Operation Featherweight: Month 15, Week 1, Day 4.

As I mentioned yesterday the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or perhaps more specifically the war in Syria has been a main feature of the annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

The main event on this topic was a day long, high level Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) conference hosted by the United States. Rather then being a UNGA specific event this was the latest in a series of summits that the US has been hosting with the last one taking place in Washington D.C, US back in February.

Unfortunately yesterday's CVE Summit was just as bizarre and utterly unrelated to the fight against ISIL as the one back in February.

The core premise of the US' CVE strategy is that ISIL aren't a group of apocalyptic nihilists who want to re-establish a Sunni Islamic State in the Levant region in order to trigger the return of God to earth bringing about the end of the World.

Instead the US views them as honest and true Sunni Muslims who have been horrifically oppressed by the Syrian government that they have been left with no option other then to take up arms against the governments of Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Nigeria.

At the time of the February summit in terms of it's relevance and effectiveness I likened the US CVE strategy to an old and slightly terrible joke;

"Q. How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. Bicycle!"

The US' main contribution to yesterday's summit was to get US Attorney General Loretta Lynch to unveil what they call the "Stronger Cities Network."

Simply inviting Ms Lynch is inflammatory because along with her predecessor Eric Holder she has been a major driving force behind the "Black Lives Matter (BLM)" campaign which seems to view rioting and looting as the solution. As such she has absolutely nothing to offer the Central African Republic (CAR) where rioting and looting are the problem.

Although it has developed and evolved over the past two years I've always thought the solution to the CAR situation is for UN Peacekeepers deployed to country to act not as an army but as a police force. They would then record and investigate incidents of theft and hopefully catch the perpetrators removing the need for neighbourhood defence groups to take matters into their own hands.

The fact the Obama administration has celebrated thieves like Micheal Brown and even suggested that the police don't arrest people if they threaten to get a bit fighty shows that it is wholly un-equipped to deal with the challenges of the CAR.

The Stronger Cities Network proposes fighting violent extremism by decentralising the task from the national government and putting it in the hands of the local states and even local cities. Officially this plan is only for the US but it is intended to show that the US is still fully committed to the plan of setting up National Guard units in Iraq and increasing the autonomy of Iraq's regions - particularly the Sunni area of Anbar.

This plan is probably the worst thing the US can do because within Iraq it has fuelled a belief that the US is supporting ISIL in order to split the country apart into a Sunni region, a Shia region and a Kurdish region. This has increased inter-factional rivalry at a time when Iraq needs unity to defeat ISIL.

For example following the liberation of Tikrit - which the US opposed - the logical thing to happen next would be for the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga to work together in an operation to clear out the area between Kirkuk and Tikrit.

The city of Kirkuk has long been a fault line in Iraq's divisions because although it has a majority Kurdish population it is not considered part of the Kurdish region. As such there is concern amongst the Iraqi government in Baghdad that a co-ordinated operation with the Peshmerga would see Kirkuk break away and join the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG).

Rather then working together to solve this problem - it must be said that Kirkuk is already under Peshmerga control - fears of Sunni Anbar province breaking away have prompted the ISF to instead launch a premature operation to liberate all of Anbar. Although this is containing ISIL's advance on Baghdad it's not making a lot of forward progress and ISIL are still active in the Tikrit/Kirkuk area.

Building on the work of the Rugby World Cup and the other Mike Brown the UK has really been pushing the failures of the Obama administration and it's BLM campaign. Rather then being anything specific to the fight against ISIL this seems to be a general point of friction between the US and the UK.

Although she seems happy to ignore it when I've involved the UK Queen who has been in power since 1952 truly does understand the core principles of justice and why they are important for a stable society. Despite all his lectures on the subject Barack Obama (born: 1961) clearly does not.

Last night soon to be shut down "youth" channel BBC Three broadcast a documentary called "Race Riots USA" in which a former children's TV presenter went and spoke to residents of Ferguson, Missouri about the death of Micheal Brown and the riots that followed. Having noticed it trending on Twitter I came to the sad conclusion that I would have to stay up and watch it.

In terms of journalistic integrity it felt almost like a satire on the way people in the US - particularly the mainstream media - completely lost touch with reality in terms of the BLM campaign. It actually began to remind me of those "Mockumentaries" such as "The Office" or "Parks & Recreation" in which it's presented as a documentary but all the people featured are actors and the situations they're describing are entirely fictional.

For example Race Riots USA opened with that famous CCTV footage of Micheal Brown robbing a convenience store while the voiceover said; "It is claimed that Micheal Brown robbed this convenience store." With the footage of the robbery taking place I think we've gone a bit beyond "claimed." I could make a similar criticism of every sequence in the full hour long show but I really don't have the time.

The UK's main contribution to the CVE Summit was the announcement that it is placing four British citizens who have joined ISIL on the list of those sanctioned by the UN for their support for ISIL. In practical terms this is largely meaningless because the four listed have no significant assets to seize and they are already in Syria with no intention of leaving. If they change their mind and do leave they'll be arrested under an Interpol warrant rather then the UN sanctions.

However the move does raise a talking point about using sanctions to combat ISIL. Rather then being used against people who are actively fighting for a group like ISIL sanctions are intended to be used to target those who are indirectly supporting them. For example it might be used to freeze the bank accounts of a millionaire business man who is sending a lot of money to ISIL or stop that business man travelling from say Qatar to Egypt.

There are actually two main sanctions lists to deal with those who support Islamist terrorism. The first was set up around the time of the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks to deal specifically with members of Al Qaeda. There is also another list that was set up when resolution 2170 (2014) was passed specifically to deal with people supporting ISIL. Despite having numerous citizens on this second list nations like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Turkey don't seem to be doing a damn thing to enforce those sanctions.

The UK is deliberately being unclear as to whether it is the Al Qaeda list or the ISIL list that these four have been added to. However I suspect it's the Al Qaeda list in order to allow the UK to raise the issue of the ISIL list without making enough of an issue out of it to offended Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc. In short the UK is still trying to be the perfect middle-man.

Then there is the issue of the Russian military build up in Syria. Although I've been actively trying to avoid saying this out loud for much of the past month the purpose of the Russia build up is not to prop up a Syrian government that is suddenly about to collapse.

Nor is it to force the US out of the region to allow Russia to defeat ISIL. This is something that Russia could very easily achieve in probably less then six months but such a move would almost entirely end US influence in the entire Middle-East region.

Instead in the first instance the purpose is to provide the Syrian government with access to advanced, guided weapons in order to reduce their use of unguided artillery and barrel bombs and therefore reduce the number of civilian casualties.

The reason why the international community rushed to slap economic sanctions and arms embargoes on the Syrian government was to deny them access to these weapons knowing full well that it would force them to use less sophisticated weapons putting civilian lives in danger.

Then whenever there were civilian casualties the international community would feign surprise and use their 'outrage' at civilian deaths to increase calls for the entirely unlawful overthrow of the Syrian government.

In the second instance the Russian build up was to make clear to US President Obama that if he continued with his current strategy it would lead to conflict. The hope being that this would cause Obama to re-consider his strategy and replace it with one that actually involved defeating ISIL.

Unfortunately under this pressure Obama seems to have crumpled like a paper bag. Apart from re-affirming his commitment to ISIL through his UNGA address and the CVE Summit yesterday (29/9/15) a US Court announced that it will be denying victims of September 11th attacks the right to sue Saudi Arabia for compensation over its provision of material support to the attackers. The victims are expected to appeal.

So today Russia has carried out its first air-strikes in Syria. I should start by pointing out that this is all entirely lawful. Putting aside resolution 2170 that allows for military action against ISIL and the Al Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra Front (ANF) Russia has been invited to operate within Syria by the legitimate government of Syria.

The US may scream as loudly as it likes that it doesn't view the Syrian government as legitimate but I can equally claim that Obama isn't the legitimate President of the US. It doesn't make either of those things true.

Although it is still being assessed it appears that today's Russia strikes have targeted the Homs, Hama and Latakia provinces. As such it is likely that they have not struck ISIL positions but positions of the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF).

The two main blocs within JAF are ANF who are covered by 2170 and the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML/Ahrar ash-Sham) who share both an ideology and a methodology with ISIL.

By striking these targets Russia is obviously posing the question of why despite them being covered by 2170 the US refers to JAF as the "moderate opposition" and is allowing nations such as Turkey to supply them with weapons, equipment and fighters in defiance of a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution and therefore international law.

As they began these air-strike Russia immediately informed the US and demanded that all aircraft of Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - the US-led coalition - immediately leave Syrian air-space. Rather then being a serious demand this was intended to highlight the way in which CJTFOIR's role has changed since Turkey joined.

The Turkish condition for joining CJTFOIR that for some reason US President Obama accepted is that CJTFOIR is no longer allowed to conduct air-strikes that may support the Kurdish People's Protection Force (YPG).

Having established a 33,000km^2 (20,000mile^2) buffer-zone across northern Syria and Iraq the YPG's most forward position at the moment is the village of Ain Issa which sits just 50km (30 miles) north of ISIL's de facto capital of Raqqa.

As such Turkey's demand that CJTFOIR cannot conduct air-strikes close to YPG positions has thrown this massive protective dome over ISIL's main area of operations. As a result the only CJTFOIR strikes being carried out in Syria at the moment are being carried out far away from anywhere they could do ISIL any real damage. 

For example France's first and so far only strike on Sunday (27/9/15) was carried out in Deir-er-Zour which is around 160km (95 miles) south-east of Raqqa. On the same day CJTFOIR other strike hit Marea which is around 210km (126 miles) west of Raqqa. You may remember that ISIL gained Marea after Turkey instructed JAF to withdraw from the area. 

Then there is the issue of Palmyra which you've probably heard a lot about through the destruction of the ancient monuments there. Palmyra has long been an active front-line between ISIL and the Syrian government. As such prior to Turkey's involvement CJTFOIR has resisted carrying out air-strikes there in case it is seen as support for the Syrian government or lead to direct confrontation between CJTFOIR and the Syrian government.

Recently the Syrian government has been conducting its own air-strikes against ISIL positions around Palmyra. This seems to have prompted CJTFOIR to launch air-strikes in and around Palmyra starting on Monday (28/9/15).

Rather then being a sign of support to the Syrian government this seems to be an attempt to expand CJTFOIR's dome over the area to protect ISIL from Syrian government air-strikes.

As such we seem to be at a very important crossroads at which CJTFOIR must decide whether its purpose is to defeat ISIL or to provide the group with air-cover while it goes about it's murderous rampage.

Unfortunately US President Obama is fundamentally a coward. As such whenever he's been put under pressure in the past he's reacted by doing something stupid and aggressive in a desperate effort to prove what a tough guy he is.  

16:20 on 30/9/15 (UK date).