The climactic battles of the American War in Iraq were fought in Anbar Province, with U.S. forces at great cost retaking the city of Fallujah at the end of 2004 and Ramadi, the provincial capital, in 2006-07. The latter success was sparked by an unlikely alliance with tribal fighters that turned around what had been a losing war effort and made possible the success of what became known as "the surge." By 2009, violence had fallen more than 90%, creating an unexpected opportunity to build a stable, democratic and prosperous country in the heart of the Middle East.
It is now obvious that this opportunity has been squandered, with tragic consequences for the entire region. In recent days the Iraqi army appears to have been pushed, at least temporarily, out of Fallujah and Ramadi by al Qaeda in Iraq militants. A battle is raging for control of Anbar Province with some tribal fighters supporting the government and others AQI. Mosul, the major city of northern Iraq and a longtime hotbed of AQI activity, could be next to fall. If it does, AQI would gain effective control of the Sunni Triangle, an area north and west of Baghdad the size of New England.
AQI's control would stretch beyond the Sunni Triangle because its offshoot, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, dominates a significant portion of Syrian territory across the border. This creates the potential for a new nightmare: an al Qaeda state incorporating northern Syria and western Iraq.
Enlarge Image
A man shows off the V-sign for victory as he stand on top of a burn out truck on the side of the main highway leading West out of Baghdad to Fallujah, on January 5, 2014. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Even if this worst-case scenario does not come to pass—even if Mosul holds and even if the Iraqi army succeeds in regaining control of Ramadi and Fallujah—the odds of Iraq becoming embroiled, like Syria, in a full-blown civil war are growing by the day. Iraq is almost there already: The United Nations reports that last year 8,868 Iraqis were killed, the highest death toll since the dark days of 2008. Car bombings have become such a regular occurrence that they barely make the news.
What happened? How did Iraq go from relatively good to god-awful in the last two years?
The chief culprit is al Qaeda, which has shown a disturbing but nevertheless impressive ability to bounce back from near-defeat. But it would never have been able to do so if it did not enjoy significant support among the Sunni population of Anbar, Ninewah, Diyala and other provinces. When the group lost that support in 2007, AQI's operatives were quickly rolled up. Today it enjoys freedom to maneuver because it has the backing of many Sunnis who now see it as a defender against a predatory, sectarian Shiite government.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has no one but himself to blame. If he had embraced the Sunni Awakening movement, Iraq likely would have remained relatively peaceful. Instead, the moment that U.S. troops left Iraq, he immediately began victimizing prominent Sunnis.
In December 2011 Mr. Maliki sent his security forces to arrest Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, who escaped but was sentenced to death in absentia based on the testimony of his bodyguards, allegedly extracted under torture. In December 2012, security forces arrested the bodyguards of Raffi al-Essawi, a former finance minister, and other leading Sunni politicians. Mr. Essawi narrowly missed winding up in prison. Another prominent Sunni parliamentarian, Ahmed al-Awlani, was arrested just a few days ago, on Dec. 28, after a gunfight between his bodyguards and Iraqi security forces that left his brother dead.
Mr. Awlani's arrest set off the events that culminated in al Qaeda fighters, dressed in black, parading through the streets of Fallujah and Ramadi. Mr. Maliki reacted to protests over Mr. Awlani's detention by sending his security forces to close down a protest camp in Ramadi. This sparked major fighting, with many Sunni leaders in Anbar urging their followers to resist government troops under the orders of a Shiite regime. Sheikh Abdul Malek al Saadi's message, translated by the Institute for the Study of War, was typical: "Oh heroes of Fallujah and other towns. Cut the road and prevent Maliki's troops from reaching your brothers in the heart of Anbar. Maliki wants to wipe out every one of the people he dislikes, using the antiterrorism pretext again."
Not all is necessarily lost. While some Anbar sheiks have cast their lot with AQI, others continue to side with the government and cooperate with local police, if not with the Iraqi army. Most prominent has been Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, one of the Sunni Awakening leaders. On Jan. 1 he called on his followers to fight against AQI's attempts "to commit their crimes, to cut off the heads, blow up houses, kill scholars and disrupt life."
Iraq may once again stumble back from the brink of all-out civil war. But it is unlikely to recover the promise of 2009-11—in retrospect, a mini-golden age—because Mr. Maliki is unlikely to mend his ways.
What Iraq needs now is what it saw in 2007 when Gen. David Petraeus orchestrated a full-blown counterinsurgency strategy. Such a strategy has many facets, but one of the most important is a political "line of operations," which in this case means fostering reconciliation between the prime minister and tribal leaders of Anbar.
The U.S. lost most of its leverage to do that when it foolishly pulled its troops out of Iraq at the end of 2011 after the failure of halfhearted negotiations overseen by Vice President Joe Biden. Selling Iraq Hellfire missiles, as the Obama administration has just done, is a poor substitute. It is positively destructive because it only further inflames the situation and creates the impression that the Americans are siding with militant Shiites in a sectarian civil war.
Washington should make clear that military and intelligence help, which Baghdad has requested, will be forthcoming only if Mr. Maliki extends an open hand, rather than a clenched fist, to his country's Sunnis.
Mr. Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of "Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present" (Liveright, 2013)


2b)
Jack Wheeler is a brilliant man who was the author of Reagan's strategy to break the back of the Soviet Union with the star wars race and expose their inner weakness. For years he wrote a weekly intelligence update that was extremely interesting and well structured and informative. He consults(Ed) with several mega corporations on global trends and the future, etc. He is in semi-retirement now. He has a no-nonsense approach to everything and is also a somewhat well-known mountain climber and adventurer. 
Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler 
The O-man, Barack Hussein Obama, is an eloquently tailored empty suit. No resume, no accomplishments, no experience, no original ideas, no understanding of how the economy works, no understanding of how the world works, no balls, nothing but abstract, empty rhetoric devoid of real substance.
He has no real identity. He is half-white, which he rejects. The rest of him is mostly Arab, which he hides but is disclosed by his non-African Arabic surname and his Arabic first and middle names as a way to triply proclaim his Arabic parentage to people in Kenya . Only a small part of him is African Black from his Luo grandmother, which he pretends he is exclusively.
What he isn't, not a genetic drop of, is 'African-American,' the descendant of enslaved Africans brought to America chained in slave ships. He hasn't a single ancestor who was a slave. Instead, his Arab ancestors were slave owners.Slave-trading was the main Arab business in East Africa for centuries until the British ended it.
Let that sink in: Obama is not the descendant of slaves, he is the descendant of slave owners. Thus he makes the perfect Liberal Messiah.
It's something Hillary doesn't understand - how some complete neophyte came out of the blue and stole the Dem nomination from her. Obamamania is beyond politics and reason. It is a true religious cult, whose adherents reject Christianity yet still believe in Original Sin, transferring it from the evil of being human to the evil of being white.
Thus Obama has become the white liberals' Christ, offering absolution from the Sin of Being White. There is no reason or logic behind it, no faults or flaws of his can diminish it, no arguments Hillary could make of any kind can be effective against it. The absurdity of Hypocrisy Clothed In Human Flesh being their Savior is all the more cause for liberals to worship him: Credo quia absurdum, I believe it because it is absurd.
Thank heavens that the voting majority of Americans remain Christian and are in no desperate need of a phony savior.
He is ridiculous and should not be taken seriously by any thinking American.

And yet he got elected, not once but twice. Thanks to those that did not think it was important to vote for freedom and those that were willing to give up their freedoms for entitlements.

Remember you don't have to be on a southern plantation to be a slave, if you are dependent on government entitlements you just have a different slave owner.


2c)

Obama's Engagement with Mullahs Has Only Bought Them Time

Reza Kahlili
Family Security Matters

Almost four years after President Obama tried to engage the radical leaders of Iran, it is too late to stop the Islamic regime from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Now we have a more immediate crisis to worry about: a biological attack on the United States, which Iran is preparing.

A highly credible source within the supreme leader's office has said the regime is actively working on its nuclear bomb program from three secret sites besides those already known to the International Atomic Energy Agency, and it has enough weaponized-grade uranium and, through North Korea, plutonium, for three nuclear bombs. It also has produced several extremely dangerous viral and bacterial weapons.

As of several months ago, the regime was working on arming its missiles with nuclear warheads. It has armed 37 ballistic missiles and many cluster bombs with microbial weapons.

The Iranian government thinks the Obama administration's efforts to reach a negotiated solution with Iran and normalize relations have bought it time to reach the nuclear capability it has today.

The Kuwaiti newspaper Alrai last week reported that Mr. Obama has stated his willingness to travel to Iran and meet with the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to open the doors of America and the West to Iran and recognize its role in the region if the Iranians would agree to a negotiated solution over their nuclear program.

While Mr. Obama pushed his agenda, Russia and North Korea helped the regime with its nuclear and biological programs. With more than 1,000 ballistic missiles in the nation's inventory, the radicals ruling Iran are able to target not only Israel and all U.S. bases in the Middle East, but also capitals in Europe. Iran soon will have the capability, with North Korea's help, to target any point on the planet as it completes its intercontinental ballistic missile program. That was underscored recently by North Korea's successful test of a three-stage rocket, showing its ability to build an ICBM.

The lure of negotiations gave the Islamic regime exactly what it was looking for -- time -- something that still haunts the West as it pushes for further dialogue, knowing full well that Iran indeed has crossed the red line. Yet, weary of war, the West has allowed a much more dangerous situation to take place in which any confrontation now will be much more devastating than before.

The source also provided valuable information on terrorist teams that have infiltrated America, France and Germany, getting ready for attacks on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001, if not greater, should the West further increase sanctions or gear up for confrontation with Iran over its illicit nuclear program.

The information, which has been passed on to U.S. officials, is being taken seriously, and it is clear that there is a good understanding of the threat Iran poses to America and world stability.

What makes it worse is that Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist proxies of the Iranian government have been armed with microbial weapons. Chemical and microbial weapons have been transferred to Iran's proxies in the region. However, Iranian scientists, with the help of Russia, are working on 18 biological agents and already have developed several, including anthrax, encephalitis, SARS, Ebola, cholera, smallpox and the plague.

Most disturbing, though, is that with the help of North Korea, Iran has managed to genetically alter smallpox so Western vaccines will be worthless against it. Iran is working out of several sites on projects to make insects the carriers of diseases such as the plague, the "Black Death" that killed one-third of Europe's population during the Middle Ages.

The regime also knows that once its medium-range ballistic missiles and ICBMs armed with nuclear warheads are operational, the U.S. deterrent umbrella in the region will be undermined, as America itself could become a target.

More important, Iran will become the domino player in the stability of the Strait of Hormuz, through which more than 20 percent of the world's petroleum passes. Knowing quite well that a full-blown war and a nuclear exchange in the oil-rich region could collapse the global economy, sending the world into the greatest depression it has seen, the world will become hostage to the goals of the radicals ruling Iran, who already are threatening the existence of Israel and inciting rebellion against U.S.-friendly governments in the region. Moreover, Iran has terror cells on the world stage, with a big presence in Africa and Latin America, that threaten the stability of Western countries.

In recent days, the media of the Islamic regime have been celebrating the probable new appointees in Mr. Obama's second term, calling John F. Kerry and Chuck Hagel Iran-friendly and stating that the president will continue his policy of dialogue rather than confrontation with Iran.

Washington must recognize that the lure of negotiations can no longer serve our national interests and that our security is on the line. It must act immediately with our European allies to drastically increase pressure on the regime politically and economically, while at the same time through various means help the Iranian people, the majority of whom resent their radical rulers, in their fight for change from within.

Mr. Obama must realize that negotiations and sanctions will not lead the Islamists to change course. It is not about the economy -- it is the ideology. Now more than ever, the president must accept and act on this fact, as millions of lives are on the line.

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for an ex-CIA spy who requires anonymity for safety reasons.  He is a senior fellow with EMPact America and the author of A Time to Betray, a book about his double-life as a CIA agent in Iran's Revolutionary Guards, published by Threshold Editions, Simon & Schuster, April 2010.  A Time to Betray was the winner of the 2010 National Best Book Award and the 2011 International Best Book Award.