Beyond the Nuclear Agreement, Iran’s Grander Plan

Most un-noticed in Barack Obama’s responses to questions of his elation at the Iran nuclear agreement was his declared shift on the mission with regard to Syria, turning to Iran to be part of the full strategy talks.

Iran gained additional power and authority by the P5+1

In part from the WSJ: In this quest beyond its Shiite roots, revolutionary Iran has always tried to build bonds with Sunni political Islam, especially the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots.
Mr. Khamenei, for one, has personally translated into Persian the writings of the Brotherhood’s seminal ideologue, Sayyid Qutb. Hamas, the Palestinian offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, was a client of Iran’s since the 1990s, as was overwhelmingly Sunni Sudan.
[12:39:25 PM] tennisaddict: All these alliances, however, began to crumble in the wake of the Arab Spring. Hamas’s relationship with Iran was made unsustainable by Iran’s involvement against Sunni rebels—many of them belonging to the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood—in the Syrian war. Even Sudan, the one-time conduit for Iranian weapons to Hamas and a major recipient of Iranian military aid, switched sides and backed Saudi Arabia in this year’s war against pro-Iranian Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia stands with Israel and the Iran Threat Obsession

From NYT’s:

For decades, Saudi Arabia has poured billions of its oil dollars into sympathetic Islamic organizations around the world, quietly practicing checkbook diplomacy to advance its agenda.

But a trove of thousands of Saudi documents recently released by WikiLeaks reveals in surprising detail how the government’s goal in recent years was not just to spread its strict version of Sunni Islam — though that was a priority — but also to undermine its primary adversary: Shiite Iran.

The documents from Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry illustrate a near obsession with Iran, with diplomats in Africa, Asia and Europe monitoring Iranian activities in minute detail and top government agencies plotting moves to limit the spread of Shiite Islam.

The scope of this global oil-funded operation helps explain the kingdom’s alarm at the deal reached on Tuesday between world powers and Iran over its nuclear program. Saudi leaders worry that relief from sanctions will give Iran more money to strengthen its militant proxies. But the documents reveal a depth of competition that is far more comprehensive, with deep roots in the religious ideologies that underpin the two nations.

A cable from the Saudi Embassy in Pakistan noting that the president of the International Islamic University of Islamabad had invited the Iranian ambassador to a cultural week on campus.

The documents indicate an extensive apparatus inside the Saudi government dedicated to missionary activity that brings in officials from the Foreign, Interior and Islamic Affairs Ministries; the intelligence service and the office of the king.

Recent initiatives have included putting foreign preachers on the Saudi payroll; building mosques, schools and study centers; and undermining foreign officials and news media deemed threatening to the kingdom’s agenda.

At times, the king got involved, ordering an Iranian television station off the air or granting $1 million to an Islamic association in India.

“We are talking about thousands and thousands of activist organizations and preachers who are in the Saudi sphere of influence because they are directly or indirectly funded by them,” said Usama Hasan, a senior researcher in Islamic studies at the Quilliam Foundation in London. “It has been a huge factor, and the Saudi influence is undeniable.”

While the documents do not show any Saudi support for militant activity, critics argue that the kingdom’s campaign against Shiites — and its promotion of a strict form of Islam — has eroded pluralism in the Muslim world and added to the tensions fueling conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere.

The Saudi government has made no secret of its international religious mission, nor of its enmity toward Iran. But it has found the leaks deeply embarrassing and has told its citizens that spreading them is a crime.

While it has acknowledged a link between the documents and an electronic attack on the Foreign Ministry, it has said that some of the documents are fabricated. But many of them contain correct names and telephone numbers, and a number of individuals and associations named in them verified their contents when reached by reporters from The New York Times.

The Foreign Ministry relayed funding requests to officials in Riyadh; the Interior Ministry and the intelligence agency sometimes vetted potential recipients; the Saudi-supported Muslim World League helped coordinate strategy; and Saudi diplomats across the globe oversaw projects. Together, these officials identified sympathetic Muslim leaders and associations abroad; distributed funds and religious literature produced in Saudi Arabia; trained preachers; and gave them salaries to work in their own countries.

One example of this is Sheikh Suhaib Hasan, an Indian Islamic scholar who was educated in Saudi Arabia and worked for the kingdom for four decades in Kenya and in Britain, where he helped found the Islamic Sharia Council, according to a cable from the Saudi Embassy in London whose contents were verified by his son, Mr. Hassan of the Quilliam Foundation.

Clear in many of the cables are Saudi fears of Iranian influence and of the spread of Shiite Islam.

The Saudi Embassy in Tehran sent daily reports on local news coverage of Saudi Arabia. One cable suggested the kingdom improve its image by starting a Persian-language television station and sending pro-Saudi preachers to tour Iran.

Other cables detailed worries that Iran sought to turn Tajikistan into “a center to export its religious revolution and to spread its ideology in the region’s countries.” The Saudi ambassador in Tajikistan suggested that Tajik officials could restrict Iranian support “if other sources of financial support become available, especially from the kingdom.”

A cable from the Saudi Embassy in Budapest requesting funds to open Islamic centers.

The fear of Shiite influence extended to countries where Muslims are small minorities, like China, where a Saudi delegation was charged with “suggesting practical programs that can be carried out to confront Shiite expansion in China.” And documents from the Philippines, where only 5 percent of the population is Muslim, included suggested steps to “restrict the Iranian presence.”

In 2012, Saudi ambassadors from across Africa were told to file reports on Iranian activities in their countries. The Saudi ambassador to Uganda soon filed a detailed report on “Shiite expansion” in the mostly Christian country.

A cable from the predominantly Muslim nation of Mali warned that Iran was appealing to the local Muslims, who knew little of “the truth of the extremist, racist Shiite ideology that goes against all other Islamic schools.”

Many of those seeking funds referred to the Saudi-Iranian rivalry in their appeals, the cables showed.

One proposal from the Afghan Foundation in Afghanistan said that it needed funding because such projects “do not receive support from any entities, while others, especially Shiites, get a lot of aid from several places, including Iran.”

Guzman’s Sinaloa, Global Narcotics Power and Violence

El Chapo Guzman, the wealthiest narcotics trafficker in the world and maintaining an empire where is personal war chest is valued into the billions, remains at large after escaping from a Mexican prison.

Factoid:

Between 1987 and 1989, Gúzman used both airplanes and ships to smuggle 20 to 24 tons of cocaine to the United States every month. Authorities believe Gúzman operated no less than ten aircraft at one time. For an interesting read on the genesis of the cartels in Mexico, the names and the inner sanctum within the Mexican government, click here.

In Mexico and beyond, what is most misunderstood is the government and law enforcement corruption that colludes the cartels. Fundamentally, the cartels runs the Mexican government through covert payroll, bribes and extortion. This is a model used throughout Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. Narco dollars worldwide is an industry well in competition for ranking with the petro-dollar.

The estimated related deaths in Mexico attributed to the cartels is difficult to estimate mostly due to lack of reporting by law enforcement and government officials yet in one year the numbers hover around 200,000. Journalist are on the hit lists for just investigating, so reporting on the ground conditions has become fleeting at best.

In Mexico, Crime Is Bigger Than a Crime Boss

From Stratfor

Summary

The July 11 escape of the notorious Sinaloa crime boss, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, from a maximum-security prison in Mexico has drawn considerable Mexican and international media attention. While the brazen and elaborate nature of the escape will add to the lore already surrounding Guzman, the escape itself carries little significance for organized crime in Mexico — though it will place a momentary strain on coordination between U.S. and Mexican law enforcement. The forces that drive the evolution of organized crime and their impact on society in Mexico are simply greater than any single crime boss.

Analysis

Mexico’s geography enabled drug traffickers like Guzman to operate on a global scale. As international law enforcement effectively dismantled the powerful Colombian cartels and stymied their maritime trafficking routes through the Caribbean in the 1980s and 1990s, Mexico became the lynchpin of new smuggling routes into the United States. This evolution took place just as the Mexican criminal networks that trafficked drugs broke down into smaller groups. Though crime bosses like Guzman rose in stature relative to others, all organized crime groups in Mexico are the result of a systematic decentralization in cartel structure that continues today.

In fact, by the time Guzman was arrested in February 2014, the Sinaloa Cartel was already fragmenting. Groups that operated in areas such as Chihuahua, Sonora, Sinaloa and Baja California states — areas that were once part of El Chapo’s criminal network — were already acting autonomously. Some of them were even fighting one another. The arrest of Guzman and the subsequent capture of some of his lieutenants only accelerated this trend. Now, geographic domains that were controlled by Sinaloa-based crime bosses for decades are now controlled by other groups, including the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, which expanded from the Tierra Caliente region, and La Linea, which was once the enforcement group for the Juarez cartel.

Among the myths surrounding El Chapo were tales pertaining to his purported role as an arbiter of organized crime in Mexico. According to some of those myths, his organization preferred to expand its business operations through negotiation, rather than through violent conflict. But Guzman, in fact, was party to some of the most violent turf wars in Mexico, introducing rampant insecurity in places such as Tijuana, Nuevo Laredo and Ciudad Juarez. These conflicts had subsided by the time he was arrested but not before nationwide turf wars devolved into more localized conflicts. Guzman may attempt to re-consolidate the control he once had over Mexico’s organized crime activities, but his previous efforts to do so failed, and the task would be even tougher now that his network has become even thinner.

Since 2012, Mexican organized crime has become increasingly balkanized amid government efforts to revamp public security institutions, and nationwide levels of organized crime-related violence have gradually diminished. Though having more crime groups means there are more bosses, these leaders have not been able to sustain violent offensives against their rivals and fend off the state as well as their predecessors did. And while waves of extreme violence can still emerge in places like Tamaulipas, they typically weaken as soon as security forces move in — in contrast to past conflicts in places like Juarez, where violence continued to climb despite repeated deployments of federal troops.

For additional information on the cartels two summaries can be found in the links below.

http://web.wm.edu/so/monitor/issues/14-2/4-vinson.pdf

http://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41576.pdf

Iran, Argentina, Cuba, Venezuela, Nuclear Program and a Dead Body

This is likely going to be the longest and wordiest post on this website, but it is germane to events today when it comes to Barack Obama spiking the football on the Iran nuclear deal.

Alberto Nisman is dead.

I have been tracking this event in Argentina for several months and thanks to New Yorker magazine, several more items are now in better perspective.

After hanging around in WikiLeaks cables, more truth bubbles to the surface with regard to Barack Obama, Iran and inspections but more so, Iran’s further covert operations in Latin America, in our own hemisphere.

GW Bush, told Iran, there will be NO negotiations.

The IAEA could not get access to sites for inspection, yet Barack Obama well full throttle with talks, paying to get Iran to the table and to keep them there. The White House knew quite well about Iran’s black market actions in Cuba, Venezuela and in Argentina and embassy officials put out cables for a call to action.

In 1994, there was a truck bomb at a Jewish Center in Argentina that killed 85 and injured hundreds. Prosecutor Alberto Nisman worked years to prove it was at the request of Nasrallah with the orders given by the top officials in the Iranian regime. The investigation by Nisman led him around the globe to perform interviews, work with the FBI who did the forensic investigation and even Interpol issued ‘red-sheets’.

Alberto Nisman is DEAD. He was shot a day before he was to present his full case to an Argentinian panel of judges.

This WikiLeaks cable explains in short form the events and the complicity of the top government officials in Argentina to cover up the whole history which brings in the White House, Cuba, Venezuela and Iran.

Who knew that Argentina had a nuclear program and was enriching uranium? Well those in the Obama administration did, Iran did, Venezuela did as well as Cuba and the United Nations. Ahmadinejad needed all 3 Latin American country’s cooperation and he got it willingly.

Oh and Reuters knew as well.

Did Venezuela begin a nuclear program? Not yet, but they had uranium and the discussion began as well as clandestine deals including cooperation with Iran.

Alberto Nisman is still dead and no one is paying attention to who killed him, except Iran and Argentina’s President Kirchner, she is paid and is an agent of Iran to cover for Iran’s guilt in the death of Nisman but more on the 1992 AIMA bombing.

Do the Saudis know about all of this? Yes, they are more concerned about Iran than Israel due to the hate going back many more years so they keep pace with all actions of Iran. The Saudis even warned several intelligence services in Latin America.

If you are inclined to see the Iranians in Argentina and who played several nefarious roles there. click here.

Several in President Kirchner’s administration have traveled to the White House to ask Obama and the Department of Justice to influence Interpol to remove sanctions on key Iranian players in exchange for additional information on Iran’s nuclear weapons program in country and in Latin America. The WH said no, the inner circle during the WH lead P5+1 talks was a tight and highly controlled group and those Iranians on the Interpol list may be needed during the negotiations until Iran said NO to John Kerry.

For a full yet shorter explanation of the murder of Alberto Nisman, click here.

As for the New Yorker story which as written should be a Hollywood thriller, click here and enjoy some popcorn during the long read.

Obama’s Signature Causes Deaths by Illegals

The White House spokesperson Josh Earnest has been asked several times about the shooting death of Kate Steinle in San Francisco. Earnest replied they have nothing to add on the matter and referred reporters to the Department of Homeland Security and or to the Department of Justice. More on that later.

There is no more Safe Act, there is no more Secure Community or Sanctuary for America, only for the criminal immigrants, they are the protected class.

Background and context

Sadly, due to ridiculous arguments on immigration law enforcement by the left and the horrific case loads of crimes caused by illegals, in 2008, Congress passed a law title the Safe Act(Secure Communities) to force compliance to all immigration laws.

From ICE:

The highest priority of any law enforcement agency is to protect the communities it serves. When it comes to enforcing our nation’s immigration laws, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) focuses its limited resources on those who have been arrested for breaking criminal laws.

ICE prioritizes the removal of criminal aliens, those who pose a threat to public safety, and repeat immigration violators.

Secure Communities is a simple and common sense way to carry out ICE’s priorities. It uses an already-existing federal information-sharing partnership between ICE and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that helps to identify criminal aliens without imposing new or additional requirements on state and local law enforcement. For decades, local jurisdictions have shared the fingerprints of individuals who are arrested or booked into custody with the FBI to see if they have a criminal record. Under Secure Communities, the FBI automatically sends the fingerprints to DHS to check against its immigration databases. If these checks reveal that an individual is unlawfully present in the United States or otherwise removable due to a criminal conviction, ICE takes enforcement action – prioritizing the removal of individuals who present the most significant threats to public safety as determined by the severity of their crime, their criminal history, and other factors – as well as those who have repeatedly violated immigration laws.

For additional details, click here.

By the stroke of the pen, Barack Obama suspended, well terminated the law. Let that sink in.

While the implementation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of the state/local partnership agreements known as the 287(g) program has been a source of great controversy, it is far from the only tool ICE uses to engage state and local law enforcement in immigration control.  Most notably, the Secure Communities Program, which launched in March 2008, has been held out as a simplified model for state and local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. This fact sheet lays out the basics of Secure Communities program, how it works, key areas of concern and recommendations on how to improve the program.

What is Secure Communities?

Secure Communities is a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program designed to identify immigrants in U.S. jails who are deportable under immigration law. Under Secure Communities, participating jails submit arrestees’ fingerprints not only to criminal databases, but to immigration databases as well, allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) access to information on individuals held in jails. Unlike other ICE-local partnerships, Secure Communities gives ICE a technological, not physical, presence in prisons and jails. Unlike the 287(g) program, no local law-enforcement agents are deputized to enforce immigration laws through Secure Communities.

As of September 27, 2011, Secure Communities was available in 1,595 jurisdictions in 44 states and territories. ICE plans to implement Secure Communities in each of the 3,100 state and local jails across the country by 2013. ICE reported that, as of September 30, 2011, over 11,000,000 fingerprint submissions have resulted in 692,788 database matches. As a result of Secure Communities, ICE had removed more than 142,000 persons. Many more details here.

In 2014, Barack Obama wound this law back which has proven to be a deadly action of which there is no dispute.

From the White House:

FACT SHEET:  Immigration Accountability Executive Action

The President’s Immigration Accountability Executive Actions will help secure the border, hold nearly 5 million undocumented immigrants accountable, and ensure that everyone plays by the same rules.  Acting within his legal authority, the President is taking an important step to fix our broken immigration system.

These executive actions crack down on illegal immigration at the border, prioritize deporting felons not families, and require certain undocumented immigrants to pass a criminal background check and pay their fair share of taxes as they register to temporarily stay in the U.S. without fear of deportation.

These are common sense steps, but only Congress can finish the job. As the President acts, he’ll continue to work with Congress on a comprehensive, bipartisan bill—like the one passed by the Senate more than a year ago—that can replace these actions and fix the whole system. For the stepped process, it is important to click here.

On July 14, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson appeared before Congress on the matter of Sanctuary Cities.

Washington Times:

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson admitted Tuesday that the administration goofed in releasing an illegal immigrant to sanctuary city San Francisco ahead of a shocking murder earlier this month, but said there’s little the government can do to pressure sanctuary communities to change their minds.

Facing lawmakers for the first time since the slaying of Kathryn Steinle, a 32-year-old killed while out walking with her father, Mr. Johnson said he’s made personal appeals to San Francisco to rethink its refusal to let police cooperate with federal immigration agents, and will try again in the wake of the killing.

But he declined to criticize sanctuary cities themselves, and told Congress not to try to pass laws forcing cooperation, saying it could conflict with the Constitution, and it won’t win over the hearts of reluctant communities.

In 2012, John Morton, then-director of ICE, told Congress he was pushing within the administration to punish sanctuary cities, but signaled the Justice Department was blocking that.

Mr. Morton at the time said he’d fight to cut off funding for sanctuary cities.

But that’s no longer Homeland Security’s position. New ICE Director Sarah R. Saldana had told Congress earlier this year she would welcome a law forcing communities to cooperate, but a day later retracted that statement after receiving a talking-to from Mr. Johnson.

Beyond the sanctuary city issue, Mr. Johnson said border security is improving. Border Patrol agents are on pace to apprehend fewer than 400,000 illegal immigrants this year, which could be the lowest total since the 1970s. The agency says that means fewer people are even attempting to cross in the first place. For the full story, click here.

Jeh Johnson appeared before Congress and was asked about the matter of the event in San Francisco and if had any comment about the Steinle death. His reply was ‘I don’t know who that is’. So, this spells out that the information and intelligence network from the ground does not make it to DC’s DHS headquarters. How can Johnson be so detached?

This video will answer that question.

 

 

 

Defeat of ISIS in Iraq Remains Elusive

From the Department of Defense:

Coalition Airstrikes Destroy Vehicle Bomb Factory in Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, July 15, 2015 – U.S. and coalition military forces have continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Syria and Iraq, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.

“In the past 48 hours, coalition airstrikes hit five vehicle-borne [improvised explosive devices] and a factory producing these weapons in Ramadi,” said Army Lt. Col. Thomas Gilleran, task force spokesman. “Removing these weapons from the battlefield is a high priority for the coalition.”

Officials reported details of the latest strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.

Airstrikes in Syria

Attack, bomber, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 16 airstrikes in Syria:

— Near Hasakah, six airstrikes struck an ISIL large tactical unit and five ISIL tactical units destroying two ISIL fighting positions, an ISIL bunker, an ISIL tunnel entrance, an ISIL vehicle-borne improvised explosive device, an ISIL anti-aircraft artillery weapon, an ISIL artillery piece and two ISIL checkpoints.

— Near Aleppo, six airstrikes struck 27 ISIL staging areas.

— Near Raqqah, an airstrike struck an ISIL tactical unit.

— Near Dayr Az Zawr, an airstrike struck an ISIL tactical unit.

— Near Kobani, an airstrike struck an ISIL tactical unit.

— Near Tal Abyad, an airstrike struck an ISIL large tactical unit and destroyed three ISIL fighting positions.

ISW: ‘ISIS will benefit’ from the Iran nuclear deal

The United States and other world powers struck a landmark deal with Iran over its nuclear program this week, and the agreement might benefit one group that the US hadn’t counted on — the Islamic State.

Hassan Hassan, an associate fellow at the think tank Chatham House and co-author of the recent book “ISIS: Inside The Army of Terror,” told The Wall Street Journal that the nuclear deal could make already-disaffected Sunnis feel even more like the US and Iran are conspiring against them.

“ISIS will benefit a lot from this deal; segments of the Sunni community in the region will see Iran as having won and brought in from the dark,” Hassan said.

The Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh), a Sunni terror group, already capitalizes on Sunni grievances for recruitment and support. ISIS presents itself as the sole protector of Sunni populations in Iraq and Syria, where Shiite-aligned regimes dominate.

And conspiracy theories about US collusion with Iran, a Shiite theocracy, add fuel to the flames as Iran expands its influence across the Middle East.

“ISIS has already convinced a number of Sunni tribes that the Iranians are already establishing the Shia crescent” and Sunni interests won’t be protected, Christopher Harmer, a senior naval analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, told Business Insider last month.

View gallery

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isis control

(The Institute for the Study of War)

Allowing Iran to maintain its nuclear program, albeit a curtailed and controlled version of it, isn’t likely to make Sunnis rest easy. While the deal is designed to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, some are skeptical about whether Iran will hold up its end of the bargain.

There’s also concern about the sanctions relief that comes with the deal — Iran is already pouring billions of dollars into proxy conflicts in Iraq and Syria, and the extra money that will come with an easing of western sanctions might be used to ramp up Iran’s participation in these conflicts.

President Barack Obama has assured skeptics that the money from sanctions relief will be spent on growing the Iranian economy, but Eli Lake reported last month that Iran is spending much more to support the embattled regime of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad than the Obama administration has ever acknowledged.

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iran assad Khamenei

(REUTERS/Stringer (IRAN)) Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad meets Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran February 18, 2007.

Iran also puts significant resources into fighting ISIS in Iraq. The Shia militias Iran supports and, in some cases, controls have become one of the most effective ground forces against the Sunni extremists.

Even though the militias are fairly effective at driving ISIS terrorists out of cities, the militia fighters themselves have been accused of burning down Sunni villages and committing atrocities against civilians, which only serves to widen the gulf between Sunnis and Shiites.

And even in some cases where there isn’t outright violence against Sunni civilians, militia members have reportedly refused to let many Sunnis back into their homes after ISIS has left their cities.

This is all what ISIS wants. The group thrives on sectarian chaos and hopes to drive Shias to commit atrocities so that Sunnis who might have previously turned against ISIS will be forced to live with the extremists, lest they make enemies of both ISIS and the militias.

“Much of Iran’s funding in Syria has gone toward arming predominantly Shia proxies—notably the so-called National Defense Force, an IRGC-QF-built super-militia—which fight Sunnis on behalf of Assad,” Michael Weiss and Nancy Youssef wrote for The Daily Beast. “An outgrowth of the sectarianism inherent in the Iranian and Syrian regime’s counterinsurgency has been ISIS, which draws thousands of Sunnis seeking to shield themselves from what they view as Shia jihadists.”

 For a full summary of White House policy to date, click here.