The Daily Journalist.
Barack Obama, the man who promised in June 2008 to “responsibly end the war in Iraq” and “end the war against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban”, will leave his successor fighting in those two conflicts, plus two Cold Wars underway: one with China and another with Russia.
On one side, the Chinese deputy Zhang Yesui Exteriors Affairs summoned the US ambassador in Beijing, former Sen. Max Baucus, to deliver a protest note from the arrival of the missile destroyer Lassen accompanied by several electronic warfare aircraft, the Near Subi Reef in the Spratly archipelago of islands where Beijing has built an artificial island whose sovereignty it claims. The arrival of Lassen within 12 nautical miles -22 miles-island means, according to Beijing is a violation of its territorial integrity.
Washington’s response is that it will cross the sea as many times as desired; something that would repeat an action that Beijing has described as “extremely irresponsible”. But it also has the support of all countries in the area, starting with Brunei and the Philippines, which are closest to the Spratlys, and continuing in Vietnam, which also has interests and is building bases in the cascade of 850 reefs, shoals , atolls and coral islands that until recently were an ecological paradise and now it is being pulverized by the actions of the navies of these countries illegal fishing.
The dispute in the Spratly islands is in a sense predictable, given first, the trade ‘turn on the Pacific’ that the United States has taken with Obama seeks to disengage from the Middle East and Europe to focus on what Washington considers the area in which they will decide the power in the twenty-first century in Asia. The US is now a pacific strategic rival to Chinese imperialism in the region, which has led him to dispute the sovereignty of Japan over the Senkaku Islands and Vietnam snatch control of Paracels, another tropical paradise that almost lead to war in both countries the 70s, just as paradoxically, Beijing and Ho Chi Minh were allies against the United States. Now, Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines want the Americans to stay or to return to the Pacific.
But the paradox is that Obama’s legacy will be greater involvement in the Pacific … and also in Europe and the Middle East. In other words, everywhere. This is what appears from the statement made yesterday by the Secretary of Defense of the United States, Ashton Carter to the Senate, which summarized the new US strategy in a battlefront located 7,900 kilometers from the Spratlys, Syria and Iraq, as “the three Rs: Raqqa, Ramadi and raids”.
This strategy, which was promptly leaked to The Washington Post ‘yesterday ‘ comes down to one sentence: an escalating intervention in Syria and Iraq. On one side is Raqqa, the capital of the Islamic state in Syria (IS, by its acronym in English), to the US and its allies since bombing from a year and half ago. Washington wants to step up attacks for the forces of the Syrian opposition, which in turn are bombing Russia trying conquer the city of 220,000 inhabitants, the sixth largest in Syria.
Carter simply noted that to achieve this, the United States conducted an escalation of the bombing of the IS in collaboration with the Jordanian Armed Forces. But according to the Washington Post, Secretary of Defense Barack Obama has proposed sending Special Forces units into Syrian territory to lead the offensive and seek targets for bombing.
That represents a quantum leap in the war, which until now, the United States had simply send Special to perform specific missions against IS Forces. Washington had always opposed outright to what in America is called “boots on the ground” a permanent military presence of soldiers in Syria, a country that also is fighting in support of dictator Bashar Assad , Russian and Iranian soldiers.
The second ‘R’ is Ramadi, an Iraqi city of nearly half a million people 100 kilometers from Baghdad that was taken by the Islamic State on May 15. Again, Carter merely stated the importance for Iraq to resume that goal. Again options according to US media as Barack Obama goes further and includes making some 3,400 soldiers to travel to Iraq Ramadi to run the offense. Again, it is an option which is an escalation of the war. A war in which, paradoxically, the US and Iran work together — just the opposite in Syria.
The ‘raids’, is the actions of the Special Forces command type. Some actions have already climbed, as showed the death of the first American soldier in combat in Iraq in four years last week. This is the first offensive action with ground troops that the US carried out in Iraq since retired from that country in 2011. And not the last. As Carter said yesterday “we will not hold back when it comes to take direct action, by air or by land.” The new chief of staff of US General Joseph Dumford, also said yesterday that the US will be “more aggressive” in its war on IS.
