US 'Airstrike Diplomacy' Continues in Syria-Iraq

July 3, 2021 (Brian Berletic - NEO) - On June 27, 2021 the US carried out additional strikes against targets along the Syrian-Iraqi border. The attacks were condemned by both the Syrian and Iraqi governments and represent not only a dangerous escalation by American military aggression in the region, but the continuation of US aggression in the Middle East spanning two decades regardless of who occupies the White House or Congress. 

A US Department of Defense statement dated June 27, 2021 regarding the US strikes would claim: 

At President Biden's direction, U.S. military forces earlier this evening conducted defensive precision airstrikes against facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups in the Iraq-Syria border region. he targets were selected because these facilities are utilized by Iran-backed militias that are engaged in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) attacks against U.S. personnel and facilities in Iraq.

The statement would also claim: 

We are in Iraq at the invitation of the Government of Iraq for the sole purpose of assisting the Iraqi Security Forces in their efforts to defeat ISIS.

And that: 

As a matter of international law, the United States acted pursuant to its right of self-defense. The strikes were both necessary to address the threat and appropriately limited in scope. As a matter of domestic law, the President took this action pursuant to his Article II authority to protect U.S. personnel in Iraq.

While "assisting Iraqi Security Forces in their efforts to defeat ISIS" is the official excuse for US forces remaining in Iraq - the truth is that US forces have occupied Iraq illegally since the US-led invasion in 2003 which was deemed very much illegal by the UN. 

 

A 2004 Guardian article titled, Iraq war was illegal and breached UN charter, says Annan," would note: 

The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, declared explicitly for the first time last night that the US-led war on Iraq was illegal.

Mr Annan said that the invasion was not sanctioned by the UN security council or in accordance with the UN's founding charter.

And despite claims that the US is in Iraq “at the invitation of the Government of Iraq” in a bid to justify its military aggression, the government of Iraq itself has unequivocally condemned the US strikes as a violation of the nation’s sovereignty. 

The New York Times in a June 28, 2021 article titled, “Iraq Condemns U.S. Airstrikes on Iran-Backed Militias,” would report: 

The Iraqi government on Monday condemned U.S. airstrikes on Iranian-backed militias near the Iraqi-Syrian border, and one of the targeted paramilitary groups vowed “open war” against American interests in Iraq.

The New York Times also notes that the militias targeted by the US and characterized as “Iranian-backed” are actually “on the [Iraqi] government payroll.” 

Not mentioned by the New York Times is that these militias played a key role in the defeat of the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (ISIS) in both Iraq and neighboring Syria. The New York Times mentions the US assassination of General Qassim Suleimani, commander of Iran’s Quds Force, which - under General Suleimani’s leadership - also played a key role in the defeat of ISIS in both Syria and Iraq. 

General Suleimani was also in Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government when the US carried out air strikes to assassinate the Iranian military commander. 

Washington’s claims of maintaining its military occupation of Iraq to “assist” in defeating ISIS is contradicted by its campaign of violence against Iraq’s Iranian allies who are likewise assisting in the defeat of extremist forces - not only in Iraq - but also in neighboring Syria. 

Unlike the US, however, Iran is not allied with ISIS’ key state sponsors. In 2016, then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a leaked e-mail would mention key US allies - Saudi Arabia and Qatar - by name as providing “clandestine financial and logistical support” to ISIS and “other radical Sunni groups in the region.” 

Of course, the US itself was also funding, arming, training, and otherwise equipping extremist groups fighting alongside Al Qaeda and ISIS. 

An August 2017 New York Times article titled, “Behind the Sudden Death of a $1 Billion Secret C.I.A. War in Syria,” would mention reports that:

...some of the C.I.A.-supplied weapons had ended up in the hands of a rebel group tied to Al Qaeda further sapped political support for the program. 

The same article would claim that extremist organizations affiliated with Al Qaeda “often fought alongside the C.I.A.-backed rebels” and admitted that by the end of the US program these extremist organizations dominated the so-called opposition in Syria. 

Had the US been genuinely funding, arming, training, and otherwise equipping moderate rebels to the tune of billions of dollars, who was funding, arming, training, and otherwise equipping extremists even more - allowing them to eventually displace US-backed rebels on Syria’s battlefields?

The answer is that there never were any moderate rebels to begin with. The US set out arming extremist forces deliberately as part of its proxy war against Damascus. 

As early as 2007, journalists like Seymour Hersh in his article, “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?,” would expose Washington’s preparations to do exactly that, warning (emphasis added):

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda. 

Thus it is clear that not only did the United States give rise to Al Qaeda and ISIS across the region  and specifically in Syria and Iraq, it did so deliberately. It is using the threat of extremism it and its regional allies sponsored to begin with as a pretext to remain in the region militarily and as a smokescreen behind which it is carrying out an escalating campaign of aggression against Iraq and Syria’s allies who actually aided in Al Qaeda and ISIS’ defeat. 

The US attempts to cite international and US domestic laws in a bid to depict its ongoing aggression as “self-defense” regarding US forces stationed thousands of miles from American shores and who are in the Middle East as a direct result of an illegal war of aggression predicated two decades ago on deliberately fabricated accusations of “weapons of mass destruction” Washington claimed the Iraqi government possessed at the time. 

Today, the US is attacking militias paid by the Iraqi government - attacks protested loudly by the Iraqi government - all while claiming the US presence within Iraqi territory is “at the invitation of the Government of Iraq.” 

This ongoing US aggression along the Iraqi-Syrian border is a dangerous illustration of how despite claiming US forces are essential for stability and security in the region, the US is in fact the primary driving force of instability and a constant threat to security across the Middle East. It also illustrates how much more work Syria, Iraq, and their actual allies have ahead of them in both eliminating extremists the US simultaneously sponsors and claims to be fighting, and pushing out the United States’ otherwise perpetual military occupation of the region without triggering a war with a nuclear-armed aggressor.. 

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.  

US Middle East Wars Far from Over

Iraq continues to find itself in the middle of Washington's ongoing struggle to reassert itself in the region. Can the new Iraqi PM free himself of his checkered pro-Western past? Or will he allow the US a foothold to further draw out Iraq's (and the region's) unending turmoil? 

June 26, 2020 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Despite what appears to be a terminal decline of US influence over the Middle East, Washington has no intentions of gracefully abandoning its aspirations of regional hegemony.

Air strikes carried out against Syria by Washington's Israeli proxies, a mysterious explosion near Tehran, and the current Iraqi Prime Minister's decision to round up leaders of Iranian-backed militias who helped defeat the self-proclaimed "Islamic State" (ISIS) unfolded in quick succession in an apparent coordinated campaign aimed at Iran and its allies.

The Washington DC-based Al Monitor in an article titled, "Suspected Israeli airstrikes hit various locations in Syria," would claim:

Suspected Israeli airstrikes hit Syrian military and Iran-backed militia sites Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning. There are differing reports on the casualties.

This morning’s aerial assault targeted Syrian military sites outside the central city of Hama.

Days later, under orders by Iraq's new prime minister - Mustafa Al-Kadhimi - Iraqi security forces raided the headquarters of an Iranian-backed militia detaining several leaders.

Reuters in its article, "Iraqi forces raid Iran-backed militia base, detain commanders: government sources," would claim:

Iraqi security forces raided a headquarters belonging to a powerful Iran-backed militia in southern Baghdad late on Thursday, seized rockets and detained three commanders of the group, two Iraqi government officials said.

The officials said the militia group targeted was the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah, which U.S. officials have accused of firing rockets at bases hosting U.S. troops and other facilities in Iraq.

Iraq has been under significant pressure from the US to roll back growing ties with Iran and still hosts thousands of US troops illegally occupying its territory as well as a myriad of militant groups the US and its regional allies back either openly or covertly including Al Qaeda and ISIS itself.

More recently, a massive explosion took place just southeast of Iran's capital, Tehran. While Iranian officials claim it was an accident at a civilian gas storage facility, pro-war elements across the West have insisted it was the result of an attack on a military complex located in the region.

Should it turn out to be an attack - US proxies - either Israel or US-backed terrorists operating inside Iran are most likely responsible representing a strategy laid out by US policymakers as early as 2009 in their own papers - particularly and explicitly in the Brookings Institution's 2009 paper, "Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran" (PDF) under chapters including, "Allowing or Encouraging an Israeli Military Strike," and "Inspiring an Insurgency: Supporting Iranian Minority And Opposition Groups."

The timing of the explosion, following two highly provocative moves made against Iran and its allies in the region suggest the US is attempting to escalate tensions with Iran to save its fading influence in the Middle East.

New Iraqi Prime Minister's Checkered Past 

Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi took office in May 2020.

While he has warned about deepening relations with Iran he has concurrently stated the importance of US backing - despite the US having illegally invaded, destroyed, and since occupied Iraq starting in 2003. 

His past - including his exile in London and his US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) linked Iraq Memory Foundation as well as his regular contributions to the above mentioned Washington DC-based Al Monitor call into serious question his ability to protect Iraq's sovereignty as well as Iraq's best interests.

On the Iraq Memory Foundation's own website under "About," it admits its genesis as a spin-off of a US NED funded Harvard-based front called the Iraq Research and Documentation Project (IRDP). The website claims (emphasis added):

The Memory Foundation is an outgrowth of the Iraq Research and Documentation Project (IRDP), founded by Kanan Makiya at the Center of Middle East Studies at Harvard University in 1992. In 1993, the IRDP developed a plan to create an archive that would organize and preserve the documents already in its possession for more long-term scholarly purposes. Utilizing a 1993 grant from the Bradley Foundation, followed by a 1994 bridging grant from the National Endowment for Democracy, the IRDP began its work processing the small collection of documents in Makiya’s personal possession and transcribing interviews conducted with Iraqi refugees. The IRDP continued to receive and process small datasets over the next ten years.

Regarding Al-Kadhimi himself, the website notes that he previously worked as:

the director of programming for Radio Free Europe’s Iraq service from 1999 to 2003. He also participated in launching the Iraqi Media Network as the Director of Planning and Programming immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein regime in 2003. Since leaving Al-Iraqiya he has worked with the Iraq Memory Foundation, researching, directing and producing numerous filmed oral history testimonies with survivors of the Saddam Hussein regime.

Radio Free Europe - according to its own website - "is funded by a grant from the U.S. Congress through the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM)."

In an age where simply holding views similar to that of nations like Russia earn among the Western media labels like "Russian agent," Iraq's current prime minister was literally on the payroll of the US government. The website also notes that he produced documentaries for British state programming including the BBC.

All of Al-Kadhimi's efforts fed directly into US war propaganda used to justify Washington's military aggression against Iraq for decades.

Al-Kadhimi also was a regular contributor to Al Monitor - which despite attempting to appear as a Middle Eastern news source - is actually based in Washington DC and headed by American corporate-funded think tank staff and lobbyists.

Al Monitor's president and chief content officer - Andrew Parasiliti - for example has an extensive background in US corporate-funded foundations and lobbying groups which regular receive money from big-oil, defense contractors, and other multi-billion dollar multinational interests to engineer and promote wars and interventions abroad.


The Al Monitor's biography for Parasiliti states:

He previously served as director of RAND’s Center for Global Risk and Security and international marketing manager of RAND’s National Security Research Division; editor of Al-Monitor; executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies-US and corresponding director, IISS-Middle East; a principal at the BGR Group; foreign policy advisor to US Senator Chuck Hagel; director of the Middle East Initiative at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government; and director of programs at the Middle East Institute.

Al Monitor clearly serves as yet another vehicle for promoting US intervention and influence abroad.

And it was in Al Monitor that now Iraqi PM Al-Kadhimi wrote articles like his 2015 piece, "US-Iraqi relations need a reset," in which he presented a skewed version of history from 2003 onward - ignoring the false pretense used by the US to invade Iraq in the first place and the utter destruction and division sown throughout the country ever since.

He also mischaracterizes the appearance of ISIS in 2014 - failing to link America's supposed withdrawal from Iraq and the serendipitous appearance of the terrorist organization and the opportunity it provided the US to reoccupy Iraq on terms more favorable to Washington. Nothing about ISIS' US and Saudi funding and arming was mentioned.

He concluded the piece claiming:

US-Iraqi relations since 2003 demonstrate that when ties between the two countries become weak or marginal, it paves the way for external actors to enter and jeopardize common US-Iraqi regional interests. Thus, Washington and Baghdad need to reassess their relationship to develop an effective strategy to help restore the balance of power in the region and ensure their mutual interests.   

When Iraq's current PM Al-Kadhimi talks about "restoring the balance of power in the region" he is referring to the balance of power the US created and whose benefits only the US and its closest proxies enjoy, all at the cost of everyone else. Al-Kadhimi also made reference in his Al Monitor op-ed to the US propaganda vehicle "the axis of evil" - years after even the US abandoned it as a viable excuse to remain militarily engaged in the region.

While it is difficult to say what sort of leader Al-Kadhimi will ultimately be, his checkered past and his unpromising start signal a period of heightened conflict and instability within Iraq as this previously eager US proxy attempts to steer Iraq in a direction its people and its national economic and political ties do not and cannot go.

US Middle East War is Unwinnable, but Far from Over 

The US and its allies provide Iraq with no genuine political or economic ties or development - and are using the nation as a base for sowing conflict throughout the region - conflict that will ultimately negatively impact Iraq's own political and economic stability.

It is an unsustainable strategy since the vast majority of Iraqis - whether they are pro-Iranian or not - would chose political and economic stability over being an expendable pawn in Washington's overseas aggression.

The entire region is attempting - somewhat successfully - to move out from under the shadow of US hegemony and its corrosive effects. While in recent years the US has suffered multiple failures and is incrementally being uprooted from the region - it remains a dangerous hegemon with formidable military, political, and economic weapons arrayed against the Middle East.

Washington's desperation is highlighted by its increasing need to resort to increasingly less effective violence as the deterrence of its once global might fades and nations begin testing and rolling back the edges of its crumbling hegemony.

It will take time and patience to weather the parting blows of the "American Empire" and its presence in the Middle East - a parting that will take many more years to come and one in which acts of desperation could still lead to catastrophic, open regional war.

Despite the past of characters like Iraqi PM Al-Kadhimi - there is always the possibility that events on the ground will sway policies to continue away from American meddling and aggression and toward peace and stability - something Al-Kadhimi and everyone else in Iraq will benefit from far more than maintaining unawarded loyalty to Washington.

It will be a matter of nations like Iran and its allies keeping doors and avenues open for characters like Al-Kadhimi to escape through - tempting them in the right direction and away from the fate of other "successful" US regime change projects in places like Libya and Ukraine.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”. 

US Kills Iraqis For Demanding End of Illegal Occupation

March 14, 2020 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The US has recently carried out deadly attacks across Iraq - targeting Iraqi state-sponsored militias including Kata'ib Hezbollah who were responsible for the defeat of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

CNN in its article, "US conducts airstrikes against multiple Iranian-backed militia sites in Iraq," would report:

The US carried out airstrikes on Thursday against multiple Iranian-backed militia sites in Iraq, according to the US Defense Department.

The strikes come one day after the US assessed an Iranian-backed group was responsible for a rocket attack on a base where coalition forces are located, killing two American service members and one British service member.

CNN and other Western corporate media outlets have attempted to depict militias like Kata'ib Hezbollah as "Iranian-backed" in an effort to demonize them - and while they are indeed partly backed by Iran - they are also an official component of the Iraqi military.

The US Bombed Anti-ISIS Forces for Enforcing Iraqi Demands For US Withdrawal

Newsweek itself in a 2018 article titled, "U.S. Soldiers Under Threat as Iran Allies Join Iraq Military with Plans to Kick Americans Out," admitted:

An Iran-backed collective of mostly Shiite Muslim militias was officially made part of the Iraqi military Thursday, a development that placed U.S. forces in a difficult position as Washington tried to pull Baghdad away from its close ties to Tehran.

The article would also note:

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi issued "regulations to adapt the situation of the Popular Mobilization fighters" on Thursday, giving them ranks and salaries equivalent to other branches of the Iraqi military.

Newsweek attempts to depict the development as sinister and the result of Iranian machinations.

Nowhere mentioned by Newsweek is the fact that America's presence in Iraq in the first place was the result of a deliberate lie to justify an illegal and deadly war as well as the subsequent now nearly 20 year US military occupation of Iraq.

While Newsweek attempts to claim it is Iran's goal to oust US troops from Iraq - US troops that have no business or legal ground to be there in the first place - it was the Iraqi parliament itself which recently voted to expel US troops from Iraqi territory - not Tehran.

Germany's DW would publish an article titled, "Iraqi parliament votes to expel US troops — awaits government approval,"  which reported:

Parliament has voted to ask the government to end an agreement to host US troops in Iraq. The move would oust all foreign soldiers, including those from Germany.

DW - in a follow up article titled, "US rejects Iraqi parliament's call to withdraw troops," would report:

Washington and Baghdad should not discuss troop withdrawal, the US State Department has said, refusing parliament's request for US soldiers to leave. 

While Washington claims its military invasion and occupation of Iraq was predicated on fighting terrorism and promoting democracy - it now finds itself openly bombing militias who played a key role in defeating terrorists like ISIS and flagrantly dismissing Iraq's democratically elected parliament and their demands that US troops leave their territory.

Iraq's Right to Defend Itself Against Illegal Invaders 

Of course - were foreign troops in the US and refused US demands to leave - the next logical step would be for the US to expel these foreign troops by force.

This is precisely what is being done to US forces illegally occupying Iraqi territory and refusing to leave.

Their bases are under attack for their refusal to heed Iraqi demands to leave. In response to the attacks - the US claims it must defend its illegal and unwanted occupation through direct military intervention against militias officially augmenting Iraq's armed forces.


The pretext for America's continued presence in Iraq - beyond naked imperialism - has become increasingly murky.

US forces have claimed they remain in Iraq to underwrite Iraq's security - but with the US now bombing Iraq's own security forces - it is clear that the US itself poses as a- if not the greatest - threat to Iraqi security, stability, and national sovereignty.

The impotence of the UN and other supposed "international" institutions once again showcases the weakness and irrelevance - or perhaps the singular self-serving nature of the current US-led "international order."

It will instead be through a combination of continued political and military pressure targeting America's illegal military presence in Iraq, the continued creation of economic alternatives to circumvent US sanctions on both Iraq and Iran, and the entire region's attempts to build constructive ties with China and Russia to displace America's disruptive presence which will finally and fully underwrite genuine security and sovereignty for targeted nations like Iraq.

Since 2003 - the Iraqi people have suffered war, occupation, terrorism, and now open contempt by the West. The Iraqi people - like all people - yearn for basic stability within which to build better lives and will work with anyone who can offer it - and against anyone who threatens it.

Thus the US' battle against groups like Kata'ib Hezbollah who helped restore stability to Iraq in the face of the ISIS threat - is a battle against the will of the Iraqi people themselves. It is an unsustainable battle the US will ultimately lose - and along with it - additional credibility and opportunities within the international arena to nations committed to the primacy of national sovereignty and the concept of multipolarism.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.    

US War of Terror Continues: Assassinating Iran's Top Anti-ISIS General

January 16, 2020 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The US has eagerly taken credit for the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani amid a series of military strikes carried out by US forces across Syria and Iraq. The assassination was shortly followed by Iranian missile strikes aimed at US bases in Iraq.

The BBC in its article, "Qasem Soleimani: Strike was to 'stop war', says Trump," would claim:

President Donald Trump said the US killed Iran's top military commander Qasem Soleimani "to stop a war, not to start one".

He said Soleimani's "reign of terror is over" following the strike at Iraq's Baghdad airport on Friday.

The strikes also targeted infrastructure supporting a network of Iranian-backed militias known as Popular Mobilization Units or PMUs.

The US claiming these strikes were meant to end "terror" are particularly surreal.

The PMUs along with General Soleimani and his special operations Quds Forces have played a key role in fighting and defeating US and Saudi-sponsored terrorism across the Middle East. This includes fighting terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda, its many affiliates, and the so-called "Islamic State in Iraq and Syris" (ISIS) - all of which have been extensively exposed as recipients of US cash, weapons, and other forms of material and political support.

The War of Terror Continues 

Even the clumsy and often-manipulated Wikipedia lists Iran's Quds Forces as opposed against Al Qaeda, its affiliates, and ISIS alongside nations like the US and its allies. While Wikipedia doesn't overtly connect these terrorist organizations with their Western sponsors it is clear to even the casual observer that both appearing on the Quds Forces' opponents list carries with it many implications.

Beyond mere implications  - however -  it was the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) itself in a 2012 leaked memo that admitted, "the West, Gulf monarchies, and Turkey" were behind the rise of a what at the time was being called a "Salafist principality."

The leaked 2012 report (.pdf) states (emphasis added): 

If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).

To clarify precisely who these "supporting powers" were that sought the creation of a "Salafist" (Islamic) principality" (State), the DIA report explains:

The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime.

In other words, the US, its European allies, and its closest allies in the Middle East, sought the rise of a "Salafist" (Islamic) "principality" (State) in eastern Syria, precisely where ISIS eventually manifested itself. 

The West and its regional allies did so while simultaneously funding, arming, and training so-called "rebels" who in reality lined the ranks of extremist groups up to and including Al Qaeda and its Al Nusra franchise. 

A similar pattern of supporting extremism Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen has emerged. So extensive is US state-sponsorship of terrorism that even the Western corporate media has been forced repeatedly to admit and attempt to cover up the flow of US weapons into the hands of extremists. 

Thus - from 2011 onward - the world has become increasingly aware of US state-sponsorship of terrorism - specifically in support of terrorist organizations including Al Qaeda, its affiliates, and ISIS. The US has throughout the Syrian conflict directly and indirectly attacked and undermined the forces fighting these terrorist organizations - and with the latest assassination of General Soleimani - has begun to wage open war against Al Qaeda's and ISIS' most effective opponents. 

Too Little, Too Late

If General Soleimani was such an important target to eliminate - we can only assume the US believes that he was an effective strategist and leader. And if General Soleimani was either or both of these things - it is certain that amid his skilled and effective operations against US state-sponsored terrorism he also included provisions for continuity for his Quds Forces. 

The assassination of General Soleimani will do little to degrade the Quds Forces themselves. Other senior leaders will fill the void and the organization will continue effectively carrying out operations on behalf of Iran and its Syrian and Iraqi allies. 

Instead - the attack was more likely meant to serve as a provocation - a desperate attempt by Washington to provoke Tehran and escalate the regional conflict more toward large-scale total war the US believes it may still hold an advantage in over Iran. 

For Iran - its strategy of patient, incremental victory in Syria, Iraq, and beyond has paid historical dividends. The geopolitical landscape of the Middle East is being redrawn before our very eyes.

The best way to procure revenge for yet another provocative and toxic display of US foreign policy is for Iran to continue the work General Soleimani  had successfully endeavored toward - the continued frustration of US belligerence in the region, the dismantling of US-proxies including terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda and ISIS, and the eventual and total uprooting of US hegemony across the region.

Iran's missile strikes targeting US military bases rendered no casualties yet demonstrated Iran's capacity to carry out long-range precision strikes at US forces illegally or coercively occupying the region.

The US was subsequently faced with the choice to fight big and lose, or once again demonstrate its growing impotence by doing little or nothing. The US has its forces spread across the planet, fighting numerous adversaries yet unable to achieve a single decisive victory. Its demonstrated failures in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan mean that mounting full-scale military operations against the much larger and more formidable Iran is particularly unrealistic.

Iran's pinpoint missile strikes aimed at US bases in Iraq - avoiding casualties - represents a show of force reminding Washington of what could happen if hostilities widen - but also a show of restraint illustrating to the rest of the world that Iran is reasonable even in the face of Washington's unreasonable provocations.  

Just as Russia endured humiliating provocations designed to provoke and distract Moscow from successfully defending Syria - leaving Moscow and its Syrian allies victorious and the US desperate, frustrated, and in some cases, literally running from its positions in Syria - Iran too must endure.  

US provocations come too little and too late. 

They only serve to further illustrate the menace current US foreign policy and the interests driving them pose to the world. They have failed to reverse Washington's flagging fortunes in either Syria or Iraq. And unless Iran gives the US exactly what it wants - a pretext to escalate further - these provocations will likely end up on the long list of failed attempts to reverse Washington's fortunes regarding its weakening grip on Iraq, its failed regime change war in Syria, and its overall unraveling hegemony across the Middle East and North Africa.  

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”. 

Strikes in Iraq and Syria: US Terror for the New Year

January 13, 2019 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) US strikes against targets in Iraq in Syria belonging to Iranian-linked militias operating across the territory of both Middle Eastern nations directly before New Year's marked a new low for US foreign policy in the region.

The strikes were soon followed by the assassination of senior Iranian military leader General Qasem Soleimani who headed Iran's renowned Quds Forces.

The combined provocations have led to a proportionate - and so far effective - counterstrike by Iran aimed at US military bases in Iraq. 

The US is Goading Iran, Not Defending Against It 

CNN in its article, "US strikes 5 facilities in Iraq and Syria linked to Iranian-backed militia," it was reported that:

US forces conducted airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against five facilities the Pentagon says are tied to an Iranian-backed militia blamed for a series of attacks on joint US-Iraq military facilities housing American forces.

The article would also claim:

Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman described the strikes against the group as "precision defensive strikes" that "will degrade" the group's ability to conduct future attacks against coalition forces.

And while the US would describe the strikes as defensive in nature - in reality the US is illegally occupying Syria and is coercing the government of Iraq to accept its open-ended and unwanted occupation there.

Worse still is that the Iranian-backed militias the US struck constitute one of the most formidable forces operating in the region arrayed against terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda, its various affiliates, and the so-called Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS).

The US narrative of protecting its troops - who occupy the region illegally and in direct contravention to international law - attempts to paper over continued efforts to cling to US hegemony in the Middle East and reverse its flagging fortunes - particularly in Syria where its regime war has unraveled.

Strikes on Iranian-backed militias and their senior leadership are a vain attempt to redraw the quickly changing geopolitical landscape in the Levant where Syria and its allies - particularly Russia and Iran - have come out on top.

Stabbing Iraq in the Back...

All while the US attempts to portray its actions as underwriting regional or even global security - the very nations it has carried out its attacks in have unequivocally condemned them. In Iraq - where there is at least a semblance of legitimacy to America's ongoing occupation, the Iraqi government has described the attacks as treacherous.

The assassination of General Qasem Soleimani  was likewise condemned widely across the region.

Thus - the US has carried unilateral actions inside a nation it attempts to portray as an ally and partner - actions condemned by the Iraqi government itself.

Finally, the CNN article would point out that the recent US strikes represent an escalation between the United States and Iran - amid a wider conflict that spans the region from Syria and Lebanon, to Iraq, to the south in Yemen, and even as far as in Afghanistan where US forces have been waging war for nearly 2 decades along Iran's eastern flank.

Within Iran itself, the US has organized ongoing efforts to destabilize the nation economically and politically aiming to either coerce Tehran or remove the government of Iran entirely.

The irony of the US claiming it is striking Iranian-backed militias in self-defense or in an attempt to combat "terrorism" is multifaceted.

The US which claims to be waging a global war on terror - has just struck the very forces serving as the front line against Al Qaeda and ISIS. Furthermore, when considering the US and its Saudi allies are Al Qaeda and ISIS' primary state sponsors, the irony deepens.

When the nations the US claims it is protecting protest US unilateral actions - nations who are the primary benefactors of Iranian-back militias and their efforts to combat Al Qaeda and ISIS and their terrorism aimed at dividing and destroying their nations and the wider region - US foreign policy and its most recent belligerence lays fully exposed.

One must also consider that US actions serve as one of the most disruptive factors driving ongoing regional instability.

The US continues to isolate itself by doubling down on failed policies - and in the process it is resorting to increasingly dangerous and desperate tactics that threaten regional and global peace and stability. Resorting to high-level assassinations represents a rarely resorted-to measure fully illustrating the growing depths of Washington's desperation.

For nations enduring US belligerence - the process of slowly exposing and countering US foreign policy must continue in earnest. Iran's pinpoint missile strikes aimed at US bases in Iraq, avoiding casualties represents just such patience - a show of force reminding Washington of what could happen if hostilities widen - and a show of restraint illustrating to the rest of the world that Iran is reasonable even in the face of unreasonable provocations.

The US is already increasingly exposed and isolated. For the US which has waged large scale war across the region with diminishing returns - a handful of additional US airstrikes and assassinations will do little to diminish Iranian-backed militias or their ongoing efforts to move the region out from under decades of US hegemony, aggression, terror, division, and destruction.

For the New Year - the US gifts the Middle East with yet more violence and terror - ensuring the region, its nations, and their people labor under no delusions regarding the source of the region's ongoing instability and violence. During the coming new year and the years to come, the process of slowly and surely uprooting US hegemony and all that it entails will continue.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.

US-Backed Terrorists "Struggle" After Returning from Syria

May 25, 2019 (Gunnar Ulson - NEO) - Upon reading the Financial Times article, "Isis fighters struggle on return to Balkan states," you might almost forget the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was and still is a hardcore terrorist organization guilty of some of the most heinous terrorism carried out in the 21st century.



The article begins, claiming:

In a village in the Kosovar countryside, Edona Berisha Demolli’s family have gathered to celebrate her return from Syria where she and her husband fled to six years ago to fight for Islamic militants Isis. 

 “I am exhausted,” said Ms Demolli, as her relatives served guests slices of celebratory chocolate and vanilla cake and children played in the yard. “I thank God, the Kosovo state, and the US for bringing me home,” she said, referring to the pressure Washington put on countries to take their fighters back from camps across the Middle East and the logistical assistance they provided to that end.

The Financial Times would note that some 300 Bosnians joined ISIS and that Kosovo has set up barracks to accommodate returning fighters.

The article would end by quoting Besa Ismaili, a lecturer at Kosovo’s Faculty of Islamic Studies:

“You don’t have to approve of what they did, but you have to reach out to them to prevent further radicalisation, and their children need to develop a bond to the country.”

It is difficult to imagine how extremists who left their home country to fight alongside ISIS could be yet "further radicalized."

We can suppose "further radicalization" might mean a second deployment in yet another of Washington's proxy wars around the globe. It could be argued that returning fighters who receive assistance in reintegrating into society and escaping any real consequences for their actions will do very little to dissuade them or others in their community from doing it again.

Escaping Justice 

The Financial Times in its sympathetic narrative begets questions surrounding an inescapable truth regarding the central role the United States and its allies played in facilitating the transfer of foreign extremists to and from the battlefield in war-torn Syria.

The article specifically mentions (and through the words of a former extremist, thanks) the US for its logistical assistance in returning ISIS militants to their respective countries.

We can only imagine if terrorists invaded the United States, killed Americans, destroyed American infrastructure and fought against US troops, just how slighted Washington would feel if a foreign nation intervened and spirited these terrorists away, especially back to their countries of origin and beyond Washington's ability to exact justice.

But that is precisely what the US has denied Damascus.

America's Terrorist Foreign Legions 

The US aiding terrorists in their return to the Balkans will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the real rather than feigned relationship between Washington and Al Qaeda whom ISIS is merely a rebranded offshoot of.

In the 1990s as the US meddled in the Balkans, it provided weapons and aid to the so-called "Kosovo Liberation Army" (KLA), an analogue to the so-called "Free Syrian Army" in Syria today. Both were nothing more than public relations fronts. Behind it were regional Al Qaeda affiliates.


The Wall Street Journal in a forgotten 2001 article titled, "Al Qaeda's Balkan Links," would lay out the truth behind KLA:

By early 1998 the U.S. had already entered into its controversial relationship with the KLA to help fight off Serbian oppression of that province.

While in February the U.S. gave into KLA demands to remove it from the State Department's terrorism list, the gesture amounted to little. That summer the CIA and CIA-modernized Albanian intelligence (SHIK) were engaged in one of the largest seizures of Islamic Jihad cells operating in Kosovo. 

Fearing terrorist reprisal from al Qaeda, the U.S. temporarily closed its embassy in Tirana and a trip to Albania by then Defense Secretary William Cohen was canceled out of fear of an assassination attempt. Meanwhile, Albanian separatism in Kosovo and Metohija was formally characterized as a "jihad" in October 1998 at an annual international Islamic conference in Pakistan. 

Nonetheless, the 25,000 strong KLA continued to receive official NATO/U.S. arms and training support and, at the talks in Rambouillet, France, then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright shook hands with "freedom fighter" Hashim Thaci, a KLA leader. As this was taking place, Europol (the European Police Organization based in The Hague) was preparing a scathing report on the connection between the KLA and international drug gangs. Even Robert Gelbard, America's special envoy to Bosnia, officially described the KLA as Islamic terrorists.

The US arming extremists through dubious "liberation fronts?" US diplomats' lives being in danger from the very extremists their government is sponsoring? America's own envoys describing the very people Washington is backing as "terrorists?" These are all now well-established, familiar themes seen repeating themselves again and again from Libya where a US consulate was in fact attacked and a US ambassador killed, to Syria where the "Free Syrian Army" turned out to be little more than window dressing for Al Qaeda and ISIS and now back to the Balkans where the US is already seeding the ground for future proxy wars.

Articles like those appearing in the Financial Times today or the Wall Street Journal years ago all but lay out the truth before the American public, but apparently more compelling is contemporary political rhetoric of "fighting terrorism" or backing "liberation fronts" on humanitarian grounds.

Behind the rhetoric, the US has recruited and armed terrorists to fight its wars everywhere from Afghanistan in the 1980s, to the Balkans in the 1990s, to southern Russia in the early 2000s, to Libya and Syria from 2011 onward. Even as the US poses as "victor" over ISIS in Iraq and Syria, it has spent its time ferrying fighters back to Europe where they can escape Iraqi and Syrian justice, recuperate, radicalize others in their community and be fully prepared for the next time Washington's needs call upon them.

Gunnar Ulson, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.   

In Iraq, as US Influence Ebbs, Iran's Flows

March 31, 2019 (Gunnar Ulson - NEO) - In the dead of Christmas night last year, to evade possibly being shot down, US President Donald Trump made a surprise, whirlwind visit to US troops in Iraq.

He visited Al Asad Air Base about 100 miles west of Baghdad in Al Anbar province, or about halfway between Baghdad and the Syrian border where US forces are also operating. Between Al Asad and Baghdad are the notorious cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, hotbeds of resistance after the 2003 US invasion, and since then, hotbeds of extremism fueling the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq.

The base is home to about 5,000 US service members. 

As in Syria, America's presence in Iraq seems to be clinging to areas where extremism and separatism are greatest. In many instances, it is the US openly and deliberately encouraging both, especially in Kurdish territory stretching over both nations, but also in areas dominated by Sunni Muslims where extremist fronts like Al Qaeda and IS believe they can find support.

The fact that President Trump visited American forces in the dead of night, meeting no one from the actual Iraqi military or government, helps illustrate the increasingly isolated position the US holds in Iraq.

While the US claims it is fighting extremists from Syria to Iraq and beyond, with Syrian, Russian, Iranian and Iraqi forces clearing these extremists out of virtually all corners of Syria and Iraq except where US forces occupy, it seems the US isn't fighting extremism, it is cultivating it. 

Enter Iran

Several months later, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani made his first official visit to Iraq. His trip brought him to the center of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. There he met with top representatives of the Iraqi government including Iraqi President Barham Salih. He also travelled through the city to visit Al-Kadhimiya Mosque, a particularly important pilgrimage site for Shia'a Muslims.

President Rouhani had previously commented on Trump's swooping in at night and his failure to meet with any actual Iraqis in an open and official capacity. The Washington Post would quote President Rouhani as also stating:

“You have to walk in the streets of Baghdad ... to find out how people will welcome you.”

In addition to meeting Iraqi representatives and leaders, and travelling through Baghdad, President Rouhani also signed agreements involving "oil and gas, land transport, railways, agriculture, industry, health and regarding the central bank," the Washington Post would report.

French news portal France24 would note in their article, "Iraq attempts balancing act as Iran’s Rouhani arrives for first official visit," that:

Last year, Iran's exports to Iraq amounted to nearly $9 billion. Tehran hopes to increase the roughly $13 billion volume in trade between the two neighbouring countries to $20 billion. Also, some 5 million religious tourists bring in nearly $5 billion a year as Iraqis and Iranians visit Shiite holy sites in the two countries.

The article would note the growing ties between the two nations and the growing influence Iran has over Iraq in contrast to America's ebbing presence there.

Iraq-Iran Ties are Built on Mutual Interests - US Ties are Built on Fabricated Threats 

The Trump-Rouhani visits and the stark contrast between the two illustrates another very important point.

President Trump would openly admit the US was in Iraq to "to watch Iran," the New York Times would report.


The New York Times would also report:

Mr. Trump’s comments come as the United States has quietly been negotiating with Iraq for weeks to allow perhaps hundreds of American commandos and support troops now operating in Syria to shift to bases in Iraq and strike the Islamic State from there. Military leaders are seeking to maintain pressure on the militant group as the president fundamentally reorders policy toward Syria and toward Afghanistan, where peace talks with the Taliban are underway.

Yet there are serious problems with this claim. President Rouhani's visit highlights Iran as a key ally for Iraq.

In terms of security, Iranian-backed militias helped rid Iraq as well as neighboring Syria of Al Qaeda, its affiliates and IS.

And as just pointed out, Iran is also a key economic partner for Iraq.

The US on the other hand has little to offer in terms of security or economics. Its presence in Iraq to allegedly fight extremists it and its regional allies themselves helped fund and arm in the first place, only adds to Iraq's many security challenges.

In terms of economics, while the US provides Iraq a large export market, it is a market still dwarfed by China and India. It is also smaller than the combined export market of Iraq's major European trade partners. The geographical proximity of Iraq and Iran to one another means deeper and more practical economic ties can be developed than anything on offer by the US, if economic partnership was actually one of Washington's goals.

By President Trump's own admission, the US is in Iraq not to assist it in any way, but to use it for Washington's own self-serving agenda regarding neighboring Iran. Since the United States and its Persian Gulf allies have nothing of significant value to offer Iraq in terms of real security or economics, it is instead playing a diplomatic balancing act where it associates with and radicalizes Sunni communities, then poses as combating the terrorism that predictably results.

It is a balancing act that is hardly sustainable, especially opposite the significant security and economic benefits Iran can counter-offer Baghdad.

It is not hard to see why Iran's influence in the Middle East continues to flow, despite being targeted by the US through an array of subversive measures, while US influence in the region ebbs despite having a clear advantage in terms of resources and military might.

It is also not hard to see the significance of remaining US bases in Iraq being in Kurdish areas or regions where extremism still persists. The US presence in Al Anbar, as pointed out as far back as 2017, along with supposed reconstruction aid offered by Washington's Persian Gulf allies, all seems to point toward a strategy of growing an extremist threat to serve as a counterweight or spoiler against Iran's constructive contributions to Iraq's security situation and economic growth.

It is a strategy that will only further exhaust US credibility and resources, as well as those of its regional partners, all while forcing it opponents to expand further and dig in deeper, as Iran has been doing.

Despite claims that the biggest threats to US interests and national security are extremists in the Middle East, or even revisionist states like Russia and China, in truth, the United States' biggest enemy is its own unsustainable foreign policy and the exhausting aggression that underpins it. Its ebbing influence in Iraq despite the trillions in dollars and many years invested there, serves as "exhibit A."

Gunnar UIson, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Syria: Is US Fighting ISIS or Liquidating Assets?

March 30, 2019 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - That the "final stronghold" of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS) resides in US occupied territory in Syria says it all.

From US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) memos dating back to 2012 noting efforts to create a "Salafist" [Islamic] "principality" [State] in eastern Syria precisely where ISIS rose and now clings to its "final stronghold," to the obvious fact that ISIS' fighting capacity was only possible through extensive state sponsorship - it was already clear that the US and its partners in regime change against Syria had been using terrorists including ISIS as proxy ground forces.

Now the US claims it has cornered and is on the verge of defeating ISIS - despite the terrorist group having been cleared out of virtually every other corner of the nation by Syrian, Russian, Iranian, and Hezbollah forces long ago.

In reality, the US is merely liquidating assets it had harbored, protected, armed, and funded throughout the 8 year proxy war until no longer politically feasible.

CNN in its article, "Thousands of ISIS troops surrender amid attack on final stronghold in Syria," uncritically claims:

At its height, ISIS controlled huge swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq. The US-led coalition has been working for years to oust the group from cities and towns.

CNN omits entirely any mention of the source of ISIS' fighting capacity and the fact that its supply lines led directly out of NATO-member Turkey and was overseen by US special forces and intelligence agencies.

CNN also omits that it wasn't until the 2015 Russian military intervention when Russian air power attacked and cut ISIS supply lines that ISIS began suffering defeat across Syrian territory - first and foremost in territory being retaken by Syrian forces and its allies.

In territory illegally-occupied by the US, it appears that ISIS militants and other extremists were simply being shuffled around. In other cases, US forces attacked the Syrian military and their allies when attempting to cross into US-occupied territory in pursuit of ISIS forces. This game has carried on to the point of absurdity with the largest and most powerful military in the world only now creeping in last across the finish line of its own supposed battle against ISIS.

What Becomes of Surrendering and Fleeing ISIS Militants? 

CNN also claims:

More than 3,000 ISIS fighters have surrendered amid a pitched battle by US-backed forces to retake the last ISIS stronghold in Syria.   

The article also notes that many more may attempt to flee. The US has not made it clear what will happen with these fighters, or others "fleeing" from the supposed US-backed offensive. In certain cases, it seems Washington has singled interest in sending foreign fighters back to their countries of origin - which means many will simply be reintegrated into society where local intelligence agencies will keep tabs on them, use them for domestic distractions, or redeploy them to Washington's next proxy war when required.

A recent Iraqi military deployment near the Syrian-Iraqi border consisting of Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) amid the ongoing US offensive in Syria indicates that at least Baghdad believes Washington's "defeat" of ISIS is more likely another attempt to shuffle valuable proxy fighters around on the battlefield - and this time - back into Iraq and in particular, into Al Anbar governorate where the US still maintains a military presence and where they will continue receiving defacto US protection.


Al-Masdar News in an article titled, "Iraqi reinforcements deploy to Syrian border as ISIS terrorists attempt to escape Syria," would note:

The Iraqi Armed Forces deployed a large number of military personnel to the Syrian border this week to block any Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS/Daesh) from fleeing into Iraq.

 According to a new report, the Iraqi Army and Hashd Al-Sha’abi deployed these reinforcements to the Anbar-Deir Ezzor border after some Islamic State terrorists were suspected of sneaking into Iraq from eastern Syria.

It was the rise of ISIS inside Iraq and its crossing over into Syrian territory that set the pretext for the now ongoing US occupation of Syrian territory. The threat of ISIS "resurging" in Iraq also serves as an ongoing pretext for US forces still based there.

The rise of Iranian-backed militias throughout Iraq has become a potent counterweight to US-backed proxies attempting to take root there once again, and will make it infinitely more difficult for the US to repeat the scale and duration of the ISIS scourge the US visited upon the region.

The term "liquidate" in this context doesn't necessarily mean destroying ISIS formations entirely - but instead simply moving them where they can be protected in Al Anbar and reconstituted to either continue serving as a pretext for US troops to remain in the region, or to fight in future proxies wars the US is planning in the wake of its current defeat in Syria.

While the Western media is attempting to hail this "final battle" as a victory for US forces - it is in actuality an indictment of America's complicity in ISIS' creation, proliferation across the region, and its longevity on the battlefield - suspiciously where US forces are operating.

The real story isn't that the US is finally moving in on ISIS' "last stronghold," it's that the US presided over the "last stronghold" for so long. 

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.  

US Wants ISIS Sponsors to Rebuild Iraq

February 16, 2018 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Like a local mafia that breaks car windows by night and repairs them by day, the United States has enlisted its Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) partners - namely Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates - to "rebuild" in Iraq in the wake of the defeated, self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS) these same states sponsored.

Reuters in an article titled, "Coalition members must help Iraq rebuild, Tillerson says," would report (emphasis added):

The U.S. leads the coalition and hopes that after a three-year fight to defeat the militants it can count in large part on Gulf allies to shoulder the burden of rebuilding Iraq and on a Saudi-Iraqi rapprochement to weaken Iran’s influence in the country, which is run by a Shi‘ite led government. 

The article also reports (emphasis added): 

Donors and investors have gathered in Kuwait this week to discuss efforts to rebuild Iraq’s economy and infrastructure as it emerges from a devastating conflict with the hardline militants who seized almost a third of the country.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would be quoted by Reuters as claiming: 

If communities in Iraq and Syria cannot return to normal life, we risk the return of conditions that allowed ISIS to take and control vast territory.

Yet even a causal student of history, military affairs, or modern warfare knows that armies tens of thousands strong, with regional, even global recruiting, training, and logistical networks do not spring up out of poverty or economic ruination. The operation capacity demonstrated by ISIS is only possible with significant state sponsorship.

US Enlists Those Who Sponsored ISIS to Rebuild Iraq 

Mention of Kuwait serving as a venue for "donors and investors" seeking to "reconstruct" Iraq is particularly ironic for those who remember the UK Telegraph's 2014 article titled, "How our allies in Kuwait and Qatar funded Islamic State."

The article states (emphasis added):

Islamic State (Isil), with its newly conquered territory, oilfields and bank vaults, no longer needs much foreign money. But its extraordinarily swift rise to this point, a place where it threatens the entire region and the West, was substantially paid for by the allies of the West. Isil’s cash was raised in, or channelled through, Kuwait and Qatar, with the tacit approval and sometimes active support of their governments.

And while the article attempts to frame Kuwait and Qatar's state-sponsorship of terrorism as a betrayal of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, the fact remains that such sponsorship was not only well known to Western intelligence and political circles, it was the GCC's ability to raise massive legions of terrorists that formed the cornerstone of the US-GCC alliance against Libya, Syria, Iran, and Shia'a majority Iraq beginning in 2011.


It was revealed in a leaked 2012 US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) memo that the US and its GCC - as well as Turkish - allies sought the creation of a "Salafist principality" in eastern Syria for the specific purpose of "isolating" the Syrian government.

The 2012 memo (PDF) would state specifically that:

If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran). 

The DIA memo would also explain who these "supporting powers" are:

The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime.

That "Salafist principality" would eventually take shape as the so-called "Islamic" (Salafist) "State" (principality) and be used specifically to both pressure the Syrian government in Damascus as well as create a pretext for the permanent occupation of Syrian territory by US military forces when US proxies stood little chance of holding it themselves.

While the US declares ISIS more or less defeated, the fact remains that militants still fighting on in Syria include ISIS fighters in their ranks - and despite superficial differences - those particularly fighting in and around Idlib province in northern Syria are indistinguishable from ISIS in both terms of extremist ideology and from which states they receive their funding and weapons.

Rebuilding or Retrenching? 

A similar slash and burn method was used in Iraq to invite a greater US role in Iraqi security in a conflict that cut a swath of destruction across Iraqi territory, particularly in Sunni-majority regions of Iraq.

The conflict created an opportunity for the US to strengthen Kurds in northern Iraq to further isolate and diminish the power of the Shia'a majority-led government in Baghdad, as well as create a pretext for US-GCC "rapprochement" as Reuters put it - to knock Sunni-majority regions of Iraq out of Baghdad's orbit.

Reports in October last year indicated that the US was particularly interested in Iraqi highways connecting Baghdad with Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Analysts speculated that this was literally an inroad into Iraq the US and its GCC allies could use to not only build a permanent foothold in Iraq upon, but also a logistical corridor the "coalition" could use to bring in a future wave of militants aimed at rolling back Iran and its allies in neighboring Iraq and Syria.

Unlike in Syria where Russian airpower in 2015 quickly targeted and eliminated ISIS' logistical networks streaming out of NATO territory in Turkey, highways in Iraq controlled by US contractors with a possible US military presence there as well would make repeating Russia's success infinitely more difficult.

Kurdish media has also reported that the money Secretary Tillerson lobbied the GCC to contribute would also flow into northern Iraq. While under the guise of reconstruction aid, the investments in truth will give the GCC greater influence over the Kurds as well.

Pushing Out Iran 

While the United States attempts to credit itself and its GCC partners with the defeat - rather than the creation of ISIS - it was in fact Iran's role in both Iraq and Syria that provided the key to the organization's defeat.

From across the Western media itself, articles like The Atlantic's "The Shia Militias of Iraq" and PBS' "Iraq's Shia Militias: The Double-Edged Sword Against ISIS" admit to the central role Iran and its allies within Iraq played in defeating ISIS.

The wars the US and GCC launched against Syria and Iraq by proxy were aimed primarily at Iran. The rise of ISIS emerged from the proxy conflict's failure to topple the Syrian government and move quickly onward to Iran.

The momentum of the West's proxy campaign against Iran has been broken, leaving the West searching for footholds, while it continues whittling away at both Damascus and Tehran.

While the US claims it must "weaken Iran's influence" in Iraq, it is only because it seeks to impose its own will on both Baghdad and the Middle Eastern region itself. For Iran, ties with Iraq, Syria, and the rest of the Middle East are owed to geographical proximity, shared history, and socioeconomic and religious ties that stretch back centuries. For the United States, its presumed role in the region stems solely out of its desire for hegemony - economic and geopolitical - in the same vein as traditional colonialism.

Watching the Footholds 

Iraq has proven a desire to prevent its involuntary reordering in the wake of ISIS. Baghdad mobilized military forces that swiftly rolled Kurdish forces back to their pre-ISIS boundaries after Kurds took, and announced they would then hold them after ISIS forces vacated them.

A similar story appears to have unfolded regarding US attempts to control Iraqi highways leading out of Baghdad toward Iraq's neighbors to the west and south. Iraq appears determined to assert its control over its own territory.

However, investments in the form of both obvious and more subtle footholds will likely still develop in the wake of ISIS' defeat. What the US-GCC backed ISIS campaign destroyed will be rebuilt - and likely by US-GCC contractors representing US-GCC interests.

Watching these footholds develop and gauging Baghdad and its Iranian allies' response to them will be essential in discerning what future opportunities the US-GCC might attempt to exploit amid their next attempt to reassert control over a Middle East quickly slipping away from them.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.