Not long ago we were reporting on the way moves in the war against ISIS had shifted the global power balance from west to east, with Putin's decisive and efficiently executed moves to drive the Islamic State forces out of Syria and Obama's failure to repond in any intelligent way demonstrating to the world that the USA had surrendered its role as the dominant military power.
It is open to debate of course whether Uncle Sam was quite as dominant as The Pentagon and The White House liked to believe, although the Russians were preoccupied with rebuilding their state politically for two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they could always put together a formidable military machine, while nobody really knew what the Chinese might be capable of in military terms.
Things have moved quickly in geopolitics however, and already Moscow is consolidating its supremacy east of the Mediterranean.
Once it was generally accepted that Moscow and Tehran had jointly planned the incursion in Syria with Russia providing air cover and logistical support and Iran's ground forces from its various Shiite militias being more acceptable to Syria's Muslim population, informed sources immediately predicted that Iraq was next on the agenda once the Assad regime's rule is secured in Syria.
People whose understanding of the situation in Iraq and Syria has been formed from news reported in mainstream media shouls read Who Really Controls Iraq? Inside Iran's Powerful Proxy Armies, on the well informed financial website Zero Hedge. The article outlines the extent to which the government of Iran controls both the Iraqi military and political establishment.
US Government officials are furious about this but there is little Washington can do about it short of initiating a military conflict with Russia and Iran into which China, more sure than ever that they can replace the USA as the world's most powerful nation, would be bound to become involved on the side of its allies. Even if The Pentagon did fancy its chances of winning such a conflict, to have any hope of wresting back control of the middle east would mean first finding a way to remove ISIS from the picture, a task of which the USA has proved incapable fter two years effort, while the Russian / Iranian forces have achieved more in two weeks, and then trying to root out Iranian and Russian influence on the political process in Iraq and Syria and second, attempting to separate the Shiite militias from the Iraqi regulars, which would only serve to weaken the country’s ability to resist Sunni extremists like ISIS.
The thing ever the dimwits in The White house should have learned from recent history is that irregulars like the ISIS fighters are skilled in Guerilla tactics and when faced with a superior force can disband, melt into the general population and regroup as soon as the heat is off.
The other thing to remember about Iran’s proxy armies in Iraq is that they are the same militias as are fighting alongside the Russians in Syria in the most literal way, they were called over the border by Quds commander Qassem Soleimani himself. This means they are Washington’s allies in Iraq but as soon as they cross the border into Syria, they become the targets of US-supported and supplied rebels battling forces loyal to the Assad government at Aleppo.
That makes no sense at all but illustrates how paranoid and schizophrenic Washington’s strategy in the middle east has become. It’s also worth noting that these are the same Shiite militias who, with Tehran’s blessing, attacked US troops in Iraq after George Bush destroyed the US-Iran post-9/11 alliance by putting the country in his infamous “Axis Of Evil" (see here for more).
Meanwhile, extending air cover to Iraq is the logical move for The Kremlin in Russia’s bid to supplant the US as Mid-East superpower. It is hard to imagine a more humiliating scenario for Washington than to be kicked out of a country it "liberated from a brutal tyrant" only a decade ago by Vladimir Putin on the excuse that try as they may (or may not, depending on how you regard the idea that the CIA created ISIS specifically to oust Assad), the Americans are apparently not very good at fighting terror.
With this in mind perpaps, the King of Jordan, a long time ally of the west and Britain in particular, is now seeking a mutual assistance pact with Moscow lest their small country becomes the next target for ISIS in their bid to recreate the medieval Islamic Caliphate in the middle east, as reported by Russia Today.
Russia and Jordan agreed to create a coordination center in Amman, which will be used by the two countries to share information on the counter-terrorism operations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
Russia is already in touch with Iran, Iraq and Syria through a Baghdad-based center used for the same purpose.
Lavrov said Jordan would play a positive part in finding a political solution to the Syrian conflict through negotiations between Damascus and opposition forces, an outcome that Russia itself is pursuing.
“Under an agreement between His Majesty King Abdullah II and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, the militaries of the two countries have agreed to coordinate their actions, including military aircraft missions over the Syrian territory,”Lavrov said. His Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh said the center would serve as an efficient communication tool for the militaries of the two nations.
The US knows all of this of course and in an effort to get out ahead of the situation, Washington sent Gen. Joseph Dunford (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) to Iraq this week to issue what can only be described as a petulant, childish ultimatum to PM Haider al-Abadi. “It’s either us, or the Russians,” Abadi was told, although not specifically in those terms. If anyone is taking bets on who he will choose, we know who our money will be on.
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