The Armageddon Scenario

ISIS is chewing through northern Iraq toward Baghdad and is expected to hit the capital in the next few weeks. ISIS think al-Qaeda are wusses, if that gives you some idea of the sort of folks we are talking about. To understand why they have been able to move so rapidly, you have to go back to the Surge. 

Saddam's power base was tribal, based in Tikrit, and trans-Arab in the Ba'th Party which was also manifested with the Assad gang in Syria. Iraq was an artificial construct created by the British when they ran the area as a colonial power and their boundaries did not necessarily coincide with the tribal boundaries. This has persisted into modern times. Although Saddam governed primarily from a secular perspective, the minority Sunnis supported him because he offered a counterbalance against the majority Shiites in Iraq, who live largely south of Baghdad. When Saddam was toppled by the U.S., the Sunnis supported the post-war al-Qaeda insurgency until the U.S. military "surged" and effectively was chewing it to pieces. Sunni leaders saw the handwriting on the wall and, convinced that the U.S. was going to see this through, switched sides and went after al-Qaeda with a vengeance. Shortly thereafter al-Qaeda was effectively decimated and Iraq became relatively quiet awaiting post-war political developments. 

The current Prime Minister, Maliki, is a Shia and he has systematically removed or prevented the Sunnis from having a meaningful role in the post-war government. The Shiites largely take their cues from Iran, the major Shia power in the area. This has largely happened during the Obama Administration, probably not by design but because of neglect since President Obama has been for the most part supremely disinterested in foreign affairs, choosing instead to focus on changing the domestic structure of the United States. Unfortunately, since the Sunnis saw no hope that the U.S. was going to redress the situation, they took matters into their own hands and opened the door again to the al-Qaeda insurgents and that is how we have arrived at the current imbroglio which is a genuine civil war aided and abetted by the transnational al-Qaeda, Inc. 

Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton has just said we should just let them slug it out. Perhaps, but more than just Iraq is in play because of al-Qaeda. ISIS very recently seized border outposts with Syria and Jordan. Syria is already a mess and embroiled in its own civil war, but Jordan is a U.S. ally and one of the few stable Arab states in the area. It is also a buffer between the rabid politics of most of the rest of the Middle East and Israel. ISIS is already threatening to flood Jordan with 15,000 "freedom fighters" and incidentally to nuke Israel. While we can kid ourselves that what these crazies do really doesn't matter to us, the Israelis can't, which means the likelihood of someone (not Israel) getting ash-trayed (nuclear) in the Middle East is going up as I write this. 

Jordan cannot fall - period. If it does, the Armageddon scenario will have arrived front and center and even now, it is waiting in the wings. Paint me pessimistic as Obama and the other European leaders don't seem to be cut out for such a time as this. I don't think they even realize the extent of the problem. Where are the Churchills and FDRs when you need them?