Barkley Rosser — The End Of The "Islamic State."

Barkley Rosen explained how the US papers of record, the New York Times and the Washington Post, not only got it wrong but also imposed their view on the media echo chamber based on their authoritative position as papers of record.

Econospeak
The End Of The "Islamic State."
J. Barkley Rosser | Professor of Economics and Business Administration James Madison University

Palmyra

Moon of Alabama
Syria - How The Palmyra Victory Changes the Narrative

Fort Russ
The General Staff of Russia: Palmyra Freed by Russian Special Forces

RT

Translated by Ollie Richardson for Fort Russ

South Front
Syria: CIA-Armed Militias Fighting Against Pentagon-Armed Ones
Mario Andrijasevic

The Independent
Why is David Cameron so silent on the recapture of Palmyra from the clutches of Isis?

Robert Fiske

Voltaire Network — First UN report on ISIL

For the record.

Voltaire Network
First UN report on ISIL

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi — The Islamic State 'Masterplan' of Administration- Some Analytical Notes

The Guardian today has a huge story based on a 'masterplan' text I leaked to the paper entitled 'Principles in the Administration of the Islamic State'. The text- likely written at some point between June and October 2014- concerns a variety of aspects of administration, including management of oil resources, composition of military ranks and propaganda. You can read the whole text, which I translated, here.

The sign-off notably says that admin cadres are to receive instruction in administration according to the text. The question then arises of how far the Islamic State is actually following this administrative plan. Here are a few thoughts of my own...

Pundicity
The Islamic State 'Masterplan' of Administration- Some Analytical Notes
Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
ht/ Pepe Escobar

As'ad AbuKhalil — Some observations about the carnage in Paris

View from the perspective of an Arab leftist.

The Angry Arab New Service
Some observations about the carnage in Paris
As'ad AbuKhalil | Professor of Political Science, California State University, Stanislaus

ht lastgreek in the comments

Pepe Escobar — The Caliph at the gates of Vienna

History has a jolly habit of repeating itself as surrealist farce. Is it 1683 all over again, with the Ottoman Empire laying siege to Vienna just to be defeated by the “infidels” at the last minute?

No; it’s 2015 and a Caliph simulacrum – Ibrahim, a.k.a. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi — has prompted a gaggle of world powers, lesser powers and assorted minions to converge to Vienna to discuss how to defeat him.

Westphalians, we got a problem. None of this makes any sense if Iran is not at the table discussing a solution for the Syrian tragedy. Moscow knew it from the start. Washington — reluctantly — had to admit the obvious. But the problem was never Iran. The problem is the ideological matrix of goons who metastasize into Caliphs: Saudi Arabia.…

Asia Times
The Caliph at the gates of Vienna

Pepe Escobar

Stephen F. Cohen — By Toppling Assad US Will Open Damascus' Doors to ISIL

"Russia has said for nearly a decade and certainly since the beginning of the Arab Spring that every time the United States begins a "regime change" the result is something much worse. Russia points to what happened in the aftermath of the American war in Iraq, it points more recently to what happened when we abetted the overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya. And when these things happen: failed states, civil wars, extremists… who pays the price? Not the United States. It's these countries. And now we see Europe itself facing a refugee crisis," professor of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University Stephen F. Cohen emphasized in his interview with US author John Batchelor.

Sputnik International
By Toppling Assad US Will Open Damascus' Doors to ISIL 

Stephen F. Cohen | Professor emeritus at New York University and Princeton University

Henry Kamens — Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Extends Someone Else’s Empire to the Caucasus

As has often been reported, the Chechens in both Ukraine and the new “province” of ISIL got there as a result of a cozy plot between American intelligence and the previous Georgian government. Many of those in Ukraine cut their teeth in that other US-backed terrorist intervention, Syria, and operatives still move freely between the two countries, on fake Georgian and Saudi passports.

The pledge of allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is nothing more than an application for further US and Saudi funding, the best income the vast majority of these terrorists have ever had. Not even Saudi Arabia, let alone the US, shares the ideology of ISIL and both countries represent the external and intra-confessional enemies ISIL claims to be fighting against. But they have consistently backed this murderous force to achieve goals of their own they do not dare express publicly themselves. Those goals are wide-ranging, but have nothing to do with the Islam ISIL claims to be fighting for.

The US is rather publicly banking ISIS against Assad in Syria on the principle the enemy of our enemy is our friend. This is also an indirect attack against Iran, who is baking Syria. Incredibly, the Israeli government is on board with this along with the Saudis.

What has been less public is the use of ISIS against Russia in the Caucusus, which the head of Russian intelligence (GRU) recently make public, and against Russia and China in Central Asia.

New Eastern Outlook
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Extends Someone Else’s Empire to the Caucasus
Henry Kamens | formerly Herbert F. Johnson Professor at the Institute for Research in the Humanities, University of Wisconsin - Madison, and Professor (Emeritus) of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) in Barcelona

I have no way of verifying these assertions but Kamens has strong academic credentials and like Chomsky is into digging deep. If history is any guide this scenario is not only plausible but likely. 

Washington's Blog, Sleeping With the Devil: How U.S. and Saudi Backing of Al Qaeda Led to 9/11

RT — ‘ISIS is just an idea; you can’t go to war against an idea’

That's the problem. It's a powerful idea.

RT
‘ISIS is just an idea; you can’t go to war against an idea’

‘Turkey might become hostage to ISIL just like Pakistan did’ — Yonca Poyraz Doğan interviews Alistair Crooke

This is not a short post but it is a must-read in my view. It's about much more than Turkey and ISIL.

Would you tell us about your ideas in regards to the “financialization of the global order"? 

For some time, the international order was structured around the United Nations and the corpus of international law, but more and more the West has tended to bypass the UN as an institution designed to maintain the international order, and instead relies on economic sanctions to pressure some countries. We have a dollar-based financial system, and through instrumentalizing America's position as controller of all dollar transactions, the US has been able to bypass the old tools of diplomacy and the UN -- in order to further its aims. 

But increasingly, this monopoly over the reserve currency has become the unilateral tool of the United States -- displacing multilateral action at the UN. The US claims jurisdiction over any dollar-denominated transaction that takes place anywhere in the world. And most business and trading transactions in the world are denominated in dollars. This essentially constitutes the financialization of the global order: The International Order depends more on control by the US Treasury and Federal Reserve than on the UN as before.…

When did this start?

It started principally with Iran and it has been developed subsequently. In a book, “Treasury's War,” the tool of exclusion from the dollar-denominated global financial system is described as a “neutron bomb.” [A neutron bomb destroys life but leaves inanimate resources in place.] When a country is to be isolated, a "scarlet letter" is issued by the US Treasury that asserts that such-and-such bank is somehow suspected of being linked to a terrorist movement -- or of being involved in money laundering. The author of "Treasury's War" [Juan Zarate], who was the chief architect of modern financial warfare and a former senior Treasury and White House official, says this scarlet letter constitutes a more potent bomb than any military weapon. 

This system of reliance on dollar hegemony no longer requires American dependency on the UN and hands control to the US Treasury overseen by Steve Cohen -- a reflection of the fact that the military tools have become less available to the US administration, for domestic political reasons. 

But with Ukraine, we have entered a new era: We have a substantial, geostrategic conflict taking place, but it's effectively a geo-financial war between the US and Russia. We have the collapse in the oil prices; we have the currency wars; we have the contrived "shorting" -- selling short -- of the ruble. We have a geo-financial war, and what we are seeing as a consequence of this geo-financial war is that first of all, it has brought about a close alliance between Russia and China. 

China understands that Russia constitutes the first domino; if Russia is to fall, China will be next. These two states are together moving to create a parallel financial system, disentangled from the Western financial system. It includes replicating SWIFT [Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication] and creating entities such as the Asian Development Bank. One of the principal tools in the hands of Washington to control the global system was always the International Monetary Fund [IMF].

Nations have to go to the IMF to ask for financial help, when in difficulties, but recently it was China -- and not the IMF -- which bailed out Venezuela, Argentina and Russia as their currencies crashed. China became concerned when the ruble crashed on Dec. 16-17, and intervened to halt a run on the currency. The IMF and the World Bank were no longer at the center of the global financial order. They had been displaced by China.
What would you say about the prospects of success of this new order? 

It is too early to say that it will be successful, but it is a very important shift that is taking place. It has already started to have an effect. Take Russia: European and American leaders thought that Russia would weaken because of sanctions and the fall of the ruble, but China intervened and stopped the collapse in the ruble. In short, China is operating as a backstop to a financial system that is in the process of shifting dramatically away from Western control.

You can see where this is going.

These issues have been coming up and are being discussed in Iran, Russia and China. What sort of state should be built; how might it defend itself from a color revolution; from geo-financial predations; from globalised financial crises: how to build a strong state, how to give its people security? 

Russia experienced the grasping of the oligarchs and the disintegration of their economy. In China, too, consumer liberalism has taken a hold, but the atomizing effect of neo-liberalism is tearing at the fabric of society and attenuating its values. The main thing is that we rethink things. How do we put back values into the political system? How do we reinsert moral values back into the economic fabric? 

There is a strong reaction taking place against neo-liberalism -- everywhere. Every state will respond it in a different way. Russia is reaching back to Orthodox Christianity in order to re-invent what it means to be Russian -- in a new way: by emphasizing human "capital" and conservative family values. China, too, is looking afresh at its ancient masters. How do you make a state that is not vulnerable to the abuse of democracy by the West? How do you make a society that is not vulnerable to the control of economic variables in order to bring regime change? How do you withdraw from this vulnerability?…

The portions of the post I have omitted consider how this affects the petrodollar, the Middle East, oil, and the shifting world order. Also the position of Turkey, which is a strategic pivot point between East and West.

Today's Zaman (Times) — Istanbul
‘Turkey might become hostage to ISIL just like Pakistan did’

Yonca Poyraz Doğan interviews Alistair Crooke, director and founder of Conflicts Forum based in Beirut