What’s Behind the Terror Networks in Iraq?

Consider this paradox: The Syrian dictatorship’s air force is fighting in Iraq thanks to help from Iran, which has committed troops and a fleet of drones. Complacently watching, the U.S. has also sent unmanned aircraft and a patrol of “observers.” Syria and Iran, both enemies of Washington — though the former is more demonized than the latter — have forged an alliance with the U.S. which was unthinkable until recently. The alliance seeks to contain the region’s ruthless offensive led by the fundamentalist army known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

A fiercely anti-West terrorist group, connected to the worst demons, ISIL is feeling provoked by the U.S. and its allies as they try to justify the war on terror they initiated after the 2001 attacks.

However, ISIL has grown and now dominates the Syrian conflict with the help of not-so-clandestine support from its close relationship with Washington. Using almost identical wording, two articles published at the same time by the two conservative British daily newspapers, the Daily Express and the Daily Telegraph, stated that, through allies such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the West has supported rebel groups, which over time have turned into ISIL or other al-Qaida style organizations.

According to research conducted by Italian specialist Loretta Napoleoni, a torrent of money flows among organizations belonging to the Salafist jihad movement. In her book, “Modern Jihad: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks,” she wrote that Riyadh alone donates $10 million annually through the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. Today, ISIL has accumulated a fortune worth over $2 billion, which it uses to support a costly band of mercenaries. It is no coincidence that ISIL is planning to establish its caliphate in the two regions it intends to control: northern Iraq and northeastern Syria, both rich in oil.

Packaging their plans as religion helps them justify such audacity.

It is useless to ask if this disaster is the result of chance or stems from a well-planned and well-armed attack, which has gotten out of control.

Contrary to its role in Syria, where it ended up strengthening the regime in Damascus — the opposite outcome from its original objective — in Iraq, ISIL is accelerating the disintegration of a country, which has high strategic importance and is part of Iran’s backyard.

To fully understand the current situation in Baghdad, the decline of Saddam Hussein’s pro-Western dictatorship in Baghdad must be analyzed.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, motivated in part by an oil grab, foresaw the break-up of Iraq.

According to a report prepared by the private intelligence firm Stratfor, George Bush’s Vice President Dick Cheney, and his Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, put together a scheme by which Sunni-dominated central Iraq, including Baghdad, would be annexed to Jordan. The Kurdish-dominated north together with northeastern Iraq, Mosul and the oil fields near Kirkuk would be united as a new autonomous state. Southeastern Iraq, a Shiite region that includes Basra, would be either an administrative region or become part of Kuwait. Their objective was to prevent any future internal conflict between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, which could complicate the control of the 3.5 million barrels of Iraqi oil produced daily – a volume that is three times greater than Libya or Iran.

Although the balkanization never came to pass in such an extreme way, President Nouri al-Maliki, a populist Shiite who is both pro-Iran and pro-America, has governed Iraq as if the break-up actually occurred. Divisive to the extreme in an impoverished and battered country, he has ignored the large minority groups of Sunnis and Kurds. That explains why the murdering ISIL fighters have entered Iraq unopposed. Many army officials have stopped protecting the government. Al-Maliki’s credibility is so low that as of July 1, when the parliament should ratify him, the majority of Sunni and Kurdish leaders will be absent.

The puppet government in Baghdad is not solely responsible for this decadence and fragmentation. The roots are historical. British political analyst Nafeez Ahmed notes that his Pakistani sources revealed in 2005 that the Pentagon had decided to arm small Sunni militias with former members of the Iraqi section of the Baath Party in order to contain the movements of the majority Shiites. However, the Pentagon simultaneously armed some units with Shiites to ensure that the Sunnis could be confronted, should it become necessary.

Ahmed asserts that this explosive strategy in Iraq has spread throughout the region. Through their Arab allies, both George Bush and Barack Obama stimulated Sunni extremism in order to contain Iran’s growing influence. The Saudi caliphate puts financing behind these armed bandits to counter the Republican wave that followed the Arab Spring, which, based on democratic principles, was derived from the existing threat to the feudal principalities and dictatorships in the region. The fascist nature of ISIL and its partners and imitators recognizes not only the use of terrorism for social control but also using totalitarian structures as a last resort.

A 2008 report issued by the Rand Corporation, a military consulting firm funded by Washington and the U.S. Army, acknowledged that this divisive strategy runs the risk of inadvertently strengthening the entrenched Salafist fundamentalism. But the report concluded that, in the short term, the strategy was still worth it if it could reduce the al-Qaida threat against U.S. interests, or serve to harass Iranian interests.

What’s been done can’t be changed. But the situation demands that we look backward. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, whose national interest is to crush Iran’s power — which can also be accomplished by attacking Iraq — recently suggested to his U.S. colleague John Kerry that the independence of the Kurdish north from Iraq is inevitable.

According to Reuters, Lieberman asserts that Israel is ready to immediately recognize the independence of that region. This is yet another paradox: An offensive to demolish ISIL is the resuscitation of the Bush-Cheney plans for Iraq.

It has come to the point that Saudi Arabia is now moving its troops to the border with an attentive Iraq — which may be a disaster waiting to happen.