Just a month ago President Obama said we were making great progress in the war on ISIS. Now it seems ISIS has taken most of Iraq's biggest oil refinery. Meanwhile, Saudi-backed al-Qaeda seems closer to taking over Syria. What's going on here?
Just a month ago President Obama said we were making great progress in the war on ISIS. Now it seems ISIS has taken most of Iraq's biggest oil refinery. Meanwhile, Saudi-backed al-Qaeda seems closer to taking over Syria. What's going on here?
Just a month ago President Obama said we were making great progress in the war on ISIS. Now it seems ISIS has taken most of Iraq's biggest oil refinery. Meanwhile, Saudi-backed al-Qaeda seems closer to taking over Syria. What's going on here?
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With me today is Daniel McAdams, who's the Executive Director of the Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
Good to see you today, Daniel.
Hello, good to be here with you.
Well, we had some good news to talk about, but there's been some declared victories around the world.
Of course, the victories don't seem to be our victories.
And there's two areas where it looks like things are getting out of hand from the viewpoint of the neocons and what's happening to our policy and how successful ISIS is getting right now.
The one that I wanted to just mention, and we've talked a lot about this before, is what's going on in Iraq.
And as you recall, when I was fighting tooth and nails on trying to stop that thing in 2002, 2003 and how much it was going to cost, you know, they talked about oil.
We'll get the oil and that'll pay all the bills.
It'll be over in a few months, sure.
So the headline today, and this comes from a McClatchy newsletter, a newspaper, Islamic State takes much of Iraq refinery.
They have total control of one half at the Beiji Baji refinery, which is the biggest in Iraq, and the other half is occupied by a few government officials who are surrounded right now.
So this oil has essentially been won over by the radicals, by the Islamic State.
So after all these years, how many years is that now?
Three, you know, 12 years of all this killing and fighting.
And the terrible thing is, is they weren't even there.
They weren't even in that country, you know, before we invaded, and all of a sudden, guess who's in charge?
So to me, that is a mess.
But there is one phrase here that I want to read from the newspaper, from the McClatchy article.
It says, the surprise Islamic State advance came despite U.S.-led aerial bombardments of Islamic State positions in central city of Baji.
So can they really be serious about surprise?
You know, this policy is so doomed to fail.
And we're using all these bombs.
So right now, this looks like it's going from bad to worse.
And when it'll quit, who knows?
The worst part could come from that is that they slip more and more troops in.
And I think that is starting.
That's the greatest danger to us as Americans.
But what about Syria?
How are we doing in Syria these days?
Not much better.
You know, I'm thinking as you were saying that, it was only last month that Obama met with the Iraqi prime minister in Washington and said that we were making, quote, serious progress in the fight against ISIS.
You know, it almost sounds like Vietnam, doesn't it?
It sounds like what they say, it might just be the opposite, sort of like how they have an announcement of a Patriot Act.
The real deal is it's exactly the opposite.
So these headlines and what our leaders tell us, but they're supposed to tell us the truth, so we have to be more trusting.
Well, in Syria, the news, from our perspective, is certainly not much better.
You know, the new king, Salman, in Saudi Arabia, very shortly after he took over the throne, he's made some very serious changes in his administration.
But one of the policy changes he made is that he held a meeting with Qatar and Turkey to discuss the three of their support for the rebels in Syria.
Qatar and Turkey tend to support the Muslim Brotherhood-backed rebels, and Saudi Arabia backs the Nuspra Front, which is the al-Qaeda group.
So they got together last month and decided we need to have unity.
And so the three of these countries pledged to join forces.
And what they did is they cobbled together a new group of rebels in Syria.
And they are, it's called Jaish al-Fat.
But what is essentially is new clothing on an old it is it is basically an al-Nusra-led, al-Qaeda-led group, and they're making some serious progress now.
They took over a pretty important city, Idlib, in Syria last month, and they're making huge progress, and interestingly enough, they're using U.S.-made tow missiles, this al-Qaeda group in Syria.
So where are they getting from Saudi Arabia, from the U.S., or from us through Saudi Arabia, whatever the case is, they're getting some advanced weapons, and al-Qaeda is, some say, on the verge of victory in Syria.
You know, Saudi Arabia has been sort of under the radar, you know, for the last 12 years or so, and they've been ignored.
But we do know about Saudi Arabia now being questioned about what kind of finances they might have contributed to 9-11 and the denial of us to be able to read these reports from the Congress telling us more what was going on.
But they're more in the news now because most people are recognizing when it comes to Yemen, it's Saudi Arabia that's doing the bombing with our direction and all.
But, you know, they're the Sunnis, and the Sunnis are a big issue.
And then there's Sunnis, and then there's Sunnis that are the jihadists and the more radical.
But it looks like Saudi is involved in most of these things.
And at times, it almost looks like there's no resistance or some type of an association with Israel and Saudi Arabia because Israel wants these regime change as well, don't you think?
Well, what Israel wants is they want to give Iran a black eye.
And a defeat for Assad in Syria would be a serious defeat for Iran because Iran and Syria have been somewhat allied in this fight.
So basically, it's a proxy war between Iran and Israel through Syria.
So that's why you see Israel doing things like treating al-Nusra fighters in Israel after they've been wounded.
This has been recorded a number of times.
So they are actively supporting what is essentially an al-Qaeda chapter in Syria.
And, you know, even though we don't have boots on the ground, we have lots of boots around there and a lot of money involved and a lot of planes flying.
And this whole idea, it does serve one purpose.
Right now, less Americans are being killed.
That's one thing that we have to cross our fingers.
Because are we bringing more peace to that world?
I mean, these 50 civilians that were killed, that was in Syria.
I mean, how many people, civilians, innocent people are killed?
How many family members are there?
Does that mean twice that many or four times that many?
They have large families and they have neighbors and relatives.
And these people, can they feel good about us?
So this is why people, you know, the moral high ground goes with those who are fighting the invaders.
And I don't think ISIS and the Islamic State could be this powerful without some type of subtle endorsement by the people in those countries.
Now, but my suspicion is, I probably read it someplace, is that they don't really like them, but we like them better than the other people.
We like them because they're going to kick out the foreigners and maybe they have a chance.
So I just think, you know, it's so clear-cut that what we do on foreign policy, especially these last 15, 20 years of regime change, on and on.
And once again, here we've been in these two countries for a long time, a lot of people killed and all this money.
So I'm not too happy about it.
And I think that more troops are going to be used.
What I think is sad is I think Obama knows better.
I think he tried to push away the neocons who wanted him to invade, you know, from the beginning, in 2011, certainly in 2012 and 13, wanted him to invade.
He's been pushing back against them, but he's not, but he's still, I mean, I think he understands the problem.
He's back in August of 2004, he told Tom Friedman the idea that moderates are going to win this victory in Syria is, quote, a fantasy.
So I think he realizes that.
So then, but what he does in that respect is he turns a blind eye to Turkey, the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, basically allowing for an al-Qaeda victory.
So as flawed as Assad may have been in Syria, how could it be preferable to have the capital of an Islamic state in the middle of this region?
See, I see no chance of us having a neat victory, and all of a sudden they're going to be more westernized.
I mean, the neatest conversion to Western-style government was when we lost Vietnam and walked out, and now they've been westernized.
So that is not going to happen.
They're already starting the blame game.
Let's assume that this continues to deteriorate.
So the only thing left will be blame because that was happening in Vietnam.
They still do that.
There's still people who argue that we should have doubled instead of 500,000 troops, a million troops in there, and we could have brought them to their knees.
But here, these people are going to continue to do it.
And the neocons, I think, are on the defensive.
Let's hope the side of liberty and non-intervention wins in the long run.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.