30 miles and closing in on Baghdad

Two more cities are now under ISIS control, the Kurds have moved to take over the North and finally create their “Kurdistan” homeland and now the U.S. (caught completely off guard) can’t even remotely figure out how to spin yet another huge foreign policy disaster.  Just when you thought the coup in Ukraine was about as bad as you get, the Islamist militants stunned the world with a speed and execution not seen since well…the Iraq war.

Reuters reports…

Islamist rebel fighters captured two more Iraqi towns overnight in a relentless sweep south towards the capital Baghdad in a campaign to recreate a medieval caliphate carved out of fragmenting Iraq and Syria. Thrusting further to the southeast after their lightning seizure of the major Iraqi city of Mosul in the far north and the late dictator Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, ISIL entered two towns in Diyala province bordering Iran. Saadiyah and Jalawla had fallen to the Sunni Muslim insurgents after government troops fled their positions, along with several villages around the Himreen mountains that have long been a hideout for militants, security sources said.

And the victory parade that followed, courtesy of Reuters:

Zerohedge gives some insight…

While the US scrambles to figure out what the least painful way is to admit yet another humiliating foreign policy defeat, things in Iraq continue to deteriorate as the relentless blitzkrieg unleashed by the ISIS/ISIL Al-Qaeda spin off, which has shocked everyone by its speed and scale, takes two more towns, as it rushes for its target: Baghdad itself.

Iran, a Shiite republic, is so alarmed by Sunni insurgent gains in Iraq that it may be willing to cooperate with Washington in helping Baghdad fight back, a senior Iranian official told Reuters. The idea is being discussed internally among the Islamic Republic’s leadership, the senior Iranian official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official had no word on whether the idea had been raised with any other party.

That’s right: as a result of the epic US leftover mess in Iraq, it is now up to its arch nemesis Iran to get in and protect the country from none other than Al-Qaeda. And not only that, but Iran is prepared to work with the “Great Satan”, America, to defend the middle east from Al-Qaeda!

And when will the march to Baghdad commence, that is not known yet, but the big prize is Baghdad and while UN top brass assure us all that Baghdad is safe we somehow feel like perhaps a second opinion is needed.

ISIL has set up military councils to run the towns they captured, residents said. “’Our final destination will be Baghdad, the decisive battle will be there’ – that’s what their leader kept repeating,” said a regional tribal figure.

The senior U.N. official in Iraq assured the Security Council that Baghdad was in “no immediate danger”. The council offered unanimous support to the government and condemned “terrorism”.

As with the concurrent war in Syria, the conflict cuts across global alliances. The United States and Western and Gulf Arab allies back the mainly Sunni revolt against the Iranian-backed Syrian President Assad, but have had to watch as ISIL and other Islamists have come to dominate large parts of Syria.

And once again we have to point out that all of this was sparked by Obama’s fateful mistake to overturn Syria and dispose of Assad in order to run oil from Saudi Arabia to Europe.

Did Obama and his team not recognise that by arming Sunni Islamists (i.e. al-Qaeda) in their war against Syria that they may turn against their financiers (U.S.A., Saudi Arabia and Turkey) and wage war with the Iraqi Shiite establishment?

References:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/13/us-iraq-violence-idUSKBN0EN0RV20140613

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-13/iraq-update-jihadists-seize-2-more-iraqi-towns-close-30-miles-baghdad-ayatollah-urge