On March 14, 2014, Anthony Wedgewood Benn (“Tony Benn”) died aged 88. Though, as his assumed name in later years suggests, Benn presented himself as a populist, he was in fact of very elite stock: born in 1925, his grandfather was a Liberal MP, as was his father (until he joined Labour in 1927), and his mother was a leading early feminist campaigner. Benn was entitled to a hereditary peerage as Viscount Stansgate, which he objected to. Ever one for publicity, after the Peerage Act of 1963 was passed on July 31 of that year, allowing renunciation of peerages, he became the first peer to renounce his title, 22 minutes later. Benn mixed with figures like David Lloyd George and Mohandas Gandhi, and attended the exclusive Westminster School, which is “something he tried to hide in future biographies,” before going on to be a fighter pilot in the RAF.

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