Amid the flurry of Obama administration official statements promulgated by its various presidential and departmental spokespersons, reality is setting in. Despite the happy talk from Washington about ISIL (the Obama administration’s preferred acronym for describing the Islamic State), military facts on the ground cannot be eradicated by press briefings and political spin.  The recent and significant victories by the armies of the Islamic State in Palmyra, Syria and Ramadi, Iraq are a clear testament to the undiminished military efficacy and capability of the nascent caliphate.

Last  October I penned a piece in the Huffington Post, “President Obama Wages War on the Islamic State: Anatomy of a Disaster in the Making” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sheldon-filger/president-obama-wages-war_b_5933642.html), in which I predicted failure for President Obama in his role of Commander-in-Chief in the evolving military confrontation with the Islamic State and its appointed Caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. I specifically highlighted four areas I saw as flaws in the President’s approach towards the struggle with the caliphate: 1. Propensity to underestimate the enemy and his capabilities; 2.Overreliance on insufficient means, primarily airpower; 3.Lack of a grand strategic vision, essential for prevailing in the conflict; 4. Intellectually myopic in recognizing the full dimensions of the threat posed to America by the Islamic State.

Regrettably, all the deficiencies I outlined seven months ago remain intact, as evidenced by the recent strategic victories gained by the Islamic State’s military forces in Syria and Iraq. It should be pointed out that the distance between Palmyra in Syria and Ramadi in Iraq is more than 600 kilometers, or nearly 400 miles. The fact that the Islamic State could simultaneously deploy major forces and prevail in those two widely separated battle arenas is concrete evidence to knowledgeable military experts of a highly competent military staff, and a mastery of the operational art of war. The choice of where the Islamic State advances or withdraws also pinpoints the highly strategic nature of the Islamic State’s military operations, which appear geared towards dominance of road networks, essential for controlling the large areas of Syria and Iraq currently claimed by the caliphate.

When America first began its confrontation with militant Islam in the form of al-Qaeda post 9/11, the jihadists were characterized and described as non-state actors. This description is no longer tenable in comprehending the challenge of the Islamic State. This entity may not follow the pattern of a traditional nation-state that participates in the international arena. However, in terms of its structure and the threat it poses, the Islamic State is in fact what it declares itself to be– a state, and one with an army with a skilled general staff, effective logistics and disciplined and highly motivated foot soldiers, able to employ combined arms, including armor and artillery support. Far from the “jayvee team” Barack Obama suggested as a metaphor for the Islamic State in January 2014, this entity has morphed into a most serious and capable military threat, transcending the conventional description of such Islamist phenomena as terrorist non-state actors.

While confusion and disarray reign within the circles of power in Washington, clarity seems to be the defining characteristic of the Islamic State. Despite attempts by U.S. policymakers with no comprehension of the history of Islam to downplay and distort its Islamic credentials, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the Islamic State’s leadership circles are firmly welded to their historical narrative, which they fully comprehend. Their model is the Prophet Mohammed, who first brought his religious revelation to the Arabian peninsula through the sword. In the century after the Prophet’s death, his companions conquered the largest empire in history up to that time through an unparalleled application of religious fanaticism, combined with innovative military tactics. They were harsh and uncompromising towards the unbelievers, and it is that identical religious zeal that underpins the fierceness and tenacity of the soldiers of the Islamic State.

As the Obama administration gropes for answers to the challenge of the Islamic State, it appears that their new stratagem is to place their hopes in Shiite-dominated Iran, a theocracy that hates America as much as the Islamic State, and which itself is despised by the Sunni Muslim community al-Baghdadi and his caliphate represent. On top of the already monumental mistakes and strategic miscalculations President Obama has been the architect of in addressing the Islamic State, it seems that an even more dangerous error is in the process of being engineered–supporting the anti-American ayatollahs in Tehran as the protector of the Middle East from the Islamic State. I can think of no other policy decision by the Obama administration that would serve the highest hopes and aspirations of the Islamic State so well.

In the ongoing battle between the 21st and 7th centuries, it must be unfortunately concluded that the seventh century is in ascendance.

Hillary Clinton is running for President of the United States  in 2016. See the video about the book that warned back in 2008 what a second Clinton presidency would mean for the USA:

CLICK ON IMAGE TO VIEW VIDEO Hillary Clinton Nude

It is often remarked that the Ship of State  is the one ship which leaks from the top. Thus even before the blatantly theatrical political funeral dirge conducted at the White House in which President Obama announced that Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, the sole remaining Republican in his cabinet, would  be leaving of his own accord after serving only 22 months, the usual “unnamed senior sources” representing the administration were already telling their media contacts that Hagel was, in effect, fired.

The New York Times reported that  “officials characterized the decision as a recognition that the threat from the militant group Islamic State will require different skills from those that Mr. Hagel…was brought in to employ.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/us/hagel-said-to-be-stepping-down-as-defense-chief-under-pressure.html?_r=0) The implication was that Hagel was a timid man, originally brought in to implement Obama’s stated policy of withdrawing from first Iraq and then Afghanistan, while downsizing  the Defense Department. With the emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a new policy was called for, and a new defense secretary, the unnamed White House source proclaimed, one more muscular and forceful in confronting the Islamic State.

While the passage of time will undoubtedly provide more leaks, perhaps a book of memoirs by Chuck Hagel and further context, this much is clear; President Barack Obama’s national security strategy in relation to Islamist threats stemming from the Middle East, in particular the Islamic State, has been an unmitigated disaster, and soon-to-be former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam combat veteran and moderate Republican with a strong streak of bipartisanship, has been set up as a scapegoat for the administration’s failures.

What we do know for sure is what both the President and his Defense Secretary had stated on the public record in connection with the Islamic State, also, known  as ISIS, and which President Obama insists on calling ISIL.

In January 2014 Obama told David Remnick of The New Yorker, after Islamist forces in Iraq seized Fallujah and raised the Al-Qaeda flag,  “The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.”  (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/annals-of-the-presidency)

In contrast, Chuck Hagel had this to say about the Islamic State at a Pentagon press briefing conducted on August 21, 2014:  “They are an imminent threat to every interest we have, whether it’s in Iraq or anywhere else… They are beyond just a terrorist group. They marry ideology, a sophistication of military prowess. They are tremendously well-funded. This is beyond anything we’ve seen.” (http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/21/us-usa-islamicstate-idUSKBN0GL24V20140821)

While the President was initially dismissive of the Islamic State, and has remained tentative and uncertain in his at times awkward responses, Hagel was far from the passive and timid defense secretary he is now being portrayed as by the masters of spin in the White House. His very forceful and articulate warning displays an impressive level of sober realism that is sorely lacking within the President’s national security council, and from Obama himself.

Turning Chuck Hagel into a scapegoat cannot obfuscate the glaring failures cascading out of the ruins of the administration’s inept foreign policy and national security strategy. Obama is a president who loudly proclaims red lines in the sand, such as use of chemical warfare agents by the Syrian regime, and when President Bashar al-Assad defied those red lines with a grotesque massacre of innocents in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Obama grasped onto the flimsy straw tossed at him by Russia’s President Putin, rendering his red line invisible. His is an administration which sends presidential letters proclaiming friendship to the tyrannical “Supreme Leader” of Iran, who almost daily dishes out hatred and contempt for America, while permitting–perhaps encouraging–a senior unnamed official to tell journalist Jeff Goldberg of The Atlantic that Israel’s Prime Minster Netanyahu was, in effect, a fool for trusting President Obama’s pledges on preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, because what the administration really sought was to delay an Israeli military operation until the Iranian nuclear program progressed to the point where it was beyond the capacity of the Israel Defense Forces to take it out. (http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/10/the-crisis-in-us-israel-relations-is-officially-here/382031/) No wonder few world leaders maintain trust in the President’s word and integrity.

Beyond the Middle East, President Obama has “engineered” the radical deconstruction of Russia-U.S. relations. It must be recognized that the President himself bears a major responsibility for the deterioration in ties between Moscow and Washington. In previous blog pieces, I have pointed out what I believe have been President Putin’s miscalculations. But why did the President send CIA  Director John Brennan to Kiev at a sensitive point in the emerging Ukrainian-Russia crisis? Not only did the administration engage in needlessly provocative acts that exacerbated the crisis over Ukraine; President Obama has given evidence that he harbors deep contempt-as well as profound ignorance-towards Russia. In an interview with The Economist conducted aboard Air Force One in August 2014 the President proclaimed boldly, “Russia doesn’t make anything.” (http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/08/economist-interviews-barack-obama-2) Perhaps the President is unaware that America’s Atlas V rockets, the vehicle used by the Defense Department to launch U.S. spy satellites into orbit utilize the RD-180 rocket engine in their first stage–and this component is not made in America, but in Russia, the land Barack Obama believes  “doesn’t make anything.”

Like the good soldier he is, Chuck Hagel stood stoically and with his dignity intact, beside President Obama and Vice President Biden in the White House’s State Dining Room, as his thinly-disguised termination was being ceremoniously performed. In time, just as with his predecessors Leon Panetta and Robert Gates, he may pen a tell-all book of memoirs, highly critical of the President. However, we need not wait for a future book to conclude that it is the President and his tightly-knit national security team–a clique which largely excluded and isolated Chuck Hagel– and not the fired defense secretary–who bear the historical responsibility for a record of disastrous decision-making.

In 2008, candidate-for-president Barack Obama proclaimed the audacity of hope in a time of despair, and wrote a very thoughtful and sensible op-ed piece in The New York Times, entitled “My Plan For Iraq,”  in which Obama advocated the retention of a residual military force in Iraq and warned that,  “we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. ” ( http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/opinion/14obama.html?_r=0)

As with so much else connected with President Obama and national security, he has acted contrary to his past words and proclaimed intentions. There is no longer hope; the despair remains. Amid  the debris of a ruined national security strategy, we are left with the audacity of failure, glaring and unhidden, in spite of the best efforts at scapegoating Chuck Hagel.

If Hillary Clinton runs for President of the United States  in 2016, see the video about the book that warned back in 2008 what a second Clinton presidency would mean for the USA:

CLICK ON IMAGE TO VIEW VIDEO Hillary Clinton Nude

In remarks made before White House journalists on August 28, 2014 President Barack Obama, officially the Commander-in-Chief of the world’s most powerful military, offered his nation the following status of his leadership in the emerging global struggle with the Islamic State. “We don’t have a strategy yet,” so stated President Obama, with a level of reckless candor that is frankly astonishing.

And what about the Commander-in-Chief of the growing jihadi movement  coalescing under the framework of the caliphate that calls itself the Islamic State? The self-appointed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is much too savvy to reveal his grand strategic plan at a public press briefing. However, his public utterances display no ambiguity about his strategic goals and vision: to wage a merciless war of revenge against all the infidels on the planet, the United States  being his number one target. Furthermore, the impressive and swift battlefield successes achieved by the Islamic State over a wide geographic space encompassing  both Syria and Iraq display clear evidence of high-level strategic planning and near-flawless execution. It is unquestionably clear that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, unlike Barack Obama, is not waiting for a strategy to magically be formed; the grand strategy of the Islamic State not only exists; it is being aggressively implemented.

On paper, one could argue, it is inconceivable that the global jihad under the auspices of the Islamic State can defeat the world’s sole remaining superpower. Such rationalization betrays both intellectual conceit and a profound ignorance of history. From the fall of Rome to the Teutonic barbarians to the defeat of the British Empire by American revolutionaries, the historical record is replete with examples of supposedly mightier nations succumbing to numerically and economically inferior opponents on the battlefield. The brutal lesson of history is that very often it is not the side that is more humane and enlightened that prevails. Too often, the inverse is the case, though for reasons only tangentially linked to the display of greater ruthlessness. Strong leadership with a fierce devotion to victory at whatever cost, combined with a high level of strategic and tactical skill, is far more relevant in the martial contest between competing nations and ideologies than the relative level of civilization. Undoubtedly, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is both informed and inspired by what occurred in the century following the death of the Prophet Mohammed; the conquest of the Middle East, Southwest Asia, North Africa and large parts of Southern Europe by Arabian horsemen inspired by an uncompromising religious ideology that offered but one prescription: conquer or die.

With admirable honesty, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel informed the media that, with respect to the Islamic State, “They’re beyond just a terrorist group. They marry ideology, a sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess. They are tremendously well-funded. Oh, this is beyond anything that we’ve seen. So we must prepare for everything.”

Since Hagel’s brutally frank characterization of the threat posed to the United States, administration officials and pundits have awkwardly attempted to walk back the perceived threat, arguing that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is too focused on operations in Iraq and Syria at present to be in a position to begin targeting the U.S. homeland-as though these people actually have a pipeline into the innermost thoughts of the caliph of the Islamic State. In reality, the U.S. intelligence community, and by extension President Obama and his administration, have no clear idea of the threat America confronts, or the military and operational capacity of the Islamic State. While frantic arguing ensues over the supposed threat of jihadists with European and American passports returning home to commit random acts of violence, has anyone in the policymaking echelon considered that a declared enemy of the United States who has already displayed an impressive level of operational skill is more likely to attack the American homeland in a manner that achieves far greater strategic consequences than merely bombing a subway or bus?

Until and unless the U.S. has leadership that is as determined, disciplined and focused as is found in the newly established caliphate, we may find the 21st century being overwhelmed and subjugated by the 7th century.

If Hillary Clinton runs for President of the United States  in 2016, see the video about the book that warned back in 2008 what a second Clinton presidency would mean for the USA:

CLICK ON IMAGE TO VIEW VIDEO Hillary Clinton Nude

As the world mark’s the 100th anniversary of the First World War, the self-proclaimed  Caliph of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, made his first public appearance at the Great Al-Nuri Mosque in Mosul, Iraq. In a fiery sermon, the man who claims to be the leader of the first Islamic caliphate since 1924 in effect declared war against the non-Islamic world. Across the globe, especially in Europe and America, his words were greeted with ridicule and scorn.  I would urge a less dismissive and much more analytical response.

Just like the Meccans who fourteen  centuries ago dismissed the Prophet Mohammed, only to later submit to him as the founder of the world’s second largest religious community, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is currently seen as nothing more than a transient figure. This reaction should be tempered by remembrance of a previous dismissal, especially  by American policy makers, when Osama bin Laden issued his fateful fatwa in 1996 declaring war on the United States.

In his sermon,  al-Baghdadi makes clear that the formation of the Islamic Caliphate is merely a means to an end. That end is defined in terms as brutally stark as they are unambiguous: revenge. In the words of the new caliph, “By Allah, we will take revenge! Even if it takes a while, we will take revenge, and every amount of harm against the ummah will be responded to with multitudes more against the perpetrator.” (https://ia902501.us.archive.org/2/items/hym3_22aw/english.pdf)

Who are the targets of al-Baghdadi’s uncompromising hatred? In general terms, he defines them as ” the crusaders and the atheists, and the guards of the Jews!” In addition, those political rulers within the Muslim world who, in his view, are agents of the above enemies, are also included on the target list. This would include advocates within the Islamic world for pluralistic democracy, since this contradicts, in al-Baghdadi’s worldview, the will of Allah, as manifested in Islam’s shariah law.

Much of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s polemic was devoted to annunciating contemporary grievances against the Muslim world which, in his strident mindset, cry out for a powerful vengeance. More than twenty specific references were made in al-Baghdadi’s sermon. Perhaps surprisingly, the Israel-Palestine conflict ranked only seventh on the Caliph’s list, preceded  by references to violence against Muslims in Burma, Kashmir, the Philippines, Bosnia and the Caucasus. The offending states include Russia, India and China, as well France (its sin being laws passed by the nation’s legislature for promoting the separation of church and state, which included restrictions on the wearing of the hijab).  Iran is also singled out as anti-Islamic, its Shiite form of Islamic governance regarded as apostasy and heresy, the most  grievous of all anti-Islamic offenses in the eyes of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his followers.

In Islamic jurisprudence and shariah texts, holy war or jihad can be conducted against unbelievers and apostates. An extension of this theological rationale for waging war in the name of God is the division of the world into the House of Islam and the House of War, the latter encompassing the unbelievers and apostates. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi  has very dramatically appealed to his followers in a warlike sermon, calling on them to follow him as their leader as he wages war for the propagation of Islam by exacting revenge on the entirety of our planet that falls outside the new Caliph’s definition of the House of Islam.

There will be a tendency to ignore or belittle Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in much of the world. However, irrespective of what one may think of his merciless manner of waging war and general lack of humanity, I think that, looked at objectively, there can be no denying that Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a remarkably  charismatic and able leader of the international jihadi movement.

Extremist notions in religion are not the monopoly of Islam. In times past, the most savage religious wars have been waged in the name of Christianity. In the seventeenth century  the Thirty-Years War between Protestants and Catholics  wiped out one third of Germany’s population.  In 1850 Hong Xiuquan, a Chinese religious fanatic, became convinced he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ, chosen by God to bring Christianity to China through the sword, and he launched the Taiping Rebellion. When the rebellion was finally suppressed in 1864, between twenty and forty million Chinese were slaughtered, making this religious war the second bloodiest military conflict in history. And that was with weapons that were very primitive by current standards.

The lessons of history itself should compel us to take Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s promise to wage a ferocious worldwide war of vengeance against those he sees as the enemies of God with the utmost seriousness. His sermon in Mosul may very well mark the opening shots of the Third World War, and the most ferocious religious conflict since the Taiping Rebellion.

If Hillary Clinton runs for President of the United States  in 2016, see the video about the book that warned back in 2008 what a second Clinton presidency would mean for the USA:

CLICK ON IMAGE TO VIEW VIDEO Hillary Clinton Nude

The latest news from Iraq clearly has geopolitical implications. No less important are the economic ramifications.  The Iraq war, which began with the U.S. invasion in 2003, is entering a new phase, and perhaps far more dangerous territory.

A Salafist-Islamist  insurgent group which goes by the acronym in English of ISIS (and by other acronyms and names as well), said to be to the right of Al-Qaeda (if that is even possible), has seized Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, with a population of approximately two million. ISIS has seized others towns and strategic locations, while boasting of a march on Baghdad. The Iraqi army appears to be crumbling.

Amid talk of the United States getting back into the Iraq war, or Iran intervening directly with its own military forces , the price of oil has begun to spike. Normally, any military conflict, especially in the Persian Gulf region, will elevate the per barrel price of oil. However, another factor is at play. Just as Iraq was approaching the pre-2003 level of petroleum extraction, the internecine conflict’s escalation into outright civil war threatens to torpedo any meaningful exports of Iraq’s crude oil in the future.

A disruption in the supply of Iraq’s oil on the world market could create a cascading effect on oil prices, already at $110 per barrel and climbing. It should be remembered that in the summer of 2008 oil’s climb to a price north of $140 per barrel was a key element in the unleashing of the global economic crisis, from which a feeble recovery is still underway. The global economy is  fragile and vulnerable to another oil shock.

Among all the calculations being weighed in Washington, Tehran  and elsewhere, policymakers must understand that the growing signs of disintegration of the unified Iraqi state, among other crises in the Middle East, may foreshadow a repetition of the oil price crisis of 2008. The unraveling of the American-installed Iraqi political structure may be a harbinger to a return to oil scarcity and elevated oil prices, with all the attendant negative effects on the global economy.

If Hillary Clinton runs for President of the United States  in 2016, see the video about the book that warned back in 2008 what a second Clinton presidency would mean for the USA:

CLICK ON IMAGE TO VIEW VIDEO Hillary Clinton Nude