>>25568HISTORY LESSON on ORIGIN of The Islamic State part IIThomas Wictor boosted @ quodverum.com this thread by Carlos Osweda:Obama withdrew US troops from Iraq in 2011, and by 2012, the Islamic State was back in all the places where we'd driven them out.
The dynamic was exactly the same as 2003-2004. Shi'ite Iran controlled Iraq, so the Sunnis turned to terrorists to protect them.
The Syrian Civil War had started in 2011. The Islamic State sent fighters to engage Assad's Syrian Arab Army.
The Islamic State created the al-Nusra Front, which became al-Qaeda's franchise in Syria.
In 2013, Baghdadi declared the formation of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which he said included the al-Nusra Front.
However, both the al-Nusra Front and al-Qaeda rejected this proclamation.
By February of 2014, al-Qaeda had severed all ties with ISIL.
ISIL was rampaging through Iraq, and it began fighting the al-Nusra Front and other jihadists in Syria.
In June of 2014, the Iraqi armed forces collapsed. An entire division simply ran away, leaving all its heavy weapons for ISIL.
By the end of June of 2014, ISIL was the most heavily armed and wealthiest terrorist organization in human history.
They got their money from selling oil, from taxes, from kidnapping for ransom, and from extortion.
Baghdadi declared the worldwide caliphate of the Islamic State.
Obama called them the "junior varsity" because he didn't want to deal with them.
Also, the Obama administration adopted a self-serving policy of fighting only terrorists with "al-Qaeda" in the name of their group.
When Russia intervened in Syria in 2015, Putin tried to implement the Algerian Strategy:
Make the enemy so strong that the country has to turn to an unpopular government for protection.
The Russians didn't attack the Islamic State for over a year.
What's happening now in the Middle East is that the locals are doing the fighting, with support from the US.
Everything from 2003 to January 20, 2017, was a series of terrible decisions.
NOW, we have a president who listens to the locals.
What we saw recently with the "betrayal" of the Kurds was kabuki.
The Syrian Arabs and Kurds had painted themselves into corners. Trump got them out.
Assad is a figurehead now. He has no real power.
Under Assad, the Kurds were brutalized.
Now, THEY get to call the shots. Assad lacks the ability to take back the areas that the Kurds control. So they'll work out a deal.
And as always, everyone is ignoring the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Westerners can't intervene in the Middle East. We have too much historical baggage.
If we're ASKED TO HELP, we can.
But otherwise, we need to stay out of their affairs.
Baghdadi was tricked into entering Idlib.
And multiple operations were carried out last night. The videos prove it.
Trump isn't talking about them.
@realDonaldTrump
is cleaning up the mess.
If you can't see that, there's no hope for you.
END
Interesting comment to thread:
Beto Ochoa@Beto_In_Austin
Replying to
@COsweda
"The Iraqi Intel Service has known since May the general area al-Baghdadi was in. They had worked it out to the Barisha area.
It appears that the kabuki of withdrawing the troops made al-Baghdadi et al stick their heads up and WHAM!"