Searching for Synonyms of Stupid.

On May 22nd (22/5/17) Qatar's ruling al-Thani family conducted a terror attack against the UK.

This took the form of a suicide bombing at the Manchester Evening News Arena (MENA) in the British city of Manchester. It killed 22 people and wounded 59.

The primary objective of this attack was to intimidate the UK government into dropping its calls for the closure of an area of northern Syria known as; "Garvaghy Road."

Roughly 100km (60 miles) wide Garvaghy Road was created in August 2016 when Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent regular Turkish troops to invade and occupy the area. Erdogan's objective was to keep supply lines open between Turkey and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

The al-Thani's Qatar and Erdogan's Turkey are very closely linked through an organisation called the Muslim Brotherhood. The al-Thani's want to keep Garvaghy Road open in order to allow ISIL fighters to flee from Syria via Turkey to Libya where the al-Thani's have long battled for control of the nation and its vast oil reserves.

On June 3rd (3/6/17) the al-Thani's repeated their threat to Britain over Garvaghy Road with a second terror attack. This occurred in the London Bridge area of the UK capital London and took the form of a low tech marauding run-over and knife attack. It killed now 8 people and wounded 48 others.

Qatar's Arab neighbours led by Saudi Arabia response to this violence has been swift. Following the MENA bombing on May 23rd (23/5/17) many of them banned Qatari news outlets from broadcasting in their countries.

Following the London Bridge attack those nations on June 4th (4/6/17) broke off all diplomatic ties with Qatar. They have also expelled Qatari nationals from their territories and cut off Qatari access to their air sea and land routes. With Qatar importing the overwhelming majority of its food this is an extremely serious situation.

The Gulf Arab states primary objection to Qatar is that it uses the Muslim Brotherhood to export terrorism, Particularly to Libya, Syria, Iraq and even Hamas in the Gaza area of Palestine. Saudi Arabia backs Fatah in the West Banks area of Palestine.

Saudi Arabia is also extremely angry that Qatar does not share its level of animosity towards Iran. It is impossible to overstate just how much Saudi Arabia dislikes Iran.

In the middle of this extremely complex crisis the US decided to announce yesterday (6/6/17) that it was sending the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF/QSD) into battle against ISIL's de facto Syrian capital of Raqqa.

This notion of the SDF attacking Raqqa dates back to the last days of former US President Barack Obama. Deeply in the thrall of the Muslim Brotherhood and Erdogan in particular Obama's plan was to send the SDF into a battle they cannot win. Then when the SDF are defeated Erdogan's troops can advance east out of Garvaghy Road securing control of almost all of northern Syria.

Yesterday's announcement itself was entirely dictated by Erdogan. Since around last Thursday (1/6/17) Erdogan has been claiming that the SDF's Raqqa operation was already underway. With Turkish TV & radio being able to broadcast across northern Syria this has put a lot of pressure on the SDF to confirm or deny that the operation is underway.

Therefore it is extremely likely that yesterday's announcement is simply a ruse designed to counter Erdogan's propaganda. However even that is an extremely risky strategy.

Now I'm said its a ruse Erdogan will likely increase his propaganda in order to force the SDF to demonstrate the operation is underway. This creates a very real risk that the SDF will find themselves strong-armed into a battle they are in no way prepared to win.

This is exactly what happened at the start of the battle for Mosul back in October 2016. At the time Iraq was trying to resist American pressure to start the operation before preparations were complete. Then Erdogan's troops based at Bashiqa opened fire on Mosul forcing the start of the operation. Nine months later the battle for Mosul is still dragging on.

So I am genuinely struggling to find words to convey just how stupid it was to send such a strong message in support of Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorism in the midst of this Gulf crisis.

It turns out though America wasn't finished there.

Officially this Gulf crisis has been caused by a speech Qatari leader Shiekh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani gave on May 20th (20/5/17) which was made public on May 23rd (23/5/17). In this speech Tamim al-Thani was extremely offensive about Qatar's Gulf neighbours and America. 

Qatar denies that Tamim al-Thani ever made this speech and claim it was faked and then released by computer hackers. Absolutely no-one believes them.

Yesterday (6/6/17) the US came out and said that it believes Qatar. Not only that they accused Russia of being behind the cyberattack. This seems mainly directed at a domestic US audience than having anything to do with the Gulf crisis.

In his speech Tamim al-Thani boasted that he would soon use the Muslim Brotherhood to overthrow the US government by using claims of Russian hacking. On Thursday (8/6/17) former FBI Director James Comey will appear before US Congress to answer questions about the Russian hacking investigation. 

CNN in particular are so excited that this could bring down the US government they've been running an onscreen countdown showing the seconds until the start of the Comey hearing. They started it more than 50 hours or two days before the start of the hearing.

Using false claims of Russian hacking to defend Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorism from Qatar's neighbours certainly makes people like CNN look quite foolish.

Today (7/6/17) there has been a terror attack against the Parliament building in Tehran, Iran. I still need to look at that in detail.

However it would certainly fit with Qatar's need to show it shares Saudi Arabia's hatred for Iran. The Saudis main objection to Qatar's support for ISIL is that they've not used it to attack Iran enough.

14:00 on 7/6/17 (UK date).