Third Iraq War : Framing the Case for Global Wars on "Extremism"

'...the third Iraq war, endorsed by parliament on the eve of the Tory conference (the deficit again no object) is itself a lurch backwards into the failures and disasters of the war on terror launched by Bush and Blair 13 years ago'.-Seumas Milne, The Guardian October 2, 2014

The obsessive drive to intervene militarily against ISIS by the Cameron government in Britain is justified not by a 'reactionary' agenda: on the contrary, the 'war on terror' is a militant progressive cause which pits 'liberal democracy' against 'Islamist extremism', a force on the 'wrong side of history.

Cameron is cloning the Blair's government's rhetoric about ISIS being a 'global threat' and potentially having weapons of mass destruction “within a few hours’ flying time of our country” ( May ) because it is useful in framing all regional violent jihadi-Islamist groups as part of one single threat to the west.

While a minority of Islamists within Britain, and those who clearly sympathise with them because they have an insecure adolescent hatred for 'the west' ,would like to believe they are part of a global movement for revolutionary change, the reality is quite different.

The use of the myth of the single global threat of ISIS works for both western governments and the jihadists alike. Jihadi-Islamists need to seek confrontation with first the Hypocrites in the region and then the Infidel who is portrayed as the root cause of all the problems everywhere in 'the Muslim World'.

For Blair and Cameron the myth acts to simplify complicated regional conflicts into one 'threat against us' and so legitimises any military intervention designed to secure supplies of oil and gas upon which a high octane consumer economy such as Britain's increasingly needs from far off lands.

When Cameron copies Blair in his insistence these threats 'directly affect us' the subtext is that they do because of the threat to oil and gas. Indeed, disparate jihadi groups from the Maghreb to Central Africa and the Middle East aim at sabotaging the pipelines and oil infrastructure or to capture it.

In a democracy dominated by media image and spin, the need is for a simplistic mock heroic narrative in which the jihadists are simply one cosmic force of evil transcending national boundaries and so in need of being combated at home as much as it must be abroad.

The reason is the voters cannot be told the military interventions are about geopolitical strategies they would not understand, as in Afghanistan, or , as in Iraq, about securing the present and future oil supplies needed to maintain stable or falling oil prices and so the lifestyle consumers feel entitled to expect as a right.

The Third Iraq war is clearly dominated by concerns over the threat that ISIS poses to the region and oil supplies. However, the call of the Caliphate applies across to lands elsewhere such as Nigeria where corrupt regimes are battling legions of impoverished fanatics uprooted by the impact of global warming.

Milne is no different from the political establishment he belongs to in portraying the military interventions since 9/11 according to a simplistic propaganda template: he merely inverts the humanitarian narrative and claims the real motive is 'imperial domination' of Muslims which is bound to be 'resisted'.

The reality is that military intervention is supposedly justified ( when it is not based on the global terror threat) in accordance with 'Democratic Geopolitics' in which the aim is to spread liberal democracy and help 'moderate rebels' overthrow dictators and protect their lands from 'extremists'.

The problem with this idea, as was clear in both Libya and Syria, is that the alternative to the dictator is often, in the context of war and the breakdown of government, civil war and violent Islamist jihadism with 'moderate' democratic Islamists not counting for much on the ground.

The flexible cant words 'extremist' and 'moderate' are Orwellian euphemisms for 'bad and not useful' and 'good and useful' in what is really a power struggle over resources. The insistence that Sunni jihadists in the FSA were 'moderates' in 2013 was because they were useful in removing Assad.

The fact is that Qatar was an ally pumping billions into Britain's ailing debt ridden rentier and consumer economy but backing jihadi fanatics. So the fiction of the 'moderate rebels' had to be maintained. Now that strategy has led to jihadists joining ISIS and turning against Qatar and the west, they are now 'extremists'.

So there is, as a consequence, an absurd power game in within Britain in which Islamist groups are classified as 'extremist' according to the shoddy criteria of political expediency as much as their perceived threat. The only way out of this repetitive idiocy is to search for alternatives to oil and gas dependency.

Why Cameron is Prepared to Extend British Air Strikes into Syria.

“There is nothing token about this, quite the contrary. They need our help, not just with the Tornados flying daily from Cyprus, but also from the surveillance equipment overhead – to add to the operations of the Iraqi and Kurdish forces. We need to think about how we beat IS. IS is based in Syria and IS needs to be defeated in Syria as well as in Iraq.” -Defence Minister Michael Fallon

“If there was the need to take urgent action, for instance to prevent the massacre of a minority community or a Christian community, I would order that and come to the House to explain immediately afterwards.”

'I have said we support what the Americans and the five Arab nations have done in Syria. We have a Syria strategy which is to build up the Free Syrian Army [and] the Syrian National Coalition to achieve a political transition in Syria'-Prime Minister David Cameron

Cameron would prefer to extend British strikes into Syria to help overcome the humiliation of the summer of 2013 when Parliament rejected Cameron's desired war to take out Assad over the alleged chemical gas attack on Ghouta. The geopolitical strategy remained unchanged since then.

Cameron backed Qatar and Turkey's plan to train and back Sunni jihadists to overthrow Assad just as he had led with Hollande in pushing for the NATO intervention to back the insurgents in Libya and get rid of Gaddafi. The ambition was a democratic Libya amenable to French and British energy interests.

Syria after 2011 was no different with France and Britain supporting Qatari policy in backing the SNC and so turning a blind eye to Doha's support for Sunni jihadists as a means justifying the end of removing the 'brutal dictator' and thus securing western influence in the Levant.

Energy interests and the special relationship with Qatar were paramount no matter how risky the strategy was. In common with Turkey, both Britain and France want Assad to go so that the offshore gas reserves would not be conceded to Russia as they subsequently were in December 2013.

Russia upped the stakes after it concluded a 25 year deal with Assad to develop Syria's gas. These lie in an offshore field 850 square miles of Syria's Exclusive Economic Zone in an area called Block 2 which is positioned the coastal cities of Banias and Tartous where Russia has a naval base.

These reserves of the Levant were discovered in 2010. Turkey subsequently backed the opposition to Assad as part of its neo-Ottoman strategy as a means to increase its influence in Syria and benefit from the fossil fuel reserves it lacks in partnership with gas rich Qatar by backing Sunni militant forces.

With Putin copying Turkish tactics in backing insurgents across its borders in Ukraine to advance geopolitical ambitions in the Black Sea region and successfully gain control over energy transit routes, the need to knock out ISIS and then Assad to check Russian influence in the Eastern Mediterranean has intensified.

Cameron made plain that he support the Gulf states interests, no matter their support for terrorism, by accusing Iran and Assad of doing the same. Indeed, Cameron recycled SNC and Qatari propaganda in Parliament on Friday 26th about Assad being the main sponsor of ISIS through buying its oil.

In fact, the oil revenues accrued by ISIS are mostly from sales of oil via Turkey, Britain's stalwart NATO ally through channels and illegal pipelines set up for the export of black market oil dating back to the 1990s when Saddam was firmly in charge in Baghdad. Officials in Turkey's deep state are said to be profiting.

ISIS funds mostly come from Turkey and not from Damascus which has no interest in funding an organisation based in Syria in a nation where 60% of the population is Sunni, if not Sunni Arab, and his own government is dominated by Alawis and supported by minorities wanting protection from Sunni militants.

Cameron's insistence on supporting the SNC and FSA as an alternative to Assad and ISIS simply is not credible. Nor is it meant as anything other than a determination to continue with the foreign policy of backing Qatar and its strategies no matter the risks because the stakes are access to oil and gas.

Cameron's ambition is to see ISIS destroyed and to then use the renewed pretext for intervention in Syria to erase the humiliation of his thwarted quest to remove Assad in 2013. This is far more a vital interest for Britain ( and France ) than it is for the US for a number of reasons.

Firstly, Qatar and Turkey sought the removal of Assad to get a Qatar-Turkey gas pipeline from the south Pars gas field through to the Mediterranean where it would then by exported through to EU markets. Even before the Ukraine conflict, energy diversification away from Russia was a geopolitical goal.

Secondly, Qatar is set to become a major exporter of LNG to Britain as North Sea gas declines. This was made plain by energy minister Michael Fallon in 2013 when he lauded both that an the 10 billion pounds investment Qatar was due to make in upgrading the UK's infrastructure.

Cameron was prepared to engage diplomatically with Iran's Rouhahi over Iraq but he demonstrated repellent hypocrisy in emphasising Iran's support for terrorism as one reason it unlike Qatar which backs Sunni jihadists across the region ( including the Taliban ) could be no an ally. Assad is regarded as a pariah.

The reason has all to do with fawning on Qatar so as to strike up a special relationship whereby Britain assists in asserting its regional interests militarily and in being pledged to defend its interests so as to get LNG and lucative arms deals. Hammond has even talked up the possibility of a military base in Qatar.

With Libya having fallen into chaos and the conflict in Eastern Ukraine going on, the Eastern Mediterranean and Persian Gulf are regions where Britain and France could source extra supplies of energy. The spread and surge of ISIS and the need to fight them as a 'global threat' are a consequence of energy geopolitics.

The so called 'moderate rebels' are miniscule and the FSA in September 2014 is, as Patrick Cockburn points out, little more than a CIA led outfit awaiting funds and new recruits to make it some third force between Assad and ISIS ( which is absurdly unrealistic and futile ).

Cameron seems intent on persisting with this mythical moderate Sunni force because of energy interests. It's both ruthless and inept as a foreign policy strategy but, then again, those two adjectives define Cameron and his neoconservative government.

Britain and the Third Iraq War: Strategy and Geopolitical Ambitions and Interests.

Richard Williams, a former commanding officer of the SAS who served in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan, wrote in the Independent on Sunday the deployment of RAF bombers was a “military sugar rush” that “risks looking fearful and half-cocked”.The Observer, Sunday 28 2014

Cameron's decision to deploy air strikes against ISIS is largely a political decision to make the Prime Minister look 'tough on terror'. ISIS realises that Cameron is a media obsessed politicians intent on grabbing the right headlines as opposed to the wily and shrewd diplomat that could defeat them.

The use of six Tornados and Britain's 'military prowess' is designed to send the message that Britain values the US led war against ISIS and wants to retain 'credibility' as a 'global player' leading at the forefront of a war on terror. All that despite the fact Britain did nothing while the Scottish referendum was going on.

Cameron prioritised domestic politics instead of the war against ISIS because it was more important for his government and as the US was leading the war anyhow. These air strikes would not make any difference apart from exploiting the fears of an ignorant populace about ISIS posing a direct threat to them.

ISIS is predominantly a regional threat and global in the sense it could use its power base in Syria to surge through Iraq and menace the present and future security of oil supplies of the Kurdistan and southern Iraq. These supplies are vital to ensure stable or falling oil prices and global economic recovery after the 2008 crash.

Britain has an interest in protecting both regions in Iraq because of the oil exploration and the interests BP have there. Qatar is a major Gulf ally partner which has been brought back into aligning with Saudi Arabia under western leadership in fighting ISIS whereas before there had been enmity between them.

Britain's role in bombing ISIS is firmly concerned with protecting resources far more than it is about protecting Britons from terrorist attacks at home. Had that been the main concern, Britain would not have been prepared to turn a blind eye towards Saudi Arabia and Qatar backing Sunni jihadists in Syria

ISIS would pose a threat to Qatar should it entrench itself in Iraq and launch attacks on the rest of Iraq and the Gulf States. In July 2014, ISIS made plain its intention of bombing the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the power which bore responsibility for creating the ISIS threat in its proxy war against Iran.

Britain is bound to regard any threat to Qatar as a threat to its interests. Qatar is a major supplier of liquefied natural gas to the domestic gas market. Michael Fallon, who last week predicted a 'new Battle of Britain' against ISIS, was energy minister before being shifted into the MoD.

Fallon made plain the increased dependency on Qatari gas was going to be part of a mutually beneficial partnership. Qatar would step up its LNG exports to Britain as imports increased. In return, Qatar would invest 10bn pounds in Britain's infrastructure as well as London's real estate and other projects.

The need to protect Qatar and energy supplies as North Sea gas depletes rapidly is one interests as is being bound to support geopolitical strategies that would check Iranian influence in the region such as holding out for the eventual removal of Assad once ISIS is 'degraded and destroyed'.

This is one reason Philip Hammond made clear Britain wanted to establish a permanent military base in one of the Gulf states, either Bahrain or most likely Qatar because ' we have to think through how we will train our forces in desert warfare, in hot-conditions’ combat in the future'.

While Cameron has sought to engage Iran in diplomacy to maintain a stable Iraq, he has made it clear that there is going to be no change in the failed and risky strategy that created ISIS in the first place. Assad is not to be drawn into a peace process in Syria because the aim is still to overthrow him.

Cameron claimed that ISIS' made profit from oil sold to Assad, so yoking together the threat of terror with the secular dictator. In fact, the evidence shows the oil from ISIS is coming via Turkey and was supported until ISIS turned its guns against Turkey.  Cameron repeated Gulf state propaganda.

So, apart from being dishonest about where ISIS had been selling its oil, Cameron is insistent upon continuing the strategy of backing the foreign policy of Qatar which played a major role in causing the chaos that allowed ISIS to gain ground in Syria and become the 'global' threat they would become.

ISIS poses a threat but the current determination of Britain to participate in air strikes is primarily about a policy determined by the geopolitics of energy. The attempt to insinuate Assad in in league with ISIS by buying their oil suggests he could never be negotiated with because he is effectively backing terrorists.

Yet it would only be through a ceasefire between Damascus and the Free Syria army and SNC that ISIS could be decisively defeated and a political solution to ISIS found in Syria other than continued war and the possibility and risks of external military intervention over the longer term.

The reason for Cameron's intransigence is partly ideological. Neoconservative ideology holds that dictatorship and terrorism are two peas from the same pod: remove the dictator and democracy and freedom and the rule of law shall flourish and terrorism would be curtailed and defeated.

Apart from the gross oversimplification of the complex realities of the Middle East that Cameron, following Blair, seems to understand little, this worldview comes in handy when demanding dictators from Saddam to Gaddafi and Assad are removed who are not favourable to Britain and its Gulf allies interests.

Despite the benefits of a negotiated truce between Assad and the FSA, Cameron is intent upon fawning upon Qatar because of the business interests and to the detriment of Britain's security and any real chance of peace in Syria. Qatar wants Assad gone and a Sunni government amenable to its designs.

Both Qatar and Turkey want a Qatar-Turkey pipeline which would avoid Qatari LNG having to be exported through the Persian Gulf and the strategic and Iranian held chokepoint of the Straits of Hormuz. It would also contain and offset rival plans for an Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline to the Eastern Mediterranean.

When Cameron uses luring language to depict a 'terrorist caliphate' on the Mediterranean built by ISIL, he is not just conjuring up an image of 'terrorist' with a sea coast popularly associated in the British mind with continental beach holidays in places from Spain to Cyprus and Turkey.

On the contrary, the very use of the acronym 'ISIL' reflects the fact Cameron regards Islamic State as a threat to geostrategic interests in the Eastern Mediterranean, not least the prospect of the gas in the Levant being taken out of Assad and Russia's clutches and put back into the hands of the SNC and 'the rebels'.

Far from being a mere global terror threat, the spectre of "ISIL' provides the opportunity not just to bolster the security of the oil supplies from Kurdistan and Shi'ite regions but also to establish the precedent to bomb Syria, knock out ISIL and then move on to those considered to be backing it.

Given that Cameron is portraying the Assad regime as being in league with ISIS ( one of the most preposterous propaganda claims given that Assad is one its main enemies and targets in the region ), it would appear he has learnt nothing from recent failed 'humanitarian interventions' elsewhere after 2003.

British and French leaders are not that stupid that they would fulfil the definition of insanity in trying to repeat the same policies again and againwhile expecting a different result to the chaos that has been the consequence of the overthrow of Saddam and then Gaddafi after the NATO backed war of 2011.

On the contrary, it is far more disturbing because it is a sign of the strategic deperation over the security of future supplies of oil and gas in regions lying those regions affected by the crumbling of states through sectarian and ethnic enmities heightened and sharpened by political anarchy and resource struggles

In preparing for the 'long war' or 'generational struggle', Cameron means not only the fact ISIS would take a long time to defeat. It is also part of a campaign of 'public diplomacy' softening up British opinion for a continued war over energy transit routes lying within regions where there are ample oil and gas reserves.

It's about time people woke up to this and fast.

The Third Iraq War: Enter Britain

Nothing was more predictable than Cameron waiting until after the Scottish referendum to try to reunite Britain behind him and pose as a 'global player' once more by joining in with air strikes again 'ISIL'. There is now even messianic rhetoric about a 'new battle of Britain' from Defence Minister Michael Fallon.

However, given that the US has been targeting ISIS for a month from the air, it is hard to see what real difference Britain would bring apart from the usual need to 'stand shoulder to shoulder' with the US. Instead of rushing into military action, Britain should try to retain an independent position.

For a start it is hardly wise to be straying into Syrian air space to attack ISIS without any attempt to engage Assad's government because the reality is that the Free Syria Army is merely a front for a CIA assembled coalition of Sunni forces without any real power on the ground.

ISIS is primarily a regional threat first and foremost to Iraq and then to those Gulf states which had been prepared to allow funding and arms to go to Sunni militant groups such as the Al Nusra Brigades. Qatar and Saudi Arabia were largely responsible for this because they wanted to overthrow Assad.

The fact Saudi Arabia and Qatar are now part of the coalition against ISIS is farcical given the fact both powers ratcheted up the conflict in Syria by backing their own favoured Sunni jihadists the better to get their sway in Damascus in any post-Assad future.

Both Gulf powers created the conditions in Syria for the more brutal jihadists to flourish and gain ground. So Hugh Robertson turns truth on its head when he states “The fact is, our failure to take action promptly and effectively then did create in part the conditions that have led to the crisis we face today'

“There is no doubt that many of our allies across the Gulf saw that as a sign of weakness. Now, I’m absolutely delighted that the Labour party has woken up to what I believe needs to be done and I accept that they and many others had doubts about what was happening a year ago.

This is dangerous nonsense and if Robertson is typical of Britain's military high command there is reason to be concerned. Had the US and Britain gone into Syria to help remove Assad in 2013, the situation would have replicated what happened in Libya after the failed military adventure of 2011.

Had Assad been removed ( and probably murdered in a similar gory way to Gaddafi's brutal lynching, torture and butchery ), a war between the Sunni factions would have no doubt resulted in ISIS holding Damascus and causing ethnic cleansing and sectarian murder on a far vaster scale.

Joining in the air strikes just to flaunt 'military powess' is largely futile unless there is a longer term plan to draw in Assad and Iran into a regional political initiative. If there is not and ISIS is rolled back, it still could regroup because the conflict in Syria would be continued by other Sunni militants.

The Free Syria Army and 'moderate rebels' are largely non-existent as a real military force and would not be able to beat both ISIS and Assad. The idea that they ought to is pure wish thinking that accords with the sort of absurd and unrealistic strategy pursued between 2011 to 2013.

To defeat ISIS, there has to be a diplomatic initiative for a ceasefire between the Free Syria Army and Assad's forces. Saudi Arabia and Qatar would have to be pressured further into desisting from any policy allowing funds to go to Sunni militants. Turkey would be made to clamp down on illegal oil sales.

The foreign policies of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar were as dangerous, in fact far more so, than the much maligned Iran, their Gulf rival which is hypocritically accused of sponsoring terrorism abroad when, by any definition, that is precisely what Britain's Gulf allies have been doing on a far more dangerous basis.

The reason why Britain turned a blind eye to this was it hoped the strategy would remove Assad and check the possibility of an Iranian-Iraqi-Syrian gas pipeline towards the Eastern Mediterranean in favour of an alternative Qatar-Turkey pipeline. Assad's departure would lessen Russian influence too.

The entire role of energy security in this shabby and sinister debacle needs far more attention than it usually gets. ISIS is the consequence of a shoddy strategy to assert the hegemony of the Gulf states over its energy export rival in Iran and against Russian influence over the offshore gas reserves of the Levant.

In Iraq, its expansion from a threat in Syria to a 'global threat' is largely due the threat it poses to present and future oil production in Kurdistan and the Shi'ite south. This supply is needed to keep oil prices stable and so keep a global economy of cheap Chinese manufactures and hence profligate western consumerism afloat.

Britain's role is not just about backing the US and Gulf allies. It is about buying influence, protecting both its economic interests in the region and asserting control over the global oil supplies that is needed to retain western military and political hegemony against that of other global powers

Both Syria and Iraq, as lands separating the Eastern Mediterranean from the Persian Gulf, are the site for a regional proxy war between contending powers vying for control over resources and energy transit routes between the Middle East and the West against rival schemes backed by Iran, Russia and China.

In the longer term, there need to be significant geopolitical and economic shifts in the West away from over dependence upon imported oil and gas to drive the economy. Globalisation has made the world economy ever more reliant on a constant or falling oil supply but it is going to come from lands riven with conflicts.

Propaganda of the Name: The Meaning of 'Islamic State'.

'we believe the media, civic society and governments should refuse to legitimise these ludicrous caliphate fantasies by accepting or propagating this name. We propose that 'UnIslamic State' (UIS) could be an accurate and fair alternative name'-'Islamic State' is a slur on our faith, say leading Muslims. Observer, Saturday 13 September 2014

The complaint by British Muslim organisations and imams that the Prime Minister should stop using the words 'Islamic state' to describe the self-proclaimed Islamic State takes the absurd to new levels. For a start, Obama and Cameron have been at pains not to call it IS or ISIS or regard it as truly Islamic.

In countering the threat which is a threat to the US and Britain but not yet, it seems the threat does not even have the name is has as 'Islamic State' because President Obama, and so David Cameron, call it 'ISIL'. Cameron referred to a 'so-called Caliphate' and 'nihilists'.

It is understandable why British Muslims would not want to be associated with what they call the 'Unislamic State'. But by denying the neo-caliphate could be 'islamic' and demanding it is called the opposite of what it calls itself they run the risk of being ridiculed and giving more publicity to the idea of its being Islamic or not.

More than that, by acting childishly and petulantly by demanding the media calls Islamic State the 'Unislamic State', the Muslim organisations invite the sort of response which would delight in countering, with malicious glee, that Islamic State really is the 'real face' of Islam going back to its authentic and true 'medieval' origins.

The grotesque irony of all this is that IS would get exactly what they want in the aftermath of the first online public beheading of of a British hostage, captured aid worker David Haines, by reinforcing the attitudes of those who see that act at the hands of a British jihadist either as 'real' Islam' or as 'nothing to do with it'.

There are those who see the beheading as a warning that this is the sort of act that 'you have coming' from a British jihadist 'near you'. Then there are those denying that such an action could ever be committed by anyone professing to be Islamic, to which the answer is going to be like the panto refrain 'oh, yes it is !'.

IS knows that the beheadings are so gory and vile that the western media would whip up outrage of the sort media obsessed politicians such as Cameron thrive on when bigging up the terror threat, the better to increase their self important need to 'do' something as well as playing for votes and 'looking tough on terror'.

By talking up the 'global terror threat', IS gets precisely the necessary response. They are intelligent enough to know how useful their threat is in forcing politicians in media dominated democracies to make out the threat to be a unified one so as to better justify any military interventions they would need to take.

The reasons for that are that IS realises the western nations in Britain are bound to need to intervene militarily to protect oil and gas supplies from control or else sabotage by jihadists across the regions which is claimed as part of a new revived caliphate stretching from sub-Saharan Africa through to the Greater Middle East.

By portraying disparate jihadi-Islamist threats across these different nations as one seamless 'global threat', and using that to intervene militarily, with drones, air strikes or 'boots on the ground' IS would be able to spread its franchise operation out of its core base in Syria and into Iraq into Egypt, Libya, Yemen or Nigeria.

The ultimate ambition, of course, is to be the threat that Cameron is portraying IS as being, that is, one that reaches its sinister tentacles into the heartlands of Britain, something already played on by celebrity jihadists Anjem Choudary who are as media savvy as establishment politicians playing on fear. 

Though appearing a buffoon, Choudury is already knows how to play up to his useful media role in linking the outrage over the execution of hostages to the fact there is less outrage over the way western foreign policy means "hundreds of thousands of people have been beheaded by drones and daisy cutters".

IS online beheadings are meant to stir things up in Britain by opening up a discussion on British foreign policy why Britain is uncritically following the US as 'lapdog' and why it is condemning the execution of one British hostage claimed by ISIS to have been in the British army rather than the foreign policy for 'causing' it.

This gloating and gory propaganda of the deed which is intended by IS to be what Cameron calls 'pure evil' compared to the 'greater evil' against which ISIS is ranged: the Hypocrite Sunni Muslim regimes that made their state possible by bankrolling jihadi efforts against Assad's regime and their Infidel allies.

Islamic State is, in reality, the Islamist State of Syria and Iraq. This would be a far better designation which distinguishes between Islam and the ideologisation of Islam into a set of political tactics and doctrines adapted to the modern world which owes much in its ideas to thinkers such as Maududi and Nabhani.

Maududi used the word 'Islamic State' to mean one in which all aspects of public and private life in a perfect society would be determined by a select Godly elite who would slowly infiltrate their way into institutions and take them over from within and purge kuffars from positions of power.

Maududi put forward a non-violent path to create an utopia. Other thinkers such as Qutb, an influence on Al Qaida, stressed modernistic ideas such as a vanguard elite bent on destroying a decadent world and creating a new world through acts of apocalyptic violence and terrorism.

None of those ideas exist in the Qu'ran. Islamist ideas such as Al Qaida's at one extreme. Those groups such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir which have an ambiguous attitude towards violence demand a Caliphate as an Islamified version of the sort of utopia longed for by, for example, the Bolsheviks in Tsarist Russia.

Islamic State is no more necessarily Islamic than the the Soviet Union was a true union of republics based on the control of worker's councils or even truly socialist. However, few socialists in the west, even those who rejected the Soviet Union would have called it the 'fake union of unsocialist unfree pseudo-republics'.

Malise Ruthven puts it well when he refers to Islamism as,

'the ideologization of Islam at the political level, the construction of a political ideology using some symbols culled from the historical reperiore of Islam, to the exclusion of others. This ideology, sometimes refered to as 'Islamic fundamentalism', is better described as Islamism: the Latin suffix attached to the Arabic original more accurately expresses the relationship between the pre-existing reality ( in this case a religion ) and its translation into a political ideology, just as communism ideologizes the reality of the commune, socialism the social, and fascism the ancient symbol of Roman consular authority'.

The difference is that socialism or communism were not words with a necessary cultural resonance for those identifying with a religion and civilisation such as Islam does imply. This is why not colluding in the portrayal of Islamic State at face value is vital and why 'Islamist State' would be the right name.

One advantage, is that those following or tempted to identify with Islamist groups in Britain would see that the necessary outcome of trying to create a caliphate based on an enforced and extreme version of sharia law ends up creating a hell on earth for other Muslims first and foremost in the lands under its control.

On message politicians in Britain, however, insist on 'ISIL' for reasons of 'public diplomacy'. One reason is 'ISIL' sounds more pointedly sharp and sinister, far more deadly and dangerous than ISIS which is also the name of an Egyptian Goddess. It sounds more evil and vile like SPECTRE in James Bond.

Another handy use of ISIL, is it avoids serving to remind those who opposed air strikes against Syria in 2013 that the last 'S' in ISIS means 'Syria' which could be entered targets there bombed. ISIL sounds more like a bacteria or lethal virus, a truly 'poisonous ideology' that can seep unguarded into any 'community'.

ISIL could be borne back to 'the homeland'. Having said that, some criticised the use of ISIL because the 'L' means Levant, that is the power claim made over Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Iraq , Southern Turkey, or even Israel. Yet that would serve to create a greater sense threat in the region too as well as the US.

The calculation could be that nobody actually knows that 'L' means Levant or what Levant means apart from sounding a bit fragrant. Of course, ISIL and ISIS are both better than IS which means 'Islamic State' and it could not be admitted that Islamic State is either a real state or that its really Islamic which is what IS wants.

Do you Support Military Action against ISIS ?

The Guardian has held an online opinion poll on the prospect for military intervention in Iraq and Syria against IS. 42% of those stated they supported military action against the Caliphate, 31% said only if it was 'legal and invited' and only 22 % were against it. 46 % said they supported the use of ground troops.

My own response is largely sceptical about military intervention as a substitute for politics and a regional diplomatic effort to contain the Islamic State. The British government is already using public diplomacy to prepare the people for a long and many sided struggle against this new enemy.

The reason for this and, indeed, the refusal by PM David Cameron even to use the words 'Islamic State' instead of ISIL, the name of an insurgent group rather than a self-proclaimed Caliphate State, is that Western leaders, politicians, dilomats and generals are themselves divided on how to deal with the problem.

Do you support military action against Isis? Not sure.

Military intervention would need to be the last resort if the state of Iraq where threatened with total collapse. Arms, intelligence and equipment to bolster the Kurdish peshmerga could stave off IS as well as help from special forces. Yet it is useless without a new regional political and diplomatic initiative.

That means involving Iran and changing the absurd policy of continuing to back Sunni militants as both an alternative to Assad in Damascus and IS. The reality is that is only an abstract choice based on wish thinking that is in continuity with the failed policy of backing 'moderate' Sunni rebels.

There was no indication from Obama or Cameron that cooperation and engagement with Iran or Assad. Without that, military intervention could only bolster Sunni militancy because the conflict in Syria is a proxy war between Qatar and Saudi Arabia against each other and against Iran.

Would you support the use of ground troops? No.

Apart from having special forces on the ground to assist the Kurds, putting troops into Iraq would not acheive anything apart from granting IS a propaganda victory and the chance to whip up jihad against the Infidel. It would mean loss of British lives for geopolitical goals not related to the defence of Britain.

True, the fall of Kurdish regions and Baghdad or attacks on oil producing zones would create an oil price shock and severely affect developed global economies such as Britain. But Iraqi troops could be trained and supplies by all global players interested in energy security, then there is no need for ground troops.

Have you changed your view to in favour of military action following the beheadings of James Foley and Steven Sotloff ? No.

The purpose of the executions to instill terror and the idea that there is a pyschopathological threat that stretches from Syria to Britain in continuity with the murder of the soldier Lee Rigby in Greenwich; these attacks are, then, a mere reflex consequence of Western foreign policy.

Despite the fact propaganda this agenda is amplified and echoed by Stop the War ideologues such as Lindsey German, reacting to these atrocities by blundering back into Iraq or using messianic rhetoric like PM Cameron's about a 'generational struggle' only makes for a conflict mentality to take root.

It's the idea of 'generational struggle' and a 'global war on terror' that IS would have wanted as a response to their beheadings as they too want to implant the same idea of a struggle between the 'Muslim World' and both the Hypocrites ( other states in the region ) and Infidels, i.e. the West, also by nature hypocritical .

The beheadings are propaganda of the deed. If the West attacks the Caliphate ( the purest and most unhypocritical of Muslim states in that it has only a single standard-join the jihad, be converted or be killed ) then clearly it would kill Muslims as Christians and other non-Muslims are of no consequence.

The pyschopathology behind it is one identified with many in the West who are semi-educated : the beheadings are nothing compared to the 'real' terror which is Western foreign policy, a propaganda trope pounded out uncritically by radical leftists, no less than Islamists, who contrast 'state terror' with 'individual terror'.

How successful do you think military intervention will be in combatting Isis? Somewhat.

Military intervention by the 'International community' i.e. the West could be futile because the foreign policy basis has been so disastrously based on shoddy realpolitik dressed up as humanitarian concern in Syria. Only a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Syria is possible, if at all.

The security of Britain could have been improved had the government not been prepared to back Sunni militants in Syria to get onside with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in their regional proxy struggle with Iran over energy pipeline routes and as means to divert internal discontent outwards.

Only towards the end of 2013 and into 2014 did the US and Britain start to put pressure on the Gulf states to clamp down on private donors when it was clear the support for Sunni jihadists was leading many to abandon the Free Syria Army to join ISIS instead: as with Afghanistan in the 1990s it is blowback.

Over the longer term, Britain needs to avert being dragged further into conflict in the Middle East by finding alternatives to importing LNG from Qatar to make up for the decline of North Sea gas reserves. That means greater energy conservation and investing in renewables energy, such as tidal power, and also in nuclear power.

Other global powers would also be needed to preserve the security of energy supplies such as China and the East Asian economies by footing the bill instead of the West. Borders such as that with Turkey need to be fortified and strengthened and risky geopolitical power games in Syria dropped.

Britain's Foreign Policy on IS: Building Towards Military Intervention.

'As Washington seeks to build a multi-national coalition to support an expansion of air strikes against the jihadists....the prime minister returned to work in Downing Street to intensify plans for an emergency action plan to be agreed at the Nato summit'. The Guardian

'We have been putting in humanitarian aid. I can confirm that last night I authorised two Hercules to participate in the big aid drop on Amerli, a town that has been under siege for nearly two months. The RAF dropped 14 tonnes of food and water there for a population that has been completely besieged'-Michael Fallon, British Defence Minister.

Since the US bombing of IS positions commenced a couple of weeks ago, there has been a growing feeling that Britain too could be dragged back into involvement in Iraq at a level beyond RAF Hercules aircraft dropping food supplies to Iraqis in need and surrounded by IS foot soldiers.

The emphasis has been, therefore, upon humanitarian intervention once more, something invariably leading to the suspicion of yet another 'western war' being planned or else that IS is a creation of the CIA acting in tangent with Israel and with the Caliph himself a Mossad plant.

Certainly, there is not much evidence of public support for any military intervention. Had there been, it is far more likely Cameron could have taken a Blair-style 'shoulder to shoulder' stance. If anything, Cameron was playing for time throughout August 2014, not wanting to be seen as rushing into another conflict.

Cameron claimed Britain's 'military prowess' and 'assets' would be deployed, that 'boots on the ground' were not an 'option on the table' nor air strikes-unless requested. The language of Cameron and his ministers is standard fare and so yawn inducingly banal that many people would feel like switching off the TV.

It looks likely that the British government does not know what could be done or else, far more likely,  it does but is putting out constant spin and managing the media to try and play down the imminent threat of military intervention until some sort of trump card, yet to be played, could be produced.

The task of Britain's politicians seems to consist in trying to anticipate what Washington is going to require its 'first ally' to do the better to position themselves and Britain's 'military assets' at the service of the US should they be requested and so pose as independent 'global players'.

The attempt by the government to ramp up the rhetoric about IS is about softening up public opinion ready for military intervention. Bombing IS positions is not going to defeat it, however, and there is not much sign of any shift away from the failed foreign policy towards Syria. So a 'generational struggle' is on.

This is known as 'public diplomacy'. The basic fact is that the military intervention in northern Iraq is primarily about protecting the Kurdistan region and the oil producing regions from IS and to prevent the Iraqi state collapsing. This would trigger off a potential surge in global oil prices. 

The international development minister Alan Duncan "This is such a complicated conflict that any response needs to be a well co-ordinated international effort." John Kerry went on in a speech later to claim there was a need for a 'world coalition' to defeat a 'genocidal ISIS'.

By 'international', that means 'the west' taking action to ensure energy security as some 20% of Iraqi oil is exported to Europe. But more oil goes to East Asia which is heavily dependent upon imported oil. Higher oil prices would mean higher production costs in China and the cost passed on to Western consumers.

It is partly because the US and Britain back in 2003 caused the havoc in Iraq, still unfolding to such an extreme degree in 2014, that military intervention of some sort of a continued basis appears inevitable. But it also underlines the way the global economies have become dangerously overdependent upon oil.

This is a fact many in the West refuse to confront. It is one thing blaming the politicians as bungling and pursuing a contradictory strategy in Syria and Iraq. But, at a deeper level, the hyper-consumerism that those citizens enjoy requires that this sort of military intervention becomes more frequent.

So, in this sense, political double standards are necessary whereby the most obvious facts about British foreign policy, such as the energy interests ( i.e oil and gas ) are seldom talked about sensibly and reduced to cynical sneers by 'anti-war' activists about military intervention being 'all about the oil'.

This, in turn, means that the very serious problem of the most advanced global economies being fragile and dependent upon oil prices, and the continued access to easily available supples, is impossible to discuss without the accusation of peddling conspiracy theories being made by the defenders of the foreign policy.

"A Greater and Deeper Threat to our Security than we have Known Before".

"It was clear evidence, not that any more was needed, that this is not some foreign conflict thousands of miles from home that we can hope to ignore. The ambition to create an extremist caliphate in the heart of Iraq and Syria is a threat to our own security here in the UK.

In Afghanistan the Taliban were prepared to play host to al Qaida, the terrorist organisation. With IS we are facing a terrorist organisation not being hosted in a country but seeking to establish and then violently expand its own terrorist state.

"With designs on expanding to Jordan, Lebanon, right up to the Turkish border, we could be facing a terrorist state on the shores of the Mediterranean and bordering a Nato member.

The ambition to create an extremist caliphate in the heart of Iraq and Syria is a threat to our own security here in the UK.

The terrorist threat was not created by the Iraq war 10 years ago. it existed even before the horrific attacks on 9/11, themselves some time before the war.

This threat cannot be solved simply by dealing with perceived grievances over Western foreign policy. Nor can it be dealt with by addressing poverty, dictatorship or instability in the region - as important as these things are.

The root cause of this threat to our security is quite clear. It is a poisonous ideology of Islamist extremism that is condemned by all faiths and faith leaders."-Prime Minister David Cameron.

The threat that Islamic State poses would most likely not have existed had it not been for Western foreign policy as it could not have exploited the chaos in northern Syria to gain power and declare the coming of the Caliphate both there and in Sunni parts of Iraq, a land destabilised by the 2003 US-UK invasion.

The tissue of untruths spun by Prime Minister Cameron, in reaction to the barbaric beheading of US journalist James Foley, shows how leading politicians are prepared to use the power of media images to put the case for unending and permanent intervention, even of a military kind, in the Middle East.

MI6 is there to advance geostrategies and manage the attendent risks. As Patrick Cockurn made plain, MI6 was involved, alongside the CIA, in channelling weapons to Sunni jihadists such as Jabhat al-Nusra from Libya and setting up a 'supply chain' of weapons provision across the Turkish borders into Syria.

Britain should never have backed the strategic policy of Qatar and Turkey in backing Sunni militants against Assad through groups such as 'Friends of Syria'. The reason why Britain's security has been comprimised is because this policy of backing regional powers in the Middle East who were prepared to back jihadists.

Britain should have been putting far more pressure on Turkey to tighten up the borders to prevent Western jihadists entering. Certainly, Turkey would need have to prevent IS militants crossing back into its territory so if it could acheive that, as Turkey is an IS target too, they could be detained there.

Ramping up the terror threat level to "highly likely", of course, is a way of preparing Britain for an attack if it happened. It also serves to deflect attention away from the fact that Britain's foreign policy helped empower IS by supposing that 'moderate' Sunni forces could be backed to oust Assad.

It was clear that both Qatar and Saudi Arabia were locked into a competition throughout 2012-2013 to back the most effective ( i.e ruthless ) jihadi groups so that they would be able to determine a post-Assad Syria. That and the chaos of the war created space for IS to gain ground and flourish.

In 2013 ISIS was fighting with the Free Syria Army against the Kurds which are now being supported by the US and Britain. Until late 2013 and 2014 little was done by London or Washington to put greater pressure on Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to stop the transfer of funds from private donors to Sunni militants.

All these prevention of terrorism policies are reflexes to to the consequence of a failed foreign policy strategy that was even more fundamentally foolish that the one in which the US and Britain backed the mujahadeen in Afghanistan in the 1980s, splinter factions of which went on to become Al Qaida.

Syria has become a failed state in the north as a consequence of the policy that 'Assad must go', a demand pushed for by Qatar and Turkey to check Iran and to expedite the possible construction of a gas pipeline from the South Pars gas field to Turkey and an energy hungry EU.

At the core of the West's problems and the terror threat is its energy dependency upon gas from unstable lands which makes it bound to look for energy diversification no matter what the consequences and risks could be. Qatar is a major supplier of LNG to Britain and France.

The foreign policy agenda was clearly set out by Philip Hammond in April 2014, when mulling the possibility of a British base being constructed in Qatar

“The West is crucially dependent on a stable energy market above all else, Our economic recovery is fragile. Anything that calls for a spike in the oil price would derail it. The mostly likely scenario to cause that up spike is a surge in tension in this region, particularly in the Strait of Hormuz. It is very much in our interest to have a stable situation in the Gulf. That is why Western countries are prepared to invest so much in this region and supporting the Gulf states to maintain that stability.”

With Russia and Ukraine almost in a state of war and Libya haven fallen to Islamist jihadists, Britain and Europe's energy security looks more fragile than ever before and this has been factored in to the need to take risky foreign policy decisions such as continuing to back Sunni militants in Syria.

Until Britain, and other European powers, find energy alternatives to oil and gas, the dependency dillemma is always going to drag Western powers into meddling in the Middle East and causing the sort of potentially very dangerous problem of terrorist 'blowback' on a permanent basis.

Postscript: A Note on Britain's Gas Imports.

It uses an increasing amount of LNG from Qatar which prevents it making up for declining North Sea gas reserves by having to purchase more gas directly from Russia, as was confirmed in a Reuters report in March 2014,  in accordance with an agreement dating back to 2012.

'Britain will begin this year to import gas from Russia under a formal contract for the first time, just as European calls to loosen Moscow's grip on energy supply mount because of the crisis over Ukraine.
The country's biggest utility Centrica signed a deal in 2012 with Russian state-controlled Gazprom to import 2.4 billion cubic metres of gas over a period of three years, and the supplies will begin flowing in October.

The next fact is that Britain and the EU's energy network is interconnected and, of course, a surge in oil or gas prices would affect the British economy if it were to have an impact upon the economies of its European partners. A report from the New Scientist made the energy dilemma clear,

The situation in the UK is less clear. Gas imports account for around 70 per cent of supply, but because of the complex European network of pipelines and interconnectors that we rely on, it's difficult to say exactly how much of that imported gas is Russian. Some reports claim that Russia supplies around 15 per cent of that total and others put this figure much lower. Russian energy giant Gazprom estimates that it sends 11 to 12 billion cubic metres to the UK each year, out of an overall UK consumption of around 84 billion cubic metres.

Whatever the figure, if Russia cuts gas supply to Europe, the knock-on effect would be felt as keenly in the UK as in many other parts of Europe. The crisis may also affect a deal made between Centrica (which owns British Gas) and Gazprom to begin importing 2.4 bn cubic metres of Russian gas via a pipeline from Holland in a couple of months' time.

Energy security is national security for high octane consumer societies which need dependable supplies of oil and gas to uphold the energy intensive lifestyles the great majority of citizens in Western nations have come to take for granted. The search for alternatives ought to be a matter of urgency.

Immediate Reflections on News of the Fall of Tripoli in Libya

'The weekend's developments threaten to tilt the country across the line from troubled post-Arab spring democracy to outright failed state.
Egypt and Sudan are known to be watching developments closely, and last week the French president, François Hollande, said that despite the crises in Iraq, Syria, Ukraine and Gaza, his "biggest concern at the moment is Libya".' Guardian report August 24 2014

The fall of Tripoli an, perhaps, Libya to militant Islamists is the consequence of the foolish conviction that democracy could heal all divisions with a society long under a secular dictatorship and lead to increased oil and gas security for the Western nations.

As with Iraq, the removal of Gaddafi has led to an increased war over who is going to dominate Libya and its copious oil reserves and the stage in set for an unrelenting civil war, decivilisation and barbarity of the kind now playing itself out in Syria and Iraq.

An Islamist controlled Libya could lead to a cut off of gas and oil supplies to Italy and other European nations that receive Libyan gas at a time when Russia and Ukraine are on the potential brink of conflict. Dependence upon Russian gas could only increase as a result of events in Libya.

The attempt to sabotage and blow up gas installations in Algeria in 2013 was aided by Islamist militants from Libya. Islamists in control in Libya could use gas as a tool to threaten Western economies just as they tried to blow up gas installations in Algeria controlled by British Petroleum

The fragile economic recovery of Mediterranean countries such as Italy could be affected should the chaos or deliberate policy lead to Libyan gas being shut off as it accounts for around 15% of consumption and has been increasing due to the conflict in Eastern Ukraine.

At any rate, fuel prices would rise in Italy and other Eurozone nations as they compete for Norwegian and Dutch gas and supplies from elsewhere such as Qatar, one reason why the Western Powers, whether Britain or France or Italy, are bound to continue to support Qatar's demands that Assad in Syria must go.

Unless, it is understood that energy geopolitics determines foreign policy, then all these decisions about 'humanitarian intervention' are bound to seem inexplicable and destined to repeat the same failures because the political elites are foolish. But its European energy dependence that is the cause.

The demand for military intervention in the Middle East and Maghreb since the US withdrew from Iraq has come mostly from energy dependent European states. Unlike the US which has shale oil and gas to fall back on, energy intensive consumerist societies such as Spain and Italy and France do not.

Italy depends on Libyan oil for as much as 22 per cent of crude oil consumption. Spain for 13%. As Herman Franssen, former chief economist of the International Energy Agency put in 2011 “Europe has to choose between becoming more dependent on Russia or the Middle East, or both”.

With Russia and Ukraine at odds and Syria and Iraq being in chaos the time is way overdue for a serious condideration for energy alternatives such as nuclear power as well as trying to restructure the economy away from the heavy over reliance on oil and gas.

The alternative is the Western nations being dragged in to further wars that result in terrorist blowback and multiple evils.The alternative to making the search for alternatives to oil and gas to underpin consumer lifestyles is, quite frankly, an epoch in which European nations endure economic slumps and political instability.

Why Western Strategy in Syria and Iraq Appears Contradictory: Energy Interests and Realpolitik.

This is what passes for "informed" commentary in a British newspaper in 2014,

'Oh the fickleness of humanity and history! This time last year, the British parliament was recalled by the prime minister, who appeared confident that he would receive a mandate to join the US in air strikes on Syria – the immediate and urgent reason being the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad’s, use of sarin gas to crush the growing uprising against him. Of course, “we” had few illusions about either the unity or the ethics of those rebels, but the argument was that there were enough people we could do business with and the Assad regime was the greater evil.

Fast forward a year, and authoritative word has winged its way across the Atlantic from the Pentagon – in the shape of a joint press conference by the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the defence secretary, no less – that the only way to halt the advance of Islamic State (Isis) in northern Iraq is to bomb ... Syria. But this time not the forces – official and unofficial – of Assad, but the Syria of his enemies. Because, hey, we have revised our view of the lesser evil.'

There is no need for Mary Dejevsky to reveal to the public that Western strategy seems twisting, contradictory and even schizophrenic. Most observers can see that for themselves if they pay attention. What is needed is proper explanation as to why it is so or else too many words are wasted.

The reason the Western Powers wanted Assad to be removed in 2013 was due to energy geopolitics. Assad was in the way of the designs put forth by Turkey and Qatar for a gas pipeline that would provide energy to EU markets and turn Turkey into an East-West energy hub.

The removal of Assad would, moreover, check Iranian ambitions for a 'Shi'ite Islamic' gas pipeline from the very same South Pars gas field it shares with Qatar, with Syria having signed up for it in 2010 and Iraq by 2013. Removing Assad was apiece with the strategy for containing Iran.

The idea of that the West's backing the Sunni militants was based on a moral calculus of it being the lesser evil than Assad is simply ignorant and naive. The decision by French President Sarkozy to create the Friends of Syria in 2012 to back the Free Syria Army was pure realpolitik from the outset.

It was only when that strategy backfired because Qatar and Saudi Arabia started funding the most effective ( i.e ruthless ) jihadists so as to control any post-Assad government that ISIS started to gain ground in Northern Syria and that the West started to grasp that 'blowback' was a consequence.

ISIS was not considered a danger to vital interests until it came within striking distance of Erbil and the copious oil reserves in the Kurdish region and captured the Mosul Dam. As soon as ISIS could threaten oil interests and the global oil price, it became essential to stop it militarily.

Until the geopolitics of energy is examined as a routine fact of international relations in the mainstream newspapers we are going to get obfuscation and an inability to understand how the world actually works. Western policy is contradictory because based on oil and gas imperatives.

Oil and gas are not the only factors ,of course. But omitting them entirely in any sensible discussion about Western strategy is rather like trying to explain where babies come from without mentioning the word 'sex'. Face facts : most contemporary conflicts are resource wars.

Resource War in Northern Iraq: Oil and the Anglo-American Military Intervention.

".. alongside the humanitarian crisis there is also a political and extremism crisis in Iraq that has a direct effect on us back here in the UK. We do have a fully worked through strategy for helping with allies to deal with this monstrous organisation – the Islamic State."-British Prime Minister David Cameron

The problem with Cameron's lame public diplomacy is that anyone who knows anything about the conflict in northern Iraq and Syria regards with complete contempt the cant about a 'monstrous organisation' and the impact it could have on our streets, a stock justification used for 'staying the course' in the Afghanistan.

It is about time British political leaders stopped treating the British public as some sort of infantile herd that can be fobbed off with condescending precision tooled up soundbites of the sort about  'military prowess', 'the terrorist organisation' and the possibility of 'mayhem in our streets'.

With the spread of the Internet and the 'information revolution', those even remotely interested in what is going on in northern Iraq could quickly discover that the reasons for intervention are not only concerned with saving the Yazidis from being killed by IS or about some more imminent terror threat being now a red alert.

The war in northern Iraq is not a simplistic conflict between forces of good versus evil, though IS is certainly evil and malign. It's a complicated many sided struggle over access to water as well as an ethnic/sectarian war between Kurds and Sunni Arabs over the oil wealth of Kirkuk amongst other things.

Unless the intention of the British involvement is to kill as many IS foot soldiers as possible and take out British born jihadists, then Cameron should refrain from trying to justify the war according to the idea it is primarily about protecting Britain from jihadists. It may actually increase that risk.

Cameron is, no doubt, aware that the cost of military intervention could be to lead to a spike in the threat of terrorism in Britain so he would need to manage risk and expectations by emphasising the ongoing nature of the threat the better to be able justify more intervention in future if attacked.

Britain would be better off tightening up borders and working with Turkey to prevent European jihadists crossing. Security measures are somewhat different to military campaigns to roll back what is, in reality, a potential threat to Iraq's stability and so global oil supplies and prices.

The crisis in Iraq has curtailed the supply of crude oil from OPEC's second largest producer and saw prices surge over $114 a barrel for the first time in nine months back in June 2014. Despite being less dependent on Middle East oil than in 2003, increased oil prices could affact the East Asian economies.

Energy analyst Anthony Cordesman argues "The United States, strategically, is a major trading power. It is particularly dependent on the import of manufactured goods from three countries which are extremely dependent on energy imports. Those happen to be China, South Korea, and Japan."

So while Sunni militants had been encroaching into Iraq months before the US and Britain decided to act, partly because of the Yazidis situation, but more due to the threat to Iraq as the world's 7th largest oil producer and the threat to Erbil and Kurdistan's oil boom regional state.

The Kurdish militias took Kirkuk in June 2014 and the threat to it from IS would set back British Petroleum's plans to reverse declining output at the oilfield discovered in 1927. Providing aid to the KRG could help remove opposition to BP's plans in Kirkuk, aswell as shoring yp the Iraqi government in Baghdad

Britain is among the many global players vying for oil contracts and the right to drill in Kurdish oil fields. The danger of that strategy is it could push Kurdistan further towards independence in a way that could anger Iran whose cooperation even Cameron has belatedly come to regard as essential to defeating IS.

Obama only gave the go-ahead for air strikes as soon as Erbil seemed in striking distance of the oil fields being drilled by Chevron and ExxonMobil. It is the involvement of such global oil majors that has put a strain on the relationship between Baghdad and Kurdistan that has helped destabilise Iraq.

Iraq is the cockpit of proxy struggles and resource wars and this vital fact in relation to both it and neighbouring Syria is routinely screened out from mainstream media accounts of the war when energy geopolitics should be getting a lot coverage and integrated into factual accounts of the conflict.

Afghanistan: Mission Not Quite Accomplished

"You have to remember that Afghanistan is an extremely poor country with a very, very troubled history but I think the purpose of our mission was always to build an Afghanistan and Afghan security forces that were capable of maintaining a basic level of security so this country never again became a haven for terrorist training camps. That has been the most important part of the mission …That is the mission, that was the mission and I think we will have accomplished that mission and so our troops can be very proud of what they have done."

Cameron might well have declared that the mission has been accomplished. The fact it is it has not because the main strategic objective of the West in Afghanistan-securing the construction of the TAPI pipeline-has not been achieved. That is why British troops are being 'drawdown' and not withdrawn.

"Afghanistanisation" is a longer term project that underlies the geopolitical strategy of ensuring that Iran is excluded from being able to export its gas eastwards through Pakistan into India, one of the world's largest markets. Thousands of Western troops and private contractors will remain after 2014.

Despite the recent thaw in relations between Washington and Tehran over Iran's nuclear programme, the US was resolute in November 2013 in refusing to exempt the IPI pipeline from sanctions and instead pushing Pakistan towards accepting the future Trans-Afghan alternative.

With British troops being withdrawn from 'combat roles'. the military and private contractors are set to stay there in order to keep the Taliban in check from attacking the TAPI pipeline's construction because this has remained the paramount interest as the idea of 'nation building' was shelved.

The process of 'drawdown' of British troops has been paralleled by the US. Replaced by private contractors and with the conflict spilling over to the south in Pakistan with drone warfare, the strategy is to keep on with 'infrastructure projects' and the pipeline that is in the West's vital interest to protect.

The importance of the TAPI pipeline lies in the strategy of energy diversification. It means Turkmen gas could be exported south beyond Russian control, preventing China exerting too much leverage ( a pipeline now goes between Turkmenistan and China ) and hemming in Iranian influence.

Opponents of the war can scoff at Cameron's claim of 'mission accomplished' because they are in the dark as to what the true objectives were. Even if the war initially really did have women's liberation, the establishment of liberal democracy and the 'war on drugs' as aims, these are now less prominent.

The reality is that Afghanistan has always been an important part of a geopolitical jigsaw and valued as a potential prize for its copious resources, expecially of lithium ( used to make batteries for everything from the mobile phones to iPads that consumers demand ).

Afghanistan is a conflict zone and a cockpit in the New Great Game for control of energy flows and the minerals needed for high tech products being played out between the West, China and Russia. The facts are established on this. US State Department officials routinely mention 'the New Silk Road'.

If we are going to talk about whether it 'was worth it', it's first necessary to understand why Afghanistan was fought for so long. It's infantile to berate 'idiot politicians' because the politicians know they could never admit the real geopolitical reasons for the war that are too complex for the children to grasp.

Syria Crisis: The Hawks Will Return.

There are reasons for pessimism as regards the idea Britain is really going to stay out of involvement in the Syrian conflict. Paddy Ashdown seems to think Ed Miliband is an opportunist who has betrayed Labour's internationalist heritage. But it is not accurate.

Steve Richards has written an interesting column on David Cameron's humiliating loss of the vote for military intevention in Syria where he states,

'Cameron supported intervention without being sure he could secure the necessary parliamentary backing. For him the situation was a daunting one, but it did not require a political genius to see what resistance to force lay within his party'

Ironically, it was Cameron's determination to recall Parliament and use the sort of 'public diplomacy' used by Tony Blair that ensured there would be no British military involvement on Syria based on the government's motion on August 30. So he acheived far more than Miliband in preventing war.

If Cameron had accepted the sort of approach favoured by Miliband then it is quite possible that British military involvement based upon the case against Assad for having allegedly used chemical weapons on August 21 may well have gone ahead should the UN inspectors have found 'some' evidence.

With news of President Obama now playing for time and putting the matter of US military involvement to Congress, a combination of Cameron and Hague's blundering and bluster and Miiband's opportunism could well mean that if Congress votes for it another vote could be sought in Parliament.

Milband was not against military action in principle but judged the public mood and that of Parliament better. If Obama now starts building up the 'compelling evidence' he has referred to and that was stated as the second condition Labour tabled in its amendment, then another vote could happen.

This, unfortunately, is not out of the question as Liam Fox indicated. The spin machine is in full motion now trying to portray the imperative for a missile strike against Assad's regime and military assets. Moreover, there is a new emerging consensus about the value of the delay to making the case firmer.Fox stated

"I think it is reasonable to wait until we have had the report of the UN inspectors but ultimately we will still have to make a response as an international community. We may have put it off for a few days from the British perspective but we still have to make a response."

"It is against international law, it is a war crime. We have a duty as an international community to make a response to that. 

"I think it is reasonable to wait until we have had the report of the UN inspectors but ultimately we will still have to make a response as an international community. We may have put it off for a few days from the British perspective but we still have to make a response." 

Lord Reid, defence secretary under Tony Blair, said Labour leader Ed Miliband was right to force a delay, insisting it would "maximise the legitimacy" of the use of force.

He told Today: "I can't speak for Ed or for the party officially but I do think that his decision was a wise one and I do think that the Prime Minister David Cameron's decision to heed Ed Miliband's call to await the UN inspectors report was also a right one and a wise one.

"I say that especially because we are less than a week or so away from their conclusion, it's not a matter of months or years, and because waiting maximises the legitimacy of the use of force if it proves to be necessary.

"It also increases the prospect of greater international support for any action whereas jumping the gun, taking military action before the United Nations inspectors have had a chance to report, over a matter of 10 days, not 10 years or 10 months, jumping the gun on that would diminish both of those chances of legitimacy and support"

What these seasoned and wily political manipulators are saying is that even if the case for military intervention was lost by Cameron on the basis of the motion and manner and timing of its presentation, then there is no reason why a 'different' case could not be re-presented later somehow.

Those celebrating prematurely that military intervention has been avoided for good need to understand that a lot of politicians firmly wedded to the US and the special relationship and the 'power' that gives are not going to let something such as democracy get in the way of making the 'right decision'.

Appendix

Ashdown can be satisfied that Britain may yet get involved.There is a distinct possibility of a second vote. The Spectator columnist Isabel Hardman has argued it may well happen. The idea Miliband was truly defying Washington is almost certainly a 'triumph of hope over experience'.

If Congress does not debate and vote on action until 9 September, there is time for the UN weapons inspectors to report and the UN Security Council to vote. This assumes Congress does approve action (and Obama said he was confident he would get the support, hopefully based on better intelligence than that which led Cameron to be equally confident at the start of this week). But if all of those conditions are met, would the Labour party support action? If they would – and it would be foolish for Cameron to return to the Commons without absolute certainty of Miliband’s support – then the Commons could plausibly see another vote on whether the UK should be involved in the international response to the chemical attacks.
It is worth noting the wording of Ed Miliband’s point of order in the Commons on Thursday night once the defeat had been announced:

‘On a point of order, Mr Speaker. There having been no motion passed by this House tonight, will the Prime Minister confirm to the House that, given the will of the House that has been expressed tonight, he will not use the royal prerogative to order the UK to be part of military action before there has been another vote in the House of Commons?’

Cameron won’t return to Parliament unless he is sure of victory on this issue. But Miliband hasn’t ruled out another vote either

Cameron is going to be hell bent on getting his way and forcing intervention on Britain whether it likes it or not.

Syria: 'Public Diplomacy'

'A British military attack on Syria will have to be a "judgement call" as there is no "single smoking piece of intelligence" that the regime used chemical weapons, David Cameron said at the beginning of the emergency Commons debate on Syria'

So Cameron has made it clear that he is Prime Minister and he will make the 'judgement call'. It is a similar position to Tony Blair 'believing' that the invasion of Iraq was 'right' and when he took the decision it was voted for by Parliament. It is Washington that decides and the Parliamentary debates are largely irrelevant.

None of the party political leaders is against the use of military strikes on principle. Cameron is claiming essentially that he believes Assad used chemical weapons and that inaction is not an option. Miliband is attacking the exact manner in which Cameron has proceeded to make the case for intervention.

The case for military intervention itself is not subject for debate. Only the demand from Milband that it follows due procedures that Cameron is not denying will be attempted but that UN security council mandates are not necessary because of the role of 'the responsibility to protect' and prevent a humanitarian disaster.

The second vote is when it really matters and what actually counts. If Washington decided the evidence is satisfactory for a military strike to proceed, then the question is whether Parliament will defy Cameron and whether the Labour leadership will reject any 'compelling evidence' the US government provides.

Cameron is just 'on message' from Washington about the issue of there being 'no smoking gun'. i.e no definitive piece of evidence proving Assad intentionally and explicitly carried out a rocket attack using chemical weapons. The Labour amendments were still about framing the possible case for military action

US officials have already indicated that if Britain does not give Washington support, it would be prepared to act anyway. Harf stated robotically a few hours ago '“We make our own decisions and our own timeline". So that is that then and what politicians here decide would not affect the USA's response

Little Parliament does or does not do will affect Washington's line. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said "When the president reaches a determination about the appropriate response ... and a legal justification is required to substantiate or to back up that decision, we'll produce one on our own."

The second motion in Parliament will take what Washington does into consideration and if it determined to launch a military strike there is little chance that Miliband would vote against it or defy Washington as it will find a 'legal basis' and put out the sort of 'public diplomacy' Miliband could accept.