An excerpt from, "Too many moving parts, too many" by Colonel Patrick Lang:
Obama appears to have a mass of moving parts in his campaign plan: - The plan assumes that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey can be made into active supporters of an anti-IS "war." Qatar and Saudi Arabia were the only Wahhabi dominated states until IS proclaimed its caliphal status. These two countries are deeply sympathetic to IS' goals if not its methods. Both Qatar and Saudi Arabia were instrumental in the early stages of development of IS as it morphed from AQ Iraq, into the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and then to a final glory as IS. Do we really think it will be easy to enlist Qatar and Saudi Arabia in this fight? Do we really think that these deeply Sunni states are going to support continued Shia governance from Baghdad?
- Erdogan's Turkey has been a supporter of Sunni governments and movements from the moment he took office. Remember Erdogan's refusal to allow US troop transit (4th Infantry Division) for entry into Iraq from the north in 2003. To this day, Erdogan is not allowing the use by the US of air bases in Turkey. Those air bases would greatly facilitate air operations in Iraq and Syria. It should be remembered as well that Erdogan's Turkey provided shelter, supply lines, transit rights and training space for IS among other Sunni jihadi groups fighting in Syria. The Turks are still doing this.
- There is a new face in Shia government in Baghdad. A new cabinet has been suggested as a possibility by the existence of that face. Unfortunately the two most important cabinet posts, Defense and Interior, have not been appointed yet. IMO there will be a mighty struggle among the Shia Arabs over the issue of assignment of these two ministries to Sunni Arabs. The Shia know that if they do not control the police and the army, they do not control Iraq.
- Obama intends to simultaneously wage war in eastern Syria against IS while also waging war in Western Syria against the Syrian Government. He, apparently intends to ignore the possible cooperation of Syria with regard to airfields and air units as well as Syrian, and/or Hizbullah ground forces. Churchill said that to fight Hitler he would fight him in hell if necessary and make an alliance with the devil to do it. In accordance with that idea he allied the UK with the USSR. Obama also intends to increase arms deliveries to "moderate" Syrian guerrillas. IMO these groups never amounted to much militarily. They were always the "unicorn army," and could never have defeated Syria's government no matter what you gave them. And in fact the "moderates" have among them many pro-jihadi people.
