Tag Archives: Middle East

by Barry Kelly | October 1, 2015 · 7:43 am

INSIGHTS 234 — RUSSIAN EMPIRE MOVES INTO THE MEDITERRANEAN

“Mr. President, I want to read something you said last week when I asked, ‘Are you using the leading from behind strategy in the Middle East and primarily in Syria?’ And you answered, ‘Of course. My objective is to change or transform the world order. How could I do that if I was openly leading the action? I’m leading from behind. Iran, ISIS, and Russia are doing exactly what I want. If Russia ends up being a power in the Middle East with warm water ports for their warships and control of oil from the region won’t that end the strife and lead to a world society where the people will be much better off and the world’s wealth and resources will be more equitably distributed?

“‘Russia will have what they have always wanted. They have no desire to occupy Europe. The balance of world power will be forever changed for the better. The need for vast military expenditures will be gone. Colonialism, capitalism, and imperialism will be history. Those are the real evil “isms” of our world. Progressivism is the natural ideology for a world of equals.’”

“Given the very aggressive move by Putin into Syria in the last two weeks with his demand that U.S. aircraft no longer fly over Syria, will you need to change your approach?”

“Putin is following a long developed strategy followed by all the czars. He is the first to succeed in actually establishing a growing military presence in the Middle East. The Russian fleet will now have an all-weather sea port for their warships. He will be popular at home for a short time. Then the people will find out what it costs them to sponsor another client state. Control of Iraqi oil fields may provide some funds for Putin’s military build up and support for a bankrupt Syria but that will not be enough.

“He will soon have another Afghanistan on his hands. Remember how they moved into Afghanistan unopposed in President’s Carter’s one term? He was surprised. I am not. This a perfect response from Putin who is unknowingly assisting me in changing the current world order. Whether he stays for a decade or more in Syria, the Middle East will never be the same. The Christian, imperialistic, capitalistic western power will be balanced by the growing power of the Islamic nations who actually live in the Middle East. Those people will be governing themselves and using their wealth and intellectual resources for the good of a previously oppressed people.

“My concern is keeping the right wing ideologues from convincing my successor to oppose the Russian push into Syria. No matter what Putin does, I will not respond with American power. In a few more years American power both military and economically will be gone for good.”

“What about all the death and misery being inflicted on the people of Syria and Iraq?”

“It will pass in less than a decade. People always suffer when the tide of historical power shifts against existing rulers. Spreading Muslim people throughout the Christian world through chaotic refugee flows is not a bad thing. The shift in population demographics will actually act as a catalyst for a more rapid transformation in the Western world. I couldn’t be happier. Progress never takes place without chaos. The more chaos, the more rapid the pace of transformation can be.”

“Does anyone in your administration share your view of the world?”

“Really only one and she is constantly encouraging me to move more quickly. A few others think they know but they don’t. Their thinking is still mired down in the Western approach of looking at governing as the constant solving of issues. As long as they stay out of the way, they do no harm in playing with transient problems that have no solution without transformation.”

“Mr. President, I think I’m safe in saying no other president has ever shared your view of America and the world.”

“I agree. See you next week. You are the only person I can truthfully talk to besides my co-partner in transformation. Good night.”

This is an account written by a fictional advisor who doesn’t exist but should.

Check out the latest Jack Brandon mystery suspense novel at your local bookstore. Follow the author on Twitter @factsfictions80.

INSIGHTS 209 –ADVISOR AND A NEW STRATEGY

The Advisor knew the president wanted to talk about domestic policies on his next visit and that would be easy for him. He knew what the president wanted and how he was going about it. The president’s only problem with his domestic policies is that he is running out of time and losing influence in his party, he thought. If you follow the news reports and are intelligent and skeptical enough to read between the lines, it is apparent the president, who is a political genius in the tactic of changing direction and misdirection, is turning to things he can do with or without Congress.

Hence the turn to ISIS, or ISIL, as the president prefers as it enables him to continue denying that the foundation for a radical Muslim state is already in place. The president’s basic plan will remain the same, even if the words change. His policy is to avoid the use of American military or economic power to achieve nationalistic objectives. In his mind, the world has seen enough of American dominance through capitalism and the use of military power to intervene in world events. The president seems to believe that his one great foreign policy or international accomplishment is in the prevention of American power to solve international problems. Like no other leader, foreign or American, he has driven the U.S. out of the Middle East. The remaining bastions of Western presence in the Middle East will gradually dry up and wither away, much like the last castle strongholds of the Crusaders. The president believes a progressive new world order will emerge to create a better life for all the victims of colonialism and racism. This much he has said right to my face in this very room.

The Advisor paused his musings long enough to pour himself a fresh cup of Sumatra roast coffee and sit back down at his desk. He took a long sniff of the fresh brew and sat back in his chair, the mug warm against his hand.

The president is not a dumb man but neither is he a wise one. His strength comes from his deep commitment to the redistribution of wealth and the destruction of American world dominance. His new strategy for ISIS will not be new. Just different words. Nothing in his new strategy will adjust to ground-truth reality, but it will avoid even the slightest offense to Iran. The president knows what many of the Pentagon’s analysts have said, but he has no intentions of following any of their advice.

It is clear many foreign policy and military analysts know how ISIS can be controlled. First, Western statesman have to recognize that the Western creation of Iraq after the fall of the Turkish Empire has failed. Iraq has always been an artificial state held together by vicious and cruel dictatorial leaders. Keeping the Kurds and Iraqi Sunnis individually weak pleased two Western Cold War allies, Turkey and Iran under the Shah. Even today, neither Turkey nor Iran want to see the United States arm and support either the Kurds or the Sunnis. But any American foreign policy that fails to arm and aid the Kurds and Sunnis will fail. The world has changed. Iran is now a deadly enemy and Turkey is becoming more and more driven by a radical Islamic fervor. Both of these old allies fear the establishment on their borders of a Sunni Caliphate made up of major parts of Iraq and Syria .

Rather than arm the Kurds and Sunnis with effective weapons, so far military aid to either of them has been in the form of words, the president will be guided by Iran and Russia’s alliance with Iran and not by what is in America’s interests. Give up on Iraq as a viable nation. Forget about bringing Iran into the family of nations. Let the Kurds and Sunni tribes establish their own borders. Employ American air power at several times the current level and deploy 10,000 combat and support troops. By combining these changes with a real effort to arm the Kurds and move the Sunni tribes away from ISIS by immediate military and economic support could still be successful, but the president would have to turn his back on Iran and follow American strategic goals. That he will not do.

The Advisor shook his head and sighed heavily, then took a long sip from his mug. If only the president would listen, he thought.

The above is a fictional account of the writing of a legendary but fictional Advisor.

“ISIS: Quiet Justice,” a new Jack Brandon novel by Barry Kelly dealing with ISIS in America, is now available from your local book store, This is the fifth novel in the “Justice”series. Follow the author on Twitter @factsfictions80.

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Filed under Barry Kelly, Conservative views, Eight Decades of Insights, foreign policy, Intelligence & Politics, Iran, ISIS, Israel, Kurds, political solutions, Russia, Shiite, Sunni

Tagged as Iran, iraq, Kurds, Middle East, Obama, politics, sunnis, turkey

by Barry Kelly | May 27, 2015 · 7:48 am

INSIGHTS 208 — THE ADVISOR CORRECTS A FALSE NARRATIVE

During one of the long intervals between presidential visits to The Advisor’s underground office, the Advisor thought to himself: if no one else will get history right and correct the false narratives circulating from the White House and the liberal press, my journals and my Facebook account will contain a clear report of what was happening during my term as the Advisor.

The Bush regime won the war but paved the way for a failed Iraqi government when they destroyed the Iraqi army and the Bath party of Saddam Hussein. None of the existing infrastructure every government needs was left. To make matters worse, the Advisor thought, shaking his head, the Bush administration failed to understand a Shiite/al-Maliki government would never be a check to the Shiite nation of Iran. Instead, the Iranians ended up owning Maliki who preceded to further weaken the Sunnis and the Kurds. For all the American blood and treasure the Bush administration spent in Iraq, little was left for Obama to work with, especially given his primary motive to get out of Iraq as quickly as possible. I doubt President Obama, or either of his inept secretaries of state, ever saw the real geo-political problem a Maliki government would cause. You would think that President Obama, who leans hard in the direction of supporting Sunni Muslims, would have recognized the growth and consequences of Shiite power in Iraq. “Some would argue that he didn’t care about Iraq, his sights were set on using Iran to transform the traditional world order in the Middle East,” he said aloud to no one. “And I am one of them.”

The Advisor sat down at his desk and continued musing. You didn’t need timely intelligence, which Obama claims he never received, to see the Sunni Islamic radicals that joined the rebellion against Syrian Shiite President Assad could easily cross the border into Sunni areas of Iraq. The Sunni tribes alienated by Maliki were ready to provide support in the form of manpower, logistics, weapons, and money. Borders mean nothing if they are not defended.

The result of the ISIS invasion of Iraq is that tribal and religious areas no longer follow the lines drawn by western diplomats after World War I. All remnants of the Shiite/Maliki government are being forced to fall back into Shiite populated areas, primarily south of Baghdad. A realistic map of Iraq will soon show Sunniland, Kurdistan and Shiiteland. The Sunnis and the Kurds will never go back into a centralized Shiite-run government. That failed experiment is over. Only more American blood and treasure could delay the collapse of Iraq, and for what? Our government needs to stop believing an Iraqi centralized government is possible. It is not.

Our policy should be to support the Kurds with modern weapons and monetary aid until their own fighters get properly equipped and to persuade the outside Sunni world to help bring the ISIS under some restraint. In the meantime, use unfettered air power and required boots-on-the-ground to break the advance of ISIS and stop their atrocities against the Christians and other religious groups ISIS is now slaughtering. Some massive evacuations of endangered refugees may be necessary. All because two administrations failed to see the Middle East as it is. Hawks and doves are equally to blame.

With this president’s commitment to Iran. I don’t believe he will allow his administration to support the Kurds or Sunnis in Iraq. They certainly have not sent needed supplies to the Kurds despite their statements to the contrary.

The Advisor sat in silence for a few moments before picking up his pen and putting his thoughts down on a fresh page in his journal.

The above is a fictional account of the writing of a legendary but fictional Advisor.

“ISIS: Quiet Justice,” a new Jack Brandon novel dealing with ISIS in America, is now available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble in print form and nook and Kindle formats.This is the fifth novel in the “Justice”series. Follow the author on Twitter @factsfictions80.

INSIGHTS 207 – THE ADVISOR EXPOSES A FALSE NARRATIVE

For months, the Advisor had been requesting the INSIGHT COUNCIL to approve his application to establish a Facebook page. The approval was finally granted but the Facebook page would be established and controlled by the Council. They reminded him that the only reason they were allowing this breech of protocol is because they are convinced he is facing a unique problem due to the very real conflict between the traditional mission to advise the president and the overriding need to protect and defend the nation and its unique Constitution.

The Advisor thought, the first thing I want to take on are the false narratives that flourish in people addicted to ‘sound bites’ and the last thing they heard from anyone. False narratives are a danger because with the constant bombardment of information that might improve rating numbers, media outlets will knowingly or unknowingly accept the false narrative and use it over and over. Used very much like past and present totalitarian regimes employed and employ the big lie. Repeat it enough and people will begin to believe the false narrative is the true story.

One of the Advisor’s pleasures was to sit down at his keyboard and let his fingers convert thoughts into text. There was a kind of beauty in the process that he couldn’t see when using his fountain pen to write in his journals.

The false narrative now sweeping the country, especially when interviewing presidential candidates is, “If you knew what we know now, would you have sent troops into Iraq during the second Bush presidency?”

The first candidate to respond to this query gave an incredibly stupid answer. No one could have known or even guessed that Americans would elect a man with Barack Obama’s ideology and transforming American program to the White House. Under a normal president, either Republican or Democrat, we would not have totally abandoned the fledging government in Iraq. In the vacuum Obama created, the Iraqis turned to their Shiite neighbor, Iran. It all went downhill from there. We were once the dominant power in the Middle East. No more. We have abandoned Israel and our Sunni allies in favor of Iran. In the years to come, historians will wonder how one man could have caused so many deaths and so much chaos in six years and he isn’t done yet.

And that is not the end of the false narrative. The truth is that getting rid of Saddam Hussein with his genocide policies against Iraqis of different political and religious beliefs was a good thing. Did we forget his invasion of Kuwait? Did we forget that he had used poison gas against the Kurds and the Shiites and our troops found tens of thousands of chemical protection suits and gas masks for Iraqi soldiers? Isn’t poison gas a “weapon of mass destruction?” Did we forget he was funding research into the development of biological weapons and nuclear weapons? The number one terrorist in the world, Abu Nadal, was living in Iraq. A terrorist training site with the shell of a large jet for trainees to practice hijackings with an adjoining military barracks was discovered during the invasion.

Did the Bush Administration make several serious mistakes? Yes! And so did Obama. Did those mistakes cost American and Iraqi lives. Yes! Is this a subject for national debate. Yes and Yes! If Iraq was today a struggling infant democracy with conflicts among the Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites held in check by an American presence and power, would such a question have been asked? I don’t think so.

CIA Headquarters has the words, “THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE” inscribed on their wall. The other side of that inscription is “ACCEPTING FALSE NARRATIVES WILL MAKE YOU SLAVES.”

The above is a fictional account of the writing of a legendary but fictional Advisor.

“ISIS: Quiet Justice,” a new Jack Brandon novel by Barry Kelly dealing with ISIS in America, is now available from your book store, This is the fifth novel in the “Justice”series. Follow the author on Twitter @factsfictions80.

INSIGHTS 205 — THE PRESIDENT LECTURES THE ADVISOR

As the President walked with Chris, the Secret Service chief of his detail, he was anxious for the chance to put the Advisor straight. For all his cultured ways and knowledge, the Advisor is living in a different world, the president thought. He is no revolutionary. He might be black but he doesn’t understand how American blacks are truly the victims of capitalism, colonialism, and white supremacy. Left to people like him, blacks would still be second-class citizens. My mission is to not only transform America but to fix it so that it will never be a world power again. Capitalism, the free market, individual rights and freedoms, and the two-party system will be replaced by a progressive elite that knows better than the masses what the people need. The last thing I do will be to weld this damned old iron door shut with the so-called Advisor inside.

Chris said, “Mr. President, we are here.”

“Yes. I won’t be long.”

The President pressed his right palm against the copper plate and the door slowly opened without a sound. The president wondered, how does this door move so quietly? The old man must have a daily schedule to lubricate the hinges. I’ll give him credit . Everything he does is impeccable. His manners are so correct they piss me off. Somewhere he learned the fine art of brewing outstanding coffee. Damn recipe probably extends back to the days of the founders. He may revere them but I surely don’t. Their system of government was designed to protect property and enable the rich a way to become richer and more powerful, thereby perpetuating the class system.

“Good evening, Mr. President. I’m anxious to hear your response to our last session. If you will take a seat, I’ll pour you a cup of my special blend. It is not much different. But it does have a deeper aroma and a pleasant after taste.”

The President put his nicotine gum in the waste basket and lit up a real cigarette. “It is almost worth coming here just to have your coffee with a cigarette and with no one looking at me at me for smoking. A president has to have a few personal perks. I tell you, I have precious few. Between my wife, my main above-ground advisor, and a bunch of whining bureaucrats, I don’t have much free time. Playing golf, coming here, and speaking at fundraisers are my only getaways.

“I take issue with your comments from last week. No matter what happens after my transformation process, America and the existing world order will never be the same. The world will be a much better place for all but the current rich and powerful. They, along, with the twin evils of capitalism and individual freedoms, will be gone. And so will all the complicated self-serving alliances, treaties, and subtle forms of modern colonialism. Both on the national and international stages the principle of ‘to each according to need and from each according to ability’ will govern. There is not a better guiding theme in any religion or governing scheme.

“I favor Islam for its no-nonsense legal system of Sharia law and its historical hatred of capitalism and all things Western. The religions of the West all support western political goals and objectives. Just look at the death and destruction the Crusades caused. From within Islam I’m a supporter of the great civilizations of the Persian Empires. They embrace the Shiite form of Islam rather than the radical and harsh Sunni version of Islam. Also, the Sunnis have sided with the West, especially America, and that is not good.

“I want the Iranians to have nuclear weapons. The world playing field needs to be leveled and the West has told us for decades that ‘Mutual Assured Destruction’ is a peaceful principle. For when everyone has the bomb, no one will use it. If they do use it, my transformation of the world order will still take place. A new and more just world will rise from the ashes of the past.”

The room grew silent. The Advisor sat quietly. Finally, the president said, “I’m through. Any comments?”

“Yes. One main one. Your goal is not new. Others have tried Marx’s principle. All have ended up in mass deaths, prison camps, and rule by an elite that quickly takes the riches and prerogatives of the wealthy class they replaced. What has ended up are inefficient governing models, a shrinking of economic growth, a harsh and stagnant rule by a group that is not elite but only serves the people in power with no checks on their rule. Individual freedoms, hopes, social mobility are gone. What remains is not a beautiful, better world but an ugly totalitarian rule by believers in a utopia that does not exist and never will.”

“I didn’t think you would understand.”

“On the contrary, I understand all too well.”

“At least you are honest. I’ll come back because I want to tell you about the next two years on the domestic front.”

The president signaled for Chris, drained his cup, and walked to the door. Over his shoulder the president said, “You might not know it but the weather outside is beautiful, gardens are blooming, beautiful women are walking the streets, the rain is soft and warm, it is a real delight to wander around my Rose Garden. You should try it sometime.”

“Thank you, Mr. President, but my place is here as long as I can physically do my duty. I look forward to our next visit.”

The above is a fictional account of a president meeting with a legendary but fictional advisor.

“ISIS: Quiet Justice,” a new Jack Brandon novel dealing with ISIS in America, is now available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble in print form and nook and Kindle formats. Follow the author on Twitter @factsfictions80.