Many of those who are upset with this situation are venting their spleen on Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, but that strikes me as unrealistic. What would you do in his position, whatever your innermost feelings about Iran? The Americans are about to leave in a few more days. Right across the border, and indeed all over your own country, the Iranians are preparing to enhance their power at your expense. If you are too obstreperous, they’ll blow you up. So of course you’re going to cater to Iranian desires, recommendations, and hints.
Can Maliki possibly expect to survive a confrontation with Iran? Can he possibly expect any effective protection from Obama? No way. This is, after all, a president who staged a musical comedy in DC just a few weeks ago to accuse Tehran of plotting mass murder in our capital. And then did nothing, except to go public with a pathetic request that the Iranians return our drone.
That’s a variation on the president’s main theme with regard to the Iranian regime that kills Americans most every day: let’s make a deal.
The only deal the Iranians are interested in is the sort Ali Musa Daqduq made with five brave Americans in Iraq nearly four years ago, but the president persists in his fantasy of reaching “peace” with the Islamic Republic. So even though many senators and congressmen, and virtually every leading newspaper in the country have insisted that justice be done to this monster, it’s hard to imagine that Obama’s going to dig in his heels and tell the Iranians that he won’t make this shameful act of appeasement.
After all, it would annoy the supreme leader no end.
Barry Obama is not a serious person, and I believe the world recognises this fact.
Nonsense. the Nobel Lauriate has shared our greatest secret weapons with our enemies to level the playing field. How fair!
Oh, he’s very serious and, so far, successful.
This transfer fits everything that this administration has done up to now. Why not return a terrorist home? Its easier than giving up Tunisia, Lybia and Egypt to the Moslem Brotherhood. Obama will do what he wants, not what we want.
Indeed what IS Maliki to do? A Shia majority in Iraq just chomping at the bit with their former loyalty to country over religion as in the Iraq-Iran War now suspect. I know what the Americans can do. Bring the guy to Guantanamo and summarily execute him.
Viet Nam 70-74.
Iraq 91.
Somalia 92.
And Iraq again,’11-12or13
We have become experts at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, or at least from the jaws of acceptable conclusions.
This ranks with Viet Nam in terms of destructiveness. Iraq is already lost, and if we can run out of Afghanistan fast enough, as planned, it will be chaos as well.
If we accomplished nothing else in Iraq, at least we cut Iran off from easy access to Syria and Lebanon. Now, by the time Obama leaves office, they will have ground routes open to the Med, and probably to Pakistan as well. Obama may well go down as the best defeat snatcher yet.
Lol, I almost fell over when I heard that Obama declared that this will be an
honourable peace. Positively Nixonian. Remind me how “Peace with Honour”
worked out for the South Vietnamese.
By now, you’d think it wouldn’t be necessary to point this out, (yet once again), but here goes anyway:
The South Vietnamese got screwed by the Democrat 1974 “Watergate Congress”, whose first act upon taking office in Jan. ’75 was to cut off all aid, military, civilian and humanitarian, to South Vietnman and its hitherto, (certainly from early ’73), stable government.
Nixon (and Abrams) got the job done in Vietnam. But he allowed himself to be caught up in the ridiculous Watergate idiocy, which in turn allowed the leftist Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. (Not unlike the current situation, in which Bush, who, with Petraeus, had engineered a military victory in Iraq, complete with a blueprint for a negotiated “status of forces” agreement, but he got himself overwhelmed by the sub-prime mortgage debacle which has allowed the most leftward avatar of the Democrat Party to come in and voluntarily give up any continued US influence in Iraq.)
You mention the other members of Daqduq’s team were released in 2009. Then you mention writing about it and receiving denials from the (Bush) Pentagon. Either the terrorists were released before 2009 or you incorrectly referenced President Bush. Which is it ?
i wrote about the plans for the release before Obama came in; both Bush and Obama have done this.
As have the Israelis, releasing over 1,000 terrorists for one soldier. How many will those 1,000 kill? I was a stout defender of Israel. Now they can go to Hell for all I care.
Once under Bush there was for a short period of time when an authorization for the US military to cross the border into Syria in hot pursuit of jihadists operating in Iraq, but this was very limited both in time and scope, and I can’t remember of any episode when the same applied to Iran, Jordan or Saudi Arabia.
I remember the spectacular Karbala attack during the religious pilgrimage, and the frustration of many in the US military, who were denied clearance to reach across the border with Iran for any punitive operation, which would have been feasible militarily, if against the diplomatic posture of the time, which appeared already rather timid.
Letting go of Ali Daqduq is just one more of these failure to prosecute, worse in severity, but far from unique in instance. The same applies to the early practice of taking the additional risks involved in capturing live bad actors in Afghanistan, Iraq and even inside Pakistan (as Khalid Sheik Mohammed for instance) as opposed to the later practice, particularly under this administration, of just killing them with drones, thereby throwing away the intelligence value of otherwise high value targets.
Shame on Obama…
What you mentioned above is certainly shameful and an insult to those who gave their lives fighting evil. But this one takes the cake:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/12/former-iranian-militant-visits-white-house-with-ir/?page=all#pagebreak
I remember reading a book about the french war in Viet Nam in which a small unimportant incident made it clear to the author that the French were destined to lose the war. I’m am afraid this particular incident reveals that the same about the US in the war against the political culture of the middle east(that’s what the war on terror really is). Iran will be allowed to get the bomb sooner or later because the US is afraid of that mouse. The middle east will fall under Iranian hegemony and 50% Jewish population of Israel will emigrate as the polls show they will if Iran gets the bomb. As for the US, this country will have the clout of Canada. Freedom loving people will wonder why they ever put any faith in a hedonistic country without character.
I invite everyone to tell me that I am a fool and explain why.
At least get them to give us our drone back for Pete’s sake!!!!
Alas Winston, Obama has no shame.
Nor do the other shameless hucksters that populate the fetid democrat party. But as idiotic and selfish and meddlesome and destructive most liberal politicians are, B. Obama stands out as a clear worst case. Ali Dungdung is going to get off scot free, just like megrahi and Bill Ayres. Obama and Holder will do NOTHING to keep him in custody; you can bet on it.
He asks them to return the drone. They demand that he apologize. They play him like a violin. Or is it really a duet?
When Mohammedans run out of Jews and Kafirs to kill they turn on each other. Islam is an evil hate and Death CULT which needs a constant flow of blood to sustain it.
Michael,
Good for you for throwing some light on this, but, as you note, this has been going on for some time. The incident which made me most crazy was the release of Qais Qazali in 2009. As I recall, he moved on soon after that to a seat (or at least an office) in parliment. I’m not aware of any media reference to the Iranian seizure of the UK sailors in the case of Qais. I think it was just an attempt to appease the Iranians/Sadarists. Bush had his faults (pity you weren’t advising him instead of Condi. “Faster, Please” would have sounded well in a Texas accent as an order to various arms of the USG), but the Qais release came on BHO’s watch.
I hate to cut and past, but perhaps folks will find this 2009 article to be of interest. Too bad there are only six comments so far. It shows a sad lack of interest in our capitulaton to the Iranins in Iraq. We won in Iraq in 2007/08 and then essentially gave up this unparralled platform from which to effect events in Iran in 2009/10.
—————————
The Long War Journal: US releases ‘dangerous’ Iranian proxy behind the murder of US troops – Written by Bill Roggio on December 31, 2009 12:57 AM to 1 The Long War Journal – Available online at: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/12/us_releases_dangerou.php
The US has released the leader of an Iranian-backed Shia terror group behind the kidnapping and murder of five US soldiers in Karbala in January 2007.
Qais Qazali, the leader of the Asaib al Haq or the League of the Righteous, was set free by the US military and transferred to Iraqi custody in exchange for the release of British hostage Peter Moore, US military officers and intelligence officials told The Long War Journal. The US military directly implicated Qais in the kidnapping and murder of five US soldiers in Karbala in January 2007.
“We let a very dangerous man go, a man whose hands are stained with US and Iraqi blood,” a military officer said. “We are going to pay for this in the future.”
The US military has maintained that the release of members and leaders of the League of the Righteous is related to a reconciliation agreement between the terror group and the Iraqi government, but some US military officers disagree.
“The official line is the release of Qazali is about reconciliation, but in reality this was a prisoner swap,” a military intelligence official said.
Moore and four members of his personal bodyguard were kidnapped at the Finance Ministry in Baghdad in May 2007 by a group that calls itself the Islamic Shia Resistance, which is in fact a front for the League of the Righteous. The group had always insisted that Qais, his brother Laith, and other members of the Asaib al Haq be released in exchange for Moore and the others. Three of Moore’s bodyguards were executed while in custody, and the fourth is thought to have been murdered as well.
“This was a deal signed and sealed in British and American blood,” a US military officer told The Long War Journal. “We freed all of their leaders and operatives; they [the League of the Righteous] executed their hostages and sent them back in body bags. And we’re supposed to be happy about it.”
As of mid-October, the US had released more than 100 members of the League of the Righteous. The US has also released several senior Qods Force officers, including Mahmud Farhadi, the leader of the Zafr Command, one of three units subordinate to the Qods Force’s Ramazan Corps. Farhadi was among five Iranians turned over to the Iraqi government and then subsequently turned over to the Iranians in July.
The US has released the Iranian operatives and proxies despite rising tensions between Iran and Iran. Iran is currently occupying Iraqi oil wells in Maysan province. Shia terror groups backed by Iran remain active in Iraq, and the Iraqi security forces continue to round up members of the Hezbollah Brigades, the Mahdi Army, the Promise Day Brigade, and the Special Groups. Iraqi security forces are also actively hunting for Qods Force agents who have entered Iraq.
Background on Qais Qazali
Qais Qazali was the commander of the League of the Righteous before US forces detained him and several other Shia terrorists in 2007. Qais commanded a large Mahdi Army faction and served as a spokesman and senior aide to Muqtada al Sadr. The terror group, which was part of the Mahdi Army until the spring of 2008, has received extensive financial and military support from Iran’s Qods Force, the external division that backs Hezbollah and is tasked with supporting the Khomeinist Islamist revolution.
The League of the Righteous was directly implicated by General David Petraeus as being behind the January 2007 attack on the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala as well as other high-profile terror attacks in Iraq. Five US soldiers were killed during the Karbala attack and subsequent kidnapping attempt. The US soldiers were executed after US and Iraqi security forces closed in on the assault team.
The attack on the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center was a complex, sophisticated operation. The assault team, led by tactical commander Azhar al Dulaimi, was trained in a mock-up of the center that was built in Iran. The unit had excellent intelligence and received equipment that made them appear to be US soldiers. Some of the members of the assault team are said to have spoken English.
The US military caught a break when it detained Laith and Qais and several other members of the network during a raid in Basrah in March 2007. Also detained during the raid was Ali Mussa Daqduq, a senior Hezbollah operative who was tasked by Iran to organize the Special Groups and “rogue” Mahdi Army cells along the lines of Lebanese Hezbollah. Daqduq is a 24-year veteran of Hezbollah, and he commanded both a Hezbollah special operations unit and the security detail of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Azhar al Dulaimi was killed in a raid in Baghdad in May 2007.
Background on Iranian activity in Iraq
Both the Iraqi government and the US military have said Iran has backed various Shia terror groups inside Iraq, including elements of the Mahdi Army. While the Iranian government has denied the charges, Iraqi and US forces have detained dozens of Iranian Qods Force officers and operatives, captured numerous Shia terrorist leaders under Iranian command, and found ample documentation as well as Iranian-made and Iranian-supplied weapons.
Since late 2006, US and Iraqi forces have captured and killed several high-level Qods Force officers inside Iraq. Among those captured were Mahmud Farhadi, one of the three Iranian regional commanders in the Ramazan Corps; Ali Mussa Daqduq, a senior Lebanese Hezbollah operative; and Qais Qazali, the leader of the Qazali Network, which is better known as the Asaib al Haq or the League of the Righteous. Azhar al Dulaimi, one of Qazali’s senior tactical commanders, was killed in Iraq in early 2007.
Since mid-October 2008, Iraqi and US forces have killed one Qods Force operative and captured 17 during raids throughout southern and central Iraq.
Qods Force, the special operations branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, has supported various Shia militias and terror groups inside Iraq, including the Mahdi Army. Qods Force helped to build the Mahdi Army along the same lines as Lebanese Hezbollah. Iran denies the charges, but captive Shia terrorists admit to having been recruited by Iranian agents and then transported into Iran for training.
Immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Iran established the Ramazan Corps to direct operations inside Iraq. The US military says that Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah have helped establish, fund, train, arm, and provide operational support for Shia terror groups such as the Hezbollah Brigades and the League of the Righteous. The US military refers to these groups along with the Iranian-backed elements of the Mahdi Army as the “Special Groups.” These groups train in camps inside Iran.
US military officers believe that Iran has been ramping up its operations inside Iraq since its surrogates suffered a major defeat at the hands of the Iraqi military during the spring and summer of 2008. Iraqi troops went on the offensive against the Mahdi Army and other Iranian-backed terror groups in Baghdad, Basrah, and central and southern Iraq.
More than 2,000 Mahdi Army members were killed and thousands more were wounded. The operation forced Muqtada al Sadr to agree to a cease-fire, disband the Mahdi Army, and pull the Sadrist political party out of the provincial elections. Sadr’s moves caused shock waves in the Mahdi Army, as some of the militia’s leaders wished to continue the fight against US forces in Baghdad and in southern and central Iraq.
Iranian-backed Shia terror groups in Iraq
The League of the Righteous is a splinter group that broke away from Muqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army after Sadr announced he would disband the Mahdi Army and formed a small, secretive military arm to fight Coalition forces in June. The new group, called the Brigade of the Promised Day, has not been linked to any attacks since its formation last summer.
Sadr loyalist Qais Qazali was commander of the League of the Righteous up until his capture in 2007. The group is now said to be under the command of Akram al Kabi, a former Sadr loyalist.
The League of the Righteous receives funding, training, weapons, and direction from the Qods Force. The League of the Righteous conducts attacks with the deadly armor-piercing explosively formed projectiles known as EFPs, as well as with the more conventional roadside bombs.
The size of the League of the Righteous is unknown, but hundreds of members of the group were killed, captured, or fled to Iran during the Iraqi government offensive against the Mahdi Army from March to July of 2008, according to the US military.
Sadr is looking to pull the rank and file of the League back into the fold of the Sadr political movement. Earlier this year Sadr issued a message rejecting the US-Iraqi security agreement and said he “extends his hand to the mujahideen in the so-called Asaib but not their leaderships who have been distracted by politics and mortal life from the [two late] Sadrs and the interests of Iraq and Iraqis.”
The Promise Day Brigade, the newest of the Iranian-backed groups, was formed by anti-American Shia leader Muqtada al Sadr during the summer of 2008 after he announced he would disband the Mahdi Army and formed a small, secretive military arm to fight Coalition forces in June. The group actively receives support from Iran, the US military told The Long War Journal.
“According to US and Iraqi intelligence sources, the Promise Day Brigades (PDB) terrorist organization is an Iranian-sponsored group actively targeting US Forces in attempt to disrupt security operations and further destabilize the nationalization process in Iraq,” Lieutenant Todd Spitler, a Press Desk Officer at Multinational Forces Iraq, said.
The Hezbollah Brigades, or Kata’ib Hezbollah, has been active in and around Baghdad for more than a year. The terror group has increased its profile by conducting attacks against US and Iraqi forces, using the deadly explosively-formed penetrator land mines and improvised rocket-assisted mortars, which have been described as flying improvised explosive devices. The Hezbollah Brigades has posted videos of these attacks on the Internet.
The terror group is an offshoot of the Iranian-trained Special Groups, the US military said last summer. Hezbollah Brigades receives funding, training, logistics, guidance, and material support from the Qods Force.
Both the US military and the Iraqi military believe that the Special Groups are preparing to reinitiate fighting as their leaders and operatives are beginning to filter back into Iraq from Iran. On Feb. 4, Lieutenant General Lloyd Austin, the deputy commander of Multinational Forces Iraq, said that Iran continues to arm, fund, and train the Special Groups, and that munitions traced back to Iran continue to be uncovered in Iraq. Recent intelligence and the finds of new Iranian caches “lead us to believe that Iranian support activity is still ongoing,” Austin warned.
In July 2009, General David Petraeus, the commanding officer of US Central Command, said during an interview at the World Affairs Council Global Leadership Series that Iran continues to back the Special Groups.
“There is no question that Iran continues to fund, train, equip, and direct to varying degrees some of the groups still active in Iraq,” Petraeus said.
Return this bozo still – in a box.
He should have an “accident” during his transfer.
Ali Musa Daqduq is NOT under American direct custody. He is sitting in a jail under IRAQI guard but is technically an American prisoner. To get him out of Iraq, American forces would have to go in and remove him by force from an Iraqi force that is not going to hand him over. This is the part Mr Ledeen either is ignorant of OR does not want to to enlighten the PJ readers on.
Far better to tell half the story and get you buffoons going ape over something that the US can essentially do nothing about but squawk. Sort of like the drone in Iran.
no force required; he’s our prisoner, we control his destiny.
You are seriously misinformed Mr. Ledeen. If it as as easy as you think, it woulda happened.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/11/23/US-Iraq-at-odds-over-last-detainee/UPI-62421322053382/
“Daqduq was captured in 2007. Although he is U.S. custody, Iraqis control the prison where he is held and the United States can’t remove him without Iraqi permission.”
Perhaps you oughtta leave writing on international relations to the experts. Then again your level of analysis is about right for the PJ crowd.
Were I president I would take the prisoner out and shoot him on the spot. Were the Iraquis uncooperative I would remind them just how quickly Baghdad can be turned into a parking lot; and how I would very much enjoy doing so.
M. Mir is a troll. Nobody is nearly as stupid as he pretends to be. Or as smartass. When guys with his feces-faced attitude just “disappear”, why is it that nobody goes looking for them?
I wonder the Farsi is for “feckless appeasing git of a president?”
The RSI stands for “rotten snot incompetent”.
If your expecting BHO to do the right thing, are you kidding? Look at the Drone situation. Doing something might be contrued as a hostile act. Iran says they are at war with us EVERY DAY! When are we going to accept it? Believe it? We didn’t believe OBL. How did that work out. When someone says there going to get you, belive them! But then, its easy to kill by drone or sending in brave men.
Especially if you’re a coward.
In the Considine family we always say “If you can’t beat ‘em, hang ‘em.”
I’ve come to the conclusion that Obama is
weirdness on stilts.
It’s ALWAYS Halloween—trick or treat! Obama continues to trick his putative friends and allies, AND treats America’s enemies with love.
Too bad there isn’t a place to bet on either-or situations like the one Mr. Ledeen writes about. Obama NEVER fails to “lose” for America, whatever the current “game”.
I find it almost impossible to imagine a president who could do more to screw up in America’s name, AND continue to be polling over 40% support. Who are the fools who think he’s doing a good job?
We used to be known as a nation of sheep. Maybe the Obama phenomenon is exposing us in our real state as a nation of fools.
Michael, Before Obama reached the White House, did you, Rivkin, Stimson and others write similarly strong-worded columns / blogs — and did the ‘fighters on the side of the angel, the Congressional Republicans’ at that time write to the Bush Administration –, demanding that Ali Musa Daqduq and other captured members of his assassination team be transferred to Guantanamo?
i sure did attack Bush for his feckless Iran policy, including the release of Iranian terrorists to the Iraqi Government. have a look:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/220735/did-condoleezza-rice-try-make-secret-deal-mullahs/michael-ledeen
and
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/227293/caving-iran/michael-ledeen
there’s lots more. it’s not too late to buy “Accomplice to Evil”…