PrairiePundit

Jonathon Foreman: It is not clear at the time of writing if Turkey will or will not allow the United States to use the NATO air base at Incirlik for airstrikes against ISIS forces in Syria and Iraq. On October 13, national security adviser Susan Rice announced that Turkey had finally agreed to the use of the base, only to be contradicted the very next day by Turkey’s foreign minister. A subsequent press report claimed that the Turks were allowing their American allies to fly reconnaissance drones from Incirlik but no manned aircraft. The brouhaha exemplifies a troubling downward trend in America’s ability to project power in the Middle East, a trend that goes beyond Turkey and its peculiar, complicated, sometimes hostile relationship with America. The ISIS crisis and the feebleness of the current air campaign don’t just provide evidence that only a foolish leader would preclude putting at least some “boots on the ground” in a military campaign. They also show that the countries that ...

Amy Myers Jaffe: ... ISIS’ ability to hold territory is critical to its survival but its original concept to grab as many oil fields as possible to fund that future “statehood” is not succeeding. The terror-statist group is finding that the operational challenge of running those oil facilities is beyond the extremist group’s technical capacity. When ISIS began its campaign in June 2014 to form an Islamic caliphate by seizing large swathes of land in northern Iraq and eastern Syria, of paramount interest to the group was gaining control of producing oil fields and capitalizing on existing oil smuggling operations out of Iraq and Syria to help fund the group’s high operating costs. Instead, the extremist group is finding it cannot sustain oil production, both because it lacks the technical know-how and also because its fighters cannot stave off attacks to recapture key installations. Few people with strong technical expertise have remained in ISIS-controlled territory and the group’...

Institute for the Study of War: Suspected ISIS attacks in Lebanon, Jordan, and France belied claims of ISIS's "containment". U.S. President Barack Obama's claimed on November 13 that ISIS had been "contained" in Iraq and Syria by ongoing anti-ISIS operations. ISIS nonetheless conducted major expansions of its campaign against vulnerable neighboring states as well as the West. ISIS claimed a deadly double suicide attack against a Hezbollah-controlled neighborhood in Beirut, Lebanon on November 12. Lebanese security forces claimed to foil a second suicide attack in the Northern Lebanese city of Tripoli on the same day linked to either ISIS or Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra (JN). ISIS may also be responsible for a shooting at an international police training center near Amman, Jordan on November 9. The attack occurred on the tenth anniversary of a series of coordinated suicide bombings in Jordan by al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). ISIS maintains latent sup...

Michael Totten: Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan  is furious  that the Kurds in Syria are advancing against ISIS. Ponder the ramifications of that sentence. Turkey is a member of NATO. On paper, at least, it’s one of America’s greatest allies. ISIS, meanwhile, is the world’s most deranged army of psychopaths. Even Al Qaeda disowns it. The Kurds, though, are America’s most reliable allies in the Middle East alongside the Israelis. So our nominal ally thinks it’s a problem when one of our real allies makes gains against the most vicious terrorist army on the planet. We’ve been arguing amongst ourselves here in America about which is worse, the Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah axis or ISIS. I can make a case either way. Iran is the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism, but ISIS is more barbaric than any of Iran’s proxies. ISIS is more likely to kill Americans in America, but it may not be possible to defeat them until after the Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah axis is...

Washington Fee Beacon: The Pentagon acknowledged on Monday that Iraqi forces could have discovered a cache of U.S. weapons and missiles seized by Islamic State (IS) militants operating in the country, according to U.S. officials and regional media reports. Iraqi forces combatting IS (also known as ISIS or ISIL) are said to have found a stockpile of U.S. weapons, including ammunition and anti-armor missiles, hidden at sites controlled by terrorist forces, according to foreign military sources who spoke to Iran’s state-controlled Fars News Agency. This is said to include a “huge volume” of advanced TOW II anti-tank missiles. When asked to address the reports on Monday, a Pentagon official acknowledged that U.S. weapons had gone missing last year, but denied that the United States was intentionally arming IS or its affiliates in the region. “As you may recall, when ISIL overran Iraqi positions last year, we were aware of ISIL capturing some Iraqi weapons and equipment that had been sup...

Washington Times: ... Egypt is accusing Turkey of working with the Islamic State on the Sinai Peninsula, a new low in the already poor relations between the two regional powers. Washington has finally coaxed Turkey into a greater commitment to take on the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, across the border in Syria, while the government of Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi battles a surge of Islamist violence. “For a long time now, we have called on all states in the region to be more forthcoming in dealing with the ISIS threat, including monitoring and control of borders,” Egyptian Foreign Affairs Minister Sameh Shoukry told reporters in Cairo on Sunday. “Unfortunately, this has not been the case with Turkey .” A senior Foreign Ministry official said later that Egypt could prove Turkey was supporting the Islamic State affiliate in Sinai, Ansar Beit Al Maqdis , or Champions of Jerusalem, a terrorist group that has fired rockets at Israel and attacked security forc...

Daily Mail on Sunday: Islamic State militants have made fatal strategic mistakes in Kobane, allowing American and Arab warplanes to obliterate them from the air and Kurdish forces to suck them into unfamiliar 'meat grinder' street battles, an expert has claimed. During the four-week battle for Kobane, ISIS has used the same tried and tested 'pincer movement' it deployed during the rapid seizure of vast swathes of northern Syria and western Iraq earlier this year. In the majority of those lightning advances, ISIS was able to capture towns and cities with little to no resistance - as the group's reputation for torture and brutal murder ensured local security forces either defected or abandoned their posts, rather than face certain slaughter at the hands of the fanatics. But as Kobane is located less than 200 yards south of the Turkish border fences and is surrounded largely by desert, the massively outgunned Kurdish fighters there have had nowhere to flee, encouragi...

David Kilcullen: ... Pentagon and White House spin to the contrary, ISIS terrorism shows no sign of diminishing after a year of Western intervention. On 26 June, an ISIS gunman massacred 38 people in Tunisia. The same day, ISIS bombers struck in Kuwait (killing 27) and Syria (killing 20). Five days later ISIS launched coordinated assaults on 21 Egyptian military posts in the Sinai Desert. Along with its ability to generate unprecedented numbers of foreign recruits—12 times as many as at the height of the Iraq War in 2006–08—Islamic State’s ability to inspire attacks like these illustrates its mastery of social media and electronic propaganda, and the effectiveness of its ‘leaderless resistance’ model of individual and small-team guerrilla-style terrorism. But ISIS is far more than a terrorist group. Behind the front line of its offensives in Iraq and Syria, it has forged a governmental structure that administers 6 million people (a larger population than Singapore, Lebanon, Norway...

Washington Times: Osama Bin Laden has been dead for years and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s “caliphate” in the Middle East has crumbled, but the global jihadist threat continues to boil as extremists retreat underground to plot terror strikes around the world. Some 20,000 to 30,000 fighters loyal to Baghdadi’s Islamic State movement, also known as ISIS or ISIL, remain active in Syria and Iraq despite no longer holding significant territory there, according to a new U.N. report that also claims affiliates of Bin Laden’s original al Qaeda network are still strong from Africa to Asia. The report circulated by experts to the U.N. Security Council this week highlighted the staying power of such al Qaeda’s affiliates as al-Shabaab in Somalia, but stressed that extremist followers of the relatively newer ISIS movement pose a rising threat globally. Fears of so-called loan wolf, ISIS-inspired terrorism soared anew in Europe on Tuesday after a 29-year old man rammed pedestrians and cyclists on...

Reuters: Israel is ready to meet any Jordanian request to help fight off Islamist insurgents who have overrun part of neighboring Iraq, an Israeli official said on Friday, although he believed Jordan was capable of defending itself. Jordan is one of two Arab countries - along with Egypt - to have full peace treaties with Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday praised Amman's stability while echoing Western powers in pledging support to safeguard it. Asked to elaborate on the statement, Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said potential Israeli assistance could include sending troops or arms, though he saw that as unlikely. "We have an interest in ensuring that Jordan does not fall to, or be penetrated by, groups like al Qaeda or Hamas or ISIS," he told Reuters. "If, God forbid, there is a need, if such a request comes, if there is an emergency situation, then of course Israel will extend all help required. "Israel will not allow g...

CNN: The No. 2 figure in ISIS, Haji Mutazz, was killed in an August 18 drone strike near Mosul, Iraq, a spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council announced Friday. Ned Price confirmed what several U.S. officials told CNN earlier, and added that Mutazz was traveling in a car with a Islamic State media operative named Abu Abdullah when the vehicle was hit. Price said in a written statement Mutazz was in charge of ISIS operations in Iraq and was a key military planner. The U.S. also believes Mutazz was prominently involved in directing ISIS' financial operations. The death of Mutazz, who also goes by several other names such as Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali, is a bit of a mystery. Several news organizations, including CNN, reported his death at the end of last year, based on information from senior U.S. administration officials. One U.S. official said it appears the United States had a wrong identification at that time. "Al-Hayali's death will adversely impact ISI...

Yahoo News: President Obama’s former ambassador to Iraq says in a new interview that his administration “did almost nothing” in response to intelligence warnings earlier this year that Islamic State radicals were gaining ground in Iraq and threatening the country’s stability. “The administration not only was warned by everybody back in January, it actually announced that it was going to intensify support against ISIS with the Iraqi armed forces. And it did almost nothing,” says James Jeffrey, who served as U.S. ambassador to Iraq between 2010 and 2012, in "Frontline's" " The Rise of ISIS ," which airs on PBS Tuesday night ( check local listings ) and is previewed here exclusively on Yahoo News. Jeffrey is one of a number of ex-administration officials who appear in the film and sharply criticize the decisions of the president they once served. Former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford and former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta both take issue with Obama’s r...

Power Line gives space to Mark Moyer a military historian who specializes in strategy to discuss the current problems facing the US . Last year, shortly before Barack Obama fired him, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel chided America’s President for “lurching from crisis to crisis without direction.” The treatment of foreign policy as an exercise in ad hoc crisis management has characterized Obama’s entire Presidency, as indeed it has every Democratic Presidency of the last half century. Fixated on domestic affairs and reluctant to assert American power overseas, Democrats from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama have viewed foreign policy challenges as nuisances to be kept off the front page of the New York Times, rather than problems to be solved through a coherent grand strategy. Whereas a good strategy drives an active foreign policy, crisis management is inherently reactive. International problems reach the President’s attention mainly when they generate inordinate press coverage or ca...

Steve Berman: President Obama was, last week, forced to publicly ask (and answer) the question : Would calling the violence that has swept America–indeed the West–by the name “radical Islam” do anything to help defeat ISIL? It’s a straw-man question, ready for him and his fellow travelers in liberal globalism to burn with the answer, “No, it wouldn’t.” In fact, Obama asked the wrong question, and he did it on purpose. The president created a false dividing line between foreign enemies and domestic ones, with domestic enemies falling into a category of “hate” and “shooting” crimes, while anything related to the word “Islamic” is placed outside our borders. This keeps him from having to answer the more pressing question: What is he and his administration doing about domestic Islamic terror? The answer is chilling because it involves a principle called “acceptable loss.” In military terms, the principle means when a commander has to decide which option among available choices will lead ...

Leif Babin and Jocko Willink: A U.S. Navy SEAL teammate and friend once described the worst type of leader as a “tortured genius.” By this, he did not mean the artist or musician suffering from inspired hysteria, but someone who, no matter how obvious the failing or how fair and valid the criticism, accepts no blame and denies all responsibility. In the mind of such a leader, the rest of the world simply can’t see the “genius” in what they do. In truth, this type of leader lives in denial of the facts as they are, rationalizing actions and refusing to alter or adapt strategies to win. To such a person, maintaining the illusion that he is right is somehow more important than mission success. We have all known a tortured genius or, perhaps at times, have been one ourselves. Such a leader can be a serious detriment the performance of any team and the chief obstacle to victory. Over the past week, the world witnessed President Obama rationalize his failure to lead in the fight agains...

The Hill: Donald Trump 's incendiary remarks about President Obama and Hillary Clinton being the "founder" and "co-founder" of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has shifted attention away from a real vulnerability for Democrats this election season.   National security experts say Trump is well-positioned to make a strong case that Obama and his former secretary of State have failed to stop the spread of ISIS.  But instead, the focus has recently fallen on the accuracy and tone of Trump's inflated and personal attacks. "It's absolutely a wasted opportunity," said Phillip Lohaus, research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. "There's a real argument to be made here on policy grounds that Obama and to a certain extent, also Secretary Clinton, were complicit or led policies that allowed a group like ISIS to become as powerful as it became. And instead, that's not what the story's about," he said. Instea...

Daily Beast: After months of gaining territory, weapons, and cash, ISIS is putting its global credibility on the line in a play that could backfire spectacularly. On Sunday morning, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, or ISIL , if you must) pronounced the reformation of the caliphate—the historical Islamic state that once stretched over much of the modern-day Muslim world—with ISIS emir Abu Bakr al Baghdadi as the man in charge. It’s arguably the boldest move yet by the group, which renamed itself simply The Islamic State. But if ISIS isn’t careful, this could be the moment when all of its gains in Iraq and Syria are squandered; when would-be allies are alienated; and when the group’s critics within the jihadi community were proven right all along. In the statement—released in Arabic, English, German, French, and Russian—ISIS claimed that it had fulfilled all the legal requirements for the caliphate and that all existing jihadi groups and indeed all Muslims around the world we...

NY Post Editorial: The week that was brought fresh evidence that President Obama has no actual strategy to defeat ISIS — just talking points, platitudes and gestures. ISIS takes Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria — each a city of great strategic, economic and symbolic value. The US response: Send Iraq 1,000 anti-tank missiles, downplay the victories and have the president intone, “I don’t think we’re losing.” Reality check: In the nine months since Obama announced his anti-ISIS coalition, ISIS territory has grown 20 percent. Most of the coalition’s 50 “members” have done nothing in the fight. Even US forces have done far less than they might, flying far fewer bombing sorties than they could — and almost never bombing ISIS’s capital or command facilities in Raqqa, Syria. As for training allied boots on the ground: Washington didn’t even start doing so in Syria until the other week, “coincidentally” just days after a Los Angeles Times story exposed the failure. It’s hard as ...

Washington Times: Islamic State militants could come to the U.S. through the front door, using America’s “loose and lax” legal immigration system to gain a foothold here, the president of the union that represents immigration case officers said Thursday in a scathing letter. From “loopholes” in the asylum system to failing to go after immigrants who overstay their visas, the government has left security vulnerabilities, said Kenneth Palinkas , president of the National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council. He said visa overstays are prime targets for recruitment by radical elements such as the Islamic State, which also goes by the acronyms ISIS or ISIL. “In addition to the extremely real and serious threat that ISIS has already or will soon slip across our porous southern border, it is also essential to warn the public about the threat that ISIS will exploit our loose and lax visa policies to gain entry to the United States,” Mr. Palinkas said in the letter. The U.S.-Mexico...

Aaron Gardner: ... According to a Buzzfeed report from earlier this week, ISIS controls “seven oil fields and two refineries in northern Iraq, and six out of 10 oil fields in eastern Syria.” The article goes on to note ISIS is “currently making millions daily from oil revenues.” ISIS is the richest terrorist organization in the world and has the sophistication to keep it that way. ISIS also has enough money to pay the soldiers in its ranks at a higher rate than the Iraqi military. As I said, ISIS isn’t Al Qaeda, and we should all keep that in mind when we assume what the Islamic State is and isn’t capable of doing. While the idea of a real chemical weapon threat, or WMD threat, is looked upon with skepticism after years in Iraq and Afghanistan at war with Al Qaeda, I must stress again that ISIS isn’t Al Qaeda. ISIS has a different infrastructure and aims. The gains made in land and treasure set ISIS apart from Al Qaeda and should give everyone pause. In an article yesterday at Forei...