Tag Archives: Qassem Soleimani

Allowing Iran To Conquer Iraq Will Not Help Defeat The Islamic State

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on March 15, 2015

Qassem Suleimani

Qassem Suleimani

Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the beginning of an offensive on March 1 to dislodge the Islamic State (ISIS) from Salah ad-Din Province. Abadi announced that this would be led by the Iraqi army and Hashd al-Shabi, known in English as the Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs), the militias composed overwhelmingly of Shi’ites and directed by Iran.

While the offensive seems to be winding down, it is not over. ISIS is out of ad-Dawr/Dour and al-Awja, south of Tikrit, and Albu Ajeel to the east. Al-Alam to the north seems to still be contested. On March 10, ISIS was driven out of al-Qadissiya, a northern district of Tikrit City. On March 11, the anti-ISIS forces entered Tikrit City, “inched closer to the city center … and took up positions in a military hospital, the police academy and the traffic police headquarters … Forces in southern districts took over three palaces erected by former dictator Saddam Hussein”. Continue reading →

America’s Silent Partnership With Iran And The Contest For Middle Eastern Order: Part Four

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on February 10, 2015

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This is the fourth of a four-part series looking at the United States’ increasingly-evident de facto alliance with Iran in the region. The first part looked at the way this policy has developed since President Obama took office and how it has been applied in Iraq; the second part looked at the policy’s application in Syria; the third part looked at its application in Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Yemen; and this part is a conclusion. Continue reading →

America’s Silent Partnership With Iran And The Contest For Middle Eastern Order: Part Three

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on February 3, 2015

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This is the third of a four-part series looking at the United States’ increasingly-evident de facto alliance with Iran in the region. This first part looked at the way this policy has developed since President Obama took office and how it has been applied in Iraq. The second part looked at the policy’s application in Syria; this part will look at its application in Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Yemen; and part four will be a conclusion. Continue reading →

America’s Silent Partnership With Iran And The Contest For Middle Eastern Order: Part Two

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 29, 2015

Assad meeting with the boss

Assad meeting with the boss

This is the second of a four-part series looking at the United States’ increasingly-evident de facto alliance with Iran in the region. This first part looked at the way this policy has developed since President Obama took office and how it has been applied in Iraq. This part will look at the policy’s application in Syria; part three will look at its application in Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Yemen; and part four will be a conclusion. Continue reading →

America’s Silent Partnership With Iran And The Contest For Middle Eastern Order: Part One

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 25, 2015

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This is the first of a four-part series looking at the United States’ increasingly-evident de facto alliance with Iran in the region. This first part looks at the way this policy has developed since President Obama took office and how it has been applied in Iraq. Part two will look at the policy’s application in Syria; part three will look at its application in Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Yemen; and part four will be a conclusion. Continue reading →

Iran Tries To Get American Support For Its Takeover Of Lebanon

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on December 31, 2014

In early August, the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) arrested Abu Ahmad Jumaa, the leader of Liwa Fajr al-Islam (Islamic Dawn Brigade), which had been loyal to al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, Jabhat an-Nusra but which had then-recently defected to the Islamic State (I.S.). In response, Nusra and I.S. fighters poured across the border into Arsal, Lebanon, where Jumaa was being held, and after five days of clashes the Salafi jihadists withdrew, taking with them thirty Lebanese security personnel. Five of the thirty are now dead: one from his injuries, the other four murdered—at least two of them beheaded. Continue reading →

If Assad Murdered His Own Brother-In-Law To Survive, What Wouldn’t He Do?

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on December 19, 2014

Defence Minister Daoud Rajha, General Assef Shawkat and General Hassan Ali Turkmani

Defence Minister Daoud Rajha, General Assef Shawkat and General Hassan Ali Turkmani

Sam Dagher at the Wall Street Journal has identified the July 18, 2012, bombing, which killed four senior Assad regime officials, most seriously Assef Shawkat, as the turning point in Syria, reversing the rebellion’s momentum, bringing the scale of the killing above where it had been before, closing the ranks of the minorities around the regime, and opening the country up to Iran.

Dagher certainly has the timing correct. It was the late summer, and most noticeably the fall of 2012, when the death toll in Syria markedly increased. 5,000 people had been killed in all of 2011, and another 5,000 by May 2012. By September 2012, 30,000 people were dead, the kill-rate now reaching 5,000-per-month. By January 2013, 60,000 people were dead, a kill-rate of 10,000-per-month. Nobody really knows what the total, let alone the rate, is now, but this was when it spiked. This period is also concurrent with the massive operation mounted by Clerical Iran to rescue the Bashar dictatorship.

Given how beneficial this bombing was to the regime, there have long been rumours it was an inside job. A recent report by Naame Shaam said exactly this, that this was an Iranian-orchestrated counter-intelligence operation to snuff-out the softliners within the regime who were trying to reach a deal with the protesters and rebels inside the country and their Gulf Arab patrons, which would have involved some concessions from the regime on its absolute control. Continue reading →

Nuclear Negotiations With Iran Go On—And On And On

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

Fordow, an Iranian nuclear enrichment facility near Qom—easily mistaken for the volcano lair of a Bond villain

Fordow, an Iranian nuclear enrichment facility near Qom—easily mistaken for the volcano lair of a Bond villain

It wasn’t exactly a nail-biting finish in the end was it? In Vienna on Nov. 24, the P5+1 and Iranian negotiators decided to extend for another seven months the “interim” deal, the Joint Plan of Action (JPA), made in November 2013 on Iran’s nuclear weapons program, until June 2015. Conditions always favoured an extension but I was not absolutely sure that this is what would happen until Secretary of State John Kerry said on Nov. 21: “We are not discussing an extension.” Continue reading →

The Nuclear Negotiations Are Only Part Of Iran’s Regional Ambitions—And Obama’s

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on October 27, 2014

Ali Khamenei

Ali Khamenei

When the next—and supposedly final—round of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program end next month, there are three possible outcomes:

  1. The “interim” deal, the Joint Plan of Action (JPA), will be rolled over for another six months after it was rolled over in July, and will, like so much else in the Middle East billed as temporary, begin to look permanent.
  2. A final deal is signed that is an Iranian victory in all-but name, putting them on the threshold of a nuclear weapon with only the regime’s goodwill stopping them crossing the finishing line to a bomb.
  3. Iran’s dictator, Ali Khamenei, refuses President Obama both of the above fig leaves and breaks off negotiations.

How did we get here? Continue reading →

Obama’s Abandonment of Kobani Isn’t Just A Disaster For The Kurds

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on October 9, 2014

Syrian Kurdish refugees at the Turkish frontier

Syrian Kurdish refugees at the Turkish frontier

After three-and-a-half years of resistance, the United States finally intervened in Syria on September 23 with airstrikes against the Islamic State (I.S.). The I.S. had begun an attack on the Kurdish-controlled enclave in northern Aleppo along the Turkish border on September 15/16. By October 5, the Kurdish forces had been driven back into the Kurdish-majority town of Kobani (a.k.a. Ayn al-Arab), and I.S. had them surrounded. The desperate scenes of Syrian Kurds fleeing over the Turkish border in the face of the takfiris’ recalls the Iraqi Kurds making a run for the hills after the March 1991 uprising against Saddam Hussein was crushed. Then as now the Kurds believed they had stronger American backing than turned out to be the case. Continue reading →