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The Would-Be Peace President Will Leave Behind a Legacy of War

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Photo Credit: EPAPeople blame the new horrors in Iraq on the American-led invasion in 2003. But the exact reason why the country is in civil war today is because the Americans are not there. If US troops were still present, the fanatical ISIS, the “Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham”, would not have swept through the north of the country and now be threatening Baghdad.

The US constitution forbids the President to have more than two terms in office. This may be a valuable restraint on power, but it also means that any two-term president stops governing quite soon after his re-election. Instead he tries to secure his “legacy”. The more he thinks about this, the more it trickles away.

Barack Obama had a legacy earlier than any other American president. He was the first black president before he was even inaugurated. Very shortly after that, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. From the start, he was supposed to go down in history as “the Peace President”. This has all turned into a tremendous disadvantage.

Mr Obama was right about the need to change tone after the presidency of George W Bush. Some of the fierce antagonisms of the Bush era dissolved in his rhetoric. Europeans, in particular, felt what it said on the poster – “Hope”. But in the Muslim world, the people who were bitterly anti-American for reasons way beyond the invasion of Iraq were not converted or even appeased. Nor did anti-Western wolves like Vladimir Putin want to lie down with the new American lamb. They watched and waited to see what Mr Obama would do.

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Iraq Isis Crisis: Medieval Sharia Law Imposed on Millions in Nineveh Province

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Photo Credit: ReutersBy Jack Moore.

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (Isis) has imposed a strict set of Sharia laws on the citizens of Nineveh province just days after capturing the provincial capital of Mosul.

In a document circulating on social media attributed to the group, Isis warned tribal leaders and sheikhs not to “work with [the Iraqi] government and be traitors” while proclaiming that women should only go outside if absolutely necessary.

“For women, dress decently and wear wide clothes. Only go out if needed,” read the document as translated by Al Aan TV reporter Jenan Moussa.

Further rules included bans on drugs, alcohol and cigarettes while public gatherings, the possession of guns and the carrying of flags not of the Islamic state were outlawed.

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Photo Credit: AFP / Getty ImagesISIS Just Stole $425 Million, Iraqi Governor Says, and Became the ‘World’s Richest Terrorist Group’

By Terrence McCoy.

Of the many stunning revelations to emerge out of the wreckage of Mosul on Wednesday — 500,000 fleeing residents, thousands of freed prisoners, unconfirmed reports of “mass beheadings” — the one that may have the most lasting impact as Iraq descends into a possible civil war is that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria just got extremely rich.

As insurgents rolled past the largest city in northern Iraq, an oil hub at the vital intersection of Syria, Iraq and Turkey, and into Tikrit, several gunmen stopped at Mosul’s central bank. An incredible amount of cash was reportedly on hand, and the group made off with 500 billion Iraqi dinars — $425 million.

The provincial governor of Nineveh, Atheel al-Nujaifi, said that the radical Islamists had lifted additional millions from numerous banks across Mosul, as well as a “large quantity of gold bullion,” according to the International Business Times, which called ISIS the “World’s Richest Terror Force.”

The declaration isn’t an easy one to fact-check. Not only is the definition of “terrorist” nebulous — are murderous but wealthy Mexican cartels terrorists? — it’s also exceedingly difficult to quantify a terrorist organization’s finances. One of the closest stabs anyone has made comes from the well-versed Money Jihad.

According to its analysis, which drew on journalistic and academic accounts, the cash seizure would make ISIS the richest terrorist organization in the world — at least for the time being.

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Photo Credit: SAFIN HAMED / AFP / Getty ImagesCongress’s Iraq Vets Helplessly Watch Their Gains Lost

By Clara Ritger.

Americans are tired of war. For the 17 members of Congress who served in Iraq, that means watching helplessly as the cities they fought for fall once more to extremists.

Militants believed to be associated with al-Qaida overtook Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, on Tuesday. The group then seized Tikrit, hometown of former President Saddam Hussein, on Wednesday.

Three Republican congressmen who served in Iraq—Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Doug Collins of Georgia, and Brad Wenstrup of Ohio—said it feels like the progress they made has been thrown away.

“Going out across the desert I remember the feelings that you have, wondering if you’re going to make it out alive,” Perry said. “Right now I wonder what that was all about. What was the point of all of that?”

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Iraq Signs Deal to Buy Arms, Ammunition from Iran

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Photo Credit: APIran has signed a deal to sell Iraq arms and ammunition worth $195 million, according to documents seen by Reuters – a move that would break a U.N. embargo on weapons sales by Tehran.

The agreement was reached at the end of November, the documents showed, just weeks after Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki returned from lobbying the Obama administration in Washington for extra weapons to fight al Qaeda-linked militants.

Some in Washington are nervous about providing sensitive U.S. military equipment to a country they worry is becoming too close to Iran. Several Iraqi lawmakers said Maliki had made the deal because he was fed up with delays in U.S. arms deliveries.

A spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister would not confirm or deny the sale, but said such a deal would be understandable given Iraq’s current security troubles.

“We are launching a war against terrorism and we want to win this war. Nothing prevents us from buying arms and ammunition from any party and it’s only ammunition helping us to fight terrorists,” said the spokesman, Ali Mussawi.

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Parole for Soldier Convicted of Killing Al-Qaida Operative

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Photo Credit: WNDA U.S. soldier convicted of killing an al-Qaida operative in Iraq in a trial marked by the prosecution’s decision to withhold exculpatory evidence has been granted parole.

The announcement comes from Scott and Vicki Behenna, who established the Defend Michael website on behalf of their son, Michael Behenna.

The parents said they had been notified that their son will be released from Ft. Leavenworth on March 14. He will have served five years of a 15-year sentence for the death of al-Qaida operative Ali Mansur in Iraq in 2008.

“With tears of joy in our eyes we are happy to tell all of you that Michael is coming home! … It has been, to say the least, quite a ride,” the parents said a statement posted online Wednesday.

“Michael signed up for the Army in order to serve his country and honor the innocent people killed on 9/11. As a lieutenant he led his men in the ‘Mad Dog’ 5th Platoon into combat in Iraq and with them bravely faced a determined and ruthless insurgency. Then his story took a bizarre turn when he was charged and later convicted of killing a known al-Qaida cell leader who was directly involved in an IED attack that killed two of his soldiers, Steven Christofferson and Adam Kohlhaas,” they wrote.

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Iraqi Government Announces Offensive Against Al Qaeda

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Photo Credit: FrontPageMag

Photo Credit: FrontPageMag

Iraqi government forces and allied tribal militias launched an all-out offensive Sunday to push Al Qaeda militants from a provincial capital, an assault that killed or wounded some 20 police officers and government-allied tribesmen, officials said.

Since late December, members of Iraq’s Al Qaeda branch — known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant — have taken over parts of Ramadi, the capital of the largely Sunni western province of Anbar. They also control the center of the nearby city of Fallujah, along with other non-Al Qaeda groups that also oppose the Shiite-led government.

A military officer and two local officials said fierce clashes raged through Sunday night in parts of Ramadi, but gave no details.

The two Anbar officials said 20 police officers and allied tribesmen were either killed or wounded during the assault. The officials were unable to provide a breakdown of the casualties.

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Another Dark Christmas for Iraq’s Christians

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/AHMED SAAD

Photo Credit: REUTERS/AHMED SAAD

By Alexander Dziadosz.

It’s Christmas in Baghdad, and once again Iraq’s Christians are celebrating behind blast walls and barbed wire.

At least 34 people died in bomb attacks in Christian areas on Wednesday, some by a car bomb near a church after a Christmas service. A church attack in 2010 killed dozens.

As prayers are offered and gifts handed out, many are wondering what a surge in violence to its worst levels in half a decade and politicking ahead of April elections means for a community whittled down by years of carnage and migration.

On Christmas Eve, the Mar Yousif Syriac Catholic church in western Baghdad looked like a walled fortress. Soldiers and police ran bomb detectors across cars, searched trunks and bags and patted down visitors before the evening ceremony.

Inside, the red confetti-strewn Christmas tree, bright blue-and-white tile mosaic, and strings of Santa Claus-themed bunting contrasted with drab streets strewn with concrete blocks and barbed wire outside.

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Karim Kadim

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Karim Kadim

Christmas day bombings in Iraq’s Capital kill 37

By Sinan Salaheddin.

Militants in Iraq targeted Christians in three separate Christmas Day bombings in Baghdad, killing at least 37 people, officials said Wednesday.

In one attack, a car bomb went off near a church in the capital’s southern Dora neighborhood, killing at least 26 people and wounding 38, a police officer said.

Earlier, two bombs ripped through a nearby outdoor market simultaneously in the Christian section of Athorien, killing 11 people and wounding 21, the officer said.

The Iraq-based leader of the Chaldean Catholic Church, Louis Sako, said the parked car bomb exploded after Christmas Mass and that none of the worshippers were hurt. Sako said he didn’t believe the church was the target.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but Iraq’s dwindling Christian community, which is estimated to number about 400,000 to 600,000 people, often has been targeted by al-Qaida and other insurgents who see the Christians as heretics.

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Iraq Comes Back to Haunt Obama

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Photo Credit: Greg NashAn explosion of violence in Iraq risks turning the troubled country into a political liability for President Obama.

During last year’s reelection campaign, the president managed to both earn credit for withdrawing all U.S. troops and avoid blame for the deteriorating security situation.

But a surge in terror attacks this year that has left more than 7,000 people dead has drawn bipartisan concerns about Obama’s Middle East policies — concerns that broke out into the open during Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s visit to the White House this week.

“By nearly every indicator, security conditions in Iraq have dramatically worsened over the past two years,” a bipartisan group of Senate leaders on national security issues wrote to Obama on Tuesday. “What’s worse, the deteriorating conflict in Syria has enabled al Qaeda in Iraq to transform into the larger and more lethal Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), which now has a major base for operations spanning both Iraq and Syria.”

The Senate letter was signed by the chairmen and top members on the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations panels: Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

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Charlie Rose to Cheney: Would You Have Seen Iraq Differently If You Had More Oxygen to Your Brain? (+video)

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Photo Credit: APOn Tuesday’s Charlie Rose Show, former Vice President Dick Cheney came on to promote his new book about surviving heart disease and was treated to a nasty swipe from the host about his Iraq war decision making.

When Cheney told the PBS host and co-anchor of CBS’s This Morning that he had wished he had gotten his heart transplant done sooner, Rose took a swing, meant as a joke: “Might you have seen Iraq differently if we had more oxygen to your brain?” Cheney laughed off the cheap shot.

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Iraq Bombings Kill Dozens in Baghdad, Mosul and Tarmiya (+video)

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Photo Credit: APA series of car bombings in Baghdad, an explosion at a market and a suicide attack in the northern city of Mosul killed at least 62 people on Sunday in the latest wave of attacks in Iraq.

The attacks made Sunday the deadliest day in the country since 5 October, when 75 people were killed. Iraq suffers a number of coordinated bombings each month, feeding a spike in bloodshed that has killed more than 5,000 people since April.

The local branch of al-Qaida often takes responsibility, but there was no immediate claim for Sunday’s attacks.

Police officers said that the bombs in Baghdad, placed in parked cars and detonated over a half-hour period, targeted commercial areas and car parks, killing 42 people.

The deadliest blasts were in the south-eastern Nahrwan district of the city, where two car bombs exploded simultaneously, killing seven people and wounding 15, authorities said. Two other explosions took place in the northern Shaab and southern Abu Dshir neighbourhoods, each killing six people, and other blasts hit the eastern neighbourhoods of Mashtal, Baladiyat and Ur, Bayaa in the south-west, and Sab al-Bor and Hurriya in the north.




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Iraq Says Iran’s Shift Toward West Is Serious

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Iran soldiersIraq’s foreign minister said Saturday that the new Iranian government led by President Hassan Rouhani offers “the best chance after 34 years of animosity” to improve relations with the United States and should be taken seriously.

Hoshyar Zebari also told The Associated Press in an interview that he is working behind the scenes to try to unite disparate Syrian opposition groups ahead of a November peace conference and to promote a thaw in Tehran’s relations with the United States.

Zebari said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asked Iraq at their meeting Saturday to press the opposition to come with one delegation and one position. The U.N. chief also told him he heard no opposition to Iran, an ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, participating in the upcoming Geneva peace conference.

“Before he would hear outright rejection,” Zebari said. “This time, everybody was quiet. Nobody objected.”

Iraq is in a unique position in the Middle East. Its Shiite-dominated government has comfortable ties to Shiite Iran — an important ally of Bashar Assad’s Syrian regime. And according to Zebari, Iraq also has good relations with both sides in the Syrian conflict. It also has strong ties to Washington following the 10-year, American-led war that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.

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