Afrin is the new Kobane, let us all defend it however we can

North Syria Federation
(credit: Editor abcdef, Wikimedia)
In yellow Afrin Region (canton)

Let's begin stating the obvious (but not so-obvious to many apparently):

1. Turkey has a fascist regime led by Hitler-loving and Islamo-Fascist extremist Tayyip Erdogan.

2. Russia and the USA are both capitalist (and thus imperialist) states: there is no monopolar imperialism, imperialism is by (Lenin's) definition the struggle of the various capitalist powers to control the world's resources and attempt to exert quasi-imperial or at least some relative hegemony over the rest. 

3. The SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces, organized around the Kurdish YPG/YPJ core) and the legitimate government of Syria (Baath, Assad) get along even if they clearly have different political projects: the former internationalist and Kurdish-centered, radically democratic and decidedly communist, the latter Arab nationalist (pan-Arabist), not so democratic (in spite of the reforms) and not so socialist (rather state-directed national capitalism). In spite of skirmishes and diverging international alliances this has been the case since the beginning, when the YPG coalesced as a Kurdish self-defense force.

Also maybe not-so-obvious to some may be the fact that Turkey has a huge army but that it is made up mainly of recruits, many of whom hate Erdogan (even by rigging the elections the Turkish neo-sultan only managed to get a narrow majority in parliament and needs the backing of the secular-fascists to stay in power). We have already seen in Ukraine how these conscription armies are very inefficient against motivated popular militias, notably when their commander regime is illegitimate and the war they are waging is as well. 

It is also important to underline that Syria has allowed massive YPG-SDF reinforcements to arrive to Afrin. And that Turkey is working with Islamist militias (roughly Al Qaeda and DAESH, just recently renamed again for PR reasons) just the same they used them as death squads in the brutal repression of the Bakur (North Kurdistan) uprising in 2014-15.

Both the USA and Russia court Turkey. The former want it to return to its former status of reliable ally (vassal) and thus are not taking active action in Afrin, where they are not present, but still signalling they won't retreat from Manbij or other lands of the Northern Syria Federation where they hold some military presence. The latter have snubbed their Syrian ally in regard to air protection of the canton of Afrin, as determined by truce agreements, because they clearly want Turkey to become yet another ally in the region, along with Iran (also anti-Kurdish) and Syria. The powers do not care about Afrin at all: they are interested mainly in the Bosporus Straits, which are Turkey's main asset, and secondarily in projection in the Fertile Crescent.

What's actually going on? 

As far as I can tell there has been heavy bombardment by Turkey of civilian towns, using chemical weapons in at least some cases, and even the destruction of a landmark historical ruin (a signature of Islamo-fascism) but on land Turkey and their allies have made only very limited gains. 

As of today Turkey has only occupied a hill on the border, hailed as a "great victory" by their propaganda machinery, of course. The initial attempts to take over the southeastern extension of the canton north of Aleppo failed, with many more casualties in the Islamo-Turkish camp than in the Kurdish Communist one.

However, let's face it, it's a David versus Goliath scenario in which, in spite of their bravery, the Kurds and allies (including as far as I know some internationalist units) have it very difficult. The same was true in Kobane and they prevailed though... on their own forces alone. 

I would expect that, as soon as the Spring arrives, the Kurdish forces north of the railroad (the official Syro-Turkish border is the old Baghdad railroad in most of its length) will initiate some sort of offensive, forcing the Turkish army to spread wide, but right now it is massively concentrated around the small territory of Afrin, the Mountain of Kurds.

  
Popular forces can win against all odds

But we have seen it before in Donbass and in Kobane: a motivated militia can certainly defeat a poorly motivated conscription army, never mind fascist mercenaries. Why do I "dare" to compare Donbass and Afrin: aren't ones in the side of Russia and the others in the side of the USA? The answer is "no": neither Russia nor the USA care much about their popular "allies", they

fear them in fact, precisely because they are democratic and popular, and only offer them very limited and conditional support at best. They are just forced to cooperate with them because of geostrategical reasons but always with the sight elsewhere: Kiev, the Bosporus, Latakia, etc. Who backs them is not important, what matters is that they are democratic and popular forces.

And I must say that it is most interesting that these great powers are being forced by circumstances, by the inefficiency of other more fascist or authoritarian approaches, to rely on these grassroots militias to some extent. It evidences that Lenin was right when he characterized Imperialism as a clash of oligarchic mafias on which we revolutionaries should not be too interested but rather on the possibility of making some revolutions in the cracks generated by this inter-imperialist struggle.These cracks are every day larger and democratic socialism is arising in them, not without difficulty but with perseverance and admirable toughness. 

And that's why we must help as much as we can to defend Afrin and denounce the Turco-Islamist criminal aggression: because it's not just the people of Afrin and the many thousands of refugees installed there, it's not just the right to self rule of the Kurdish and all other peoples, it is global revolution what is being fought there. Afrin is the linchpin of our hope for a better world, we can't just watch or ignore it.

DAESH is finished, what next?

The so-called Islamic State (DAESH by its Arab acronym) will be finished in a matter of weeks: Mosul is being liberated without almost any resistance, Kurdo-Arab forces have cut off Raqqa from Deir-el-Zor, Turkey marches on Al Bab along with their Al-Qaeda "moderate opposition" militias, while Syria is also force-marching to cut the Turkish advance on their sovereign territory, as well as against Palmyra. On top of that the USA has been mass-bombing Raqqa itself (and nope, nobody has cried about the "humanitarian situation" this time). There is no coalition but a general recognition that DAESH is the legitimate target, which each one is using for their own purposes. 

Military situation in Syria around February 12 per Wikimedia Commons (author: Ermanarich)

The expected end-game situation will be a partition of Syria in three areas: the main one under the legitimate Baath government, a very sizable chunk in the Northeast (plus a Kurdish enclave in the Northwest) under independent Kurdo-Arab control (Syrian Democratic Forces) and a strip of the rural Northwest under Turkish control and that of their allied militias who until recently flew the banner of Al Qaeda. 

DAESH will be then limited to dormant cells and a few guerrilla enclaves in Africa and Yemen, which may well turn their allegiance towards Al Qaeda/Turkey/Saudia/USA again or suffer the consequences. 

My big question is what next for Syria. I'm uncertain that Damascus and the YPG can get along once the common enemy has been smashed, although it will remain in the form of the FSA (Al Qaeda) and Turkey, they may both feel powerless to fight against the Turkish regional power and their NATO fallback line. Surely that won't dissuade the Kurds, who are in open war against Turkey (not by whim but because Erdogan imposed it) but I'm quite uncertain that Syria, which has not fought for the Golan Heights in many decades, was pushed out of Lebanon and has been struggling to win the "civil war" without support (Russian intervention proved decisive, no doubt) is ready to fight against the much stronger Islamo-Fascist Turkey of Erdogan. 

So my guess is that it will settle in some sort of unstable status quo, with Damascus demanding the pull back of Turkey with words rather than action, Turkey demanding "dialogue" (i.e. concesions to Islamo-Fascism and Turkmen tiny minorities) just to delay any retreat, Kurds growingly confronted with Turkey as leftover weapons and hardened warriors flow into the North of the country under Ankara's occupation, Turkey pressuring Syria to do something about it, Syria rebuilding while it looks at both sides between amused and concerned, etc. It's possible even that the Syrian Army and the SDF join forces to finally expel both "moderate" Islamo-Fascists and Turkish troops from Syrian territory but there will be no doubt a lot of distrust. 

Unless NATO collapses in the meantime (that would be very nice indeed but most unlikely), the Baghdad Railroad line (Turco-Syrian border) is a red line that Syrian forces will never cross, nor will Russian air forces if involved, only Kurds will because for them that border does not exist, just as they do not seem to exist as nation for the rest of the world. 

In any case the murderer, torturer, rapists and slavers DAESH will be gone for good. And that is indeed good. I can just hope that they arrest them as they flow back into Europe and other places, instead of letting them in as their Western protectors usually do, with the obvious intention of using them as pretext to implement every day more extremist dictatorial measures such as the permanent state of emergency in effect in France and to prop up the extremist Christo-Fascists and outright Nazis that seem to be groomed to replace the current constitutional regimes, once these are exhausted, as has happened in the USA with Trump, in Poland with Duda, etc.

Sadly enough hope alone won't do much.

Naval Empire, no functional Navy?

A few days ago I read that all of Britain's Trident class nuclear submarines are out of order (except one that is on trial). Granted that the info comes from The Sun but these days it's even possible that such a tabloid has better info than Prime Minister May. 

Alright, Britain has been decaying for a century or so, guess that it is a bit shocking but more or less within expectations. But today I read that more than half of US Navy aircraft and almost two thirds of the class F/A 18, which provide striking power to the famed or infamous US aircraft carriers, which allow the US Empire to extend its power projection to about all the planet, are out of service.

In this case the source is not a sensationalist newspaper but Defense News, a medium oriented to military personnel and contractors primarily. While it is normal that around 1/4 or even up to 1/3 of the aricraft are routinely undergoing maintenance at any moment, these figures are twice the normal and could severely hamper the operating capabilities of the feared US Navy. 

And this is what we get to know. How real is the power projection of the USA and its NATO-plus makeshift empire? Is The Empire a giant with feet of clay? 

Let's not forget that the power of the US dollar depends on its Navy and vice-versa: that the power of the US Armed Forces depend on the primacy of the green buck over all other currencies, because that's how they manage to export inflation and borrow infinitely from nowhere. This is no trivial matter at all.

Poroshenko's regime attacked Donbass, breaching Minsk agreement, with no success

The neofascist dictatorship in Kiev launched an attack on January 29th against Avdeeka, a few kilometers north of Donetsk. This attack breaches the Minsk truce so Poroshenko's regime has resorted to put the blame on Novorossiya, accusing them of unspecific "provocations". Seriously? Nazi Germany also did that to "justify" their invasion of Poland but at least they had fake photos with fake "Polish guards", what does Poroshenko have? Nothing at all but words. 

According to the Basque Country-Donbass Solidarity Committee, the attack has been successfully repealed in spite of "severe" initial losses (because of surprise). According to Kiev, Ukraine lost 11 soldiers (4 dead and 7 injured), while the People's Republic of Donbass acknowledges one defender dead and another one injured. The internationalist committee thinks that the figures by both sides are totally unrealistic and that many more people died in the combats. Colonel Cassad (Novorossiya) argues, following the US Department of State, that the Ukranians lost dozens of combatants and he also says that surely the figure is quite high in the side of Donbass. 

The exact short-term goal of the attack is disputed: a water treatment plant just behind the PRD lines is one of the possibilities, or also a coke power plant under threat of closure. However Cassad ponders, on unspecified sources, that maybe the real trigger is an internal dispute among the oligarchs in power in Kiev, trying to retake the former properties of Rinat Ajmetov in the area (after all, what's an oligarch without his property?)

There have also been maneuvering near Mariupol, Volinaja, Donetsk and Popasnaya, but Cassad considers that some of these could be a distraction from actual objectives, as they are too apparent.

What is clear, and Cassad also acknowledges this, is that Kiev is somehow trying to improve their position for the foreseeable scenario of abandonment by the Western, US-led, bloc upon Trump's ascension to power. By triggering war and bloodshed Kiev is using their very limited means to put obstacles between Washington and Moscow. As Cassad says: what matters is bloodshed, not so much whose blood is it. 

Ukranian soldiers: turn around and march on Kiev. It's about time! But it's also about your lives, and your hopes as nation.

Main source: Euskal Herria - Donbass Elkartasun Komitea: Avdeeka, génesis y desarrollo [es].

See also: RT: BBC reporter films Kiev tanks in residential area on E. Ukraine frontline.

Letter to a US-American: the very sad Obama legacy and the perilous new 'Trumpland' regime

This is a real letter (well, e-mail to be precise) that I wrote the other day to a friend in the United States and then thought maybe worth publishing. She was so kind as to even provide some corrections to my spontaneous and sometimes exotic English, some of which I'm adopting in this version (for the rest, I like to believe I'm just anticipating future English -- nothing remains static, everything changes and we should proudly accept the fact that we are agents of such change):

Obama looks like a human being: he has presence and charisma but he has lied at least as much as any other and he has been involved in as many wars, most of them very dirty and destructive, as the worst president you can imagine:

1. Libya: toppling an authoritarian regime with Islamist militias only to leave a chaos and redistribute oil concessions to the Anglo-Saxon companies. This happened under Hillary Clinton's direct and quite scandalous "leadership".

2. Yemen: systematic drone-bombing of alleged "terrorists" (often civilians in fact) and later support of Saudi-led absolutely terrorist intervention, still ongoing and unlikely to succeed.

3. Ukraine: artificially creating a "fake revolution" with the use of armed fascist militias, which ended in a full fledged coup, only to put brutal pressure on Russia (Ukraine is just some 800 km away from Moscow, closer to the Russian heartland than Cuba ever was to the US one). This resulted in the Russian-speaking Crimea autonomous republic declaring independence (with a perfectly democratic referendum) and requesting incorporation to Russia afterwards, which was swiftly granted, as the territory is not just historically Russian but also a key naval hub. Other Russian-speaking regions attempted to do the same with two succeeding, out of sheer determination and in spite of strict neutrality from Russia. Elsewhere it was terror by the fascist militias and political persecution for any dissident, from communists to independents, with many brutally murdered. All this was used as pretext for sanctions and war-mongering against Russia.

4. Syria: the USA and allies (European powers, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel) used Al Qaeda (the very same Al Qaeda which allegedly attacked the USA in 9/11/2001) to create a very artificial civil war in Syria. Maybe at the beginning there were some more or less legitimate groups but soon only the Kurdish communists remained as such, in unstable alliance with "the regime". "Regime" that was moving swiftly towards greater democratization and held widely respected elections in the midst of the war in which Assad was reelected by massive majority (also among the refugees who could vote, mostly in Lebanon, as Europe and Turkey forbade the elections in their territories). Even Qatari opinion polls agree that Assad has a massive backing inside Syria. Later a splinter group of Al Qaeda, the so-called Islamic State (DAESH) invaded Iraq in what many see as an attempt to weaken its pro-Iran and pro-China elected government (the very same government imposed by the USA, shit happens) and soon became infamous for their unprecedented acts of terror and slavery that could almost shame even the worst of talibans. DAESH is officially rejected by everyone but also effectively backed by everyone (Turkey beyond any doubt, Saudi Arabia has transported many of their cells to Yemen, the USA has definitely financed their equipment and Israel buys their dirty oil). The ceremony of confusion has gone many steps in the zone of total excess and probably farce with the attacks against civilians in France and Germany, probably in order to rally the masses around the banners of war and the police state, but the worse affected are definitely Arabs and Kurds (Turkey has used the "Syrian" jihadists as death squads in the genocidal repression in North Kurdistan, and also indirectly in the South).

5. Latin America: if under the Bush administration the focus was so exclusively in the Middle East that Latin American more or less "leftist" experiments could thrive rather unmolested, since Obama arrived it has been one indirect intervention after another. It began in Honduras in 2009, with the country being given to the "Libertarian" mafiosi (free trade nazis), continued with a coup in Paraguay and growing pressure against the Venezuelan "bolivarian" social-democracy, only to culminate this year with a "soft" coup in Brazil that is clearly a major blow to the BRICS and to Latin American sovereignty.

6. Persecution of dissidents and whistleblowers at home and abroad. The very fact that Snowden had to find refuge in Putin's Russia and that the presidential airplane of Bolivia was forced to undergo a search by European NATO allies (France and Spain notably) because of slight suspicion that Snowden could be traveling in it, says it all. The situation of Assange is not a bit better after five years besieged in Ecuador's embassy in London just because the USA wants him extradited on most unclear charges (the Swedish case is just an intermediate pretext: persecution for having consensual sex without condoms, go figure!) And then of course the Manning case, to whom Obama did not even given a full pardon but only a partial one.

7. The police state has been reinforced: not only do all the practices against privacy in communications remain untouched but Obama just signed a decree allowing the NSA surveillance to be shared with other intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI, etc.) upon request. Guantanamo torture camp was never closed.

8. Monopolistic concentration of power in way too few hands has remained absolutely unchecked, affecting all sectors but most visibly the mainstream media, which has become today a mere propaganda mouthpiece of the imperial regime. All that power is of course being transferred to Trump or whoever holds the oval office throne, because they need those oligarchs as allies.

In brief: the USA under Obama has been extremely aggressive outside and inside. All he can claim as achievement is "Obamacare", and even that is so mild and oriented to private profit that those who criticize it have it very easy.

Yes, he has style, manners and charisma but that's not enough to make a statesman, much less to claim he has honored even slightly his "Change" campaign. Unlike him or Hillary, Sanders was really for some real change and he would have beaten Trump, no doubt, but the regime would not allow him to run, he never had a chance. And they are still doing it: with Sanderist personalities being pushed out of the Democratic Party apparatus as we speak, just for being serious about social-democracy and change, about social and civil rights.

I would even dare to forecast that the Democratic Party camp is going to head internally divided into the next Presiential elections because of this, with the "Sanderists" creating a new party even because it is obvious that the Dem apparatus will not give them any room whatsoever. And,  barring a surprise victory (everything can happen when the window of chaos is open but I feel it's a bit too early), that will allow Trump (or Pence if Trump gets removed) to get a second term, because of the winner-takes-all and voting restrictions system.

Furthermore, it can be even worse: it can be as Moore forecast in his documentary that there will be no more elections until a revolution topples the new "Trumpland" regime. But I doubt it will turn out that way: elections can be easily manipulated in the USA (electronic voting is totally opaque to begin with), so they can keep the pretense for the time being. This slow-motion coup is totally like what happened in the Roman Republic some 2000-plus years ago: the Empire was never officially inaugurated, just someone became way too powerful and the old institutions (more or less representative) were just gradually displaced, step by step.

However it is at the same time that transition from Republic to Empire and the late Empire's transition to feudalism (corporate post-industrial feudalism it is now, they call it "libertarianism"). So it is like repeating all Roman history packed in just a few decades or even years and in totally unrelated conditions of a highly educated and connected population with actual power to disrupt everything if they do ever get serious. It just cannot work: it is a mirage, it is just the last attempt ever to resurrect the Roman Empire and, as all the previous attempts, it will fail strenuously.

Russia accuses USA of actively backing DAESH, UN Security Council called

We already knew, we knew that all the blah-blah about fighting DAESH (Islamic State) was just propaganda and that neither the DAESH nor Al Nusra/Al Qaeda would be there without the very active backing of the USA and its allies (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, France, Britain). 

But recently we had become a bit less certain: some US actions backed the Kurdish-centered Syrian Democratic Forces, Turkey and Washington seemed to have fallen apart on the issues of the military coup and the Kurds and even there were some poses about the USA backing a possible attack against Raqqa, the main Islamist capital. 

We can forget about that now: US air forces attacked the Syrian Army at Deir ez-Zor, an enclave at the Euphrates that Damascus has managed to hold free and safe for all these years of war in spite of being surrounded by DAESH forces. The attack killed 62 Syrian soldiers and injured at least one hundred. Russia says that it was meant to pave the way for the Islamist takeover of the town and that only their own counter-strikes allowed for the loyalist enclave to resist. 

The attack, along with the disdain by other US-backed "rebels" (Islamists affiliated to Al Qaeda) for the recently agreed ceasefire, puts in jeopardy any attempt to bring peace to the beleaguered Arab country, something we already knew would not happen: what we did not know was that the truce would be definitely destroyed by US open support of the terrorist forces of DAESH that so many people have murdered, tortured, raped and enslaved, in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. 

If you are reading this and are a US citizen, please vote Jill Stein (Green Party) this autumn, because she is the only one who holds a reasonable stand in internal and external affairs. All the rest are just crazy war-mongers of the worst kind, who should considered for what they are: class A war criminals. She may not win but it is important to set some good bases for the future in any case if this World has to have some hope. 

Source and more details: RT.

Saudi road to nowhere: even the EP calls for isolating the theocracy

In an unprecedented resolution, the European Parliament has called for an arms embargo on Saudi Arabia in relation to its brutal military intervention in Yemen. Other issues such as the occupation of Bahrain, its horrible human rights record, the fact that it is a most cruel and totalitarian dictatorship or that it has been for decades behind Sunni Islamist terrorism everywhere, have not been included in the resolution, yet, considering the very conservative and imperialist policies that the EU institutions distill all the time, it is a remarkable vote and a sign that a growing amount of people in the West is getting most annoyed at the Islamist terror chaos unleashed in West Asia by NATO and its local allies: Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel primarily. 

As you may know the EP has, sadly enough, almost no power (only approving or not the EU budget and minor stuff like that) but it still exerts a moral influence on the EU, being the only democratic body of this sui-generis confederation. Therefore we should not undermine its importance. 

Forecast

Personally I feel that all what is happening will soon result in a dramatic socio-political crisis in Saudi Arabia: you can't rule a country of 30 million without other feedback than just police reports. Not for long in any case. The question of democracy is not merely a question of rights and freedoms but, from the rulers viewpoint, primarily one of feedback and cohesion. 

Anyhow, with such low oil prices, the money is running out and Saudia is just rushing forward to nowhere, risking even a World War with its threats of invading Syria. If this happens, the conflict in West Asia will run out of control in no time: Iran will no doubt intervene, backed by Russia and China, and that would be a major event. My opinion is that the West will doubt and finally not intervene directly, largely because there is such an exhaustion of the fictional narrative of "war on terror" and "clash of civilizations" that a lot of people even in key power positions will be tempted to let Iran do the moping instead of risking not just World War but also internal political stability to save a totally despicable regime such as the Saudi one. 

I can only imagine that, possibly, the Turkish intervention (which may be the key WW trigger) will be halted on its heels by a military coup and/or suspension of its NATO membership. 

But I'm trying to be rational-optimistic. It can also all degenerate in an uncontrolled WW-like conflict, whose result may well be the destruction of Humankind. Let's try to avoid this worst possible outcome by all means necessary. 

Turkey intervenes again inside Syria in support of Al Qaeda forces

RT reports that today is the third day of heavy shelling by Turkish (NATO) forces against YPG (Kurdish militias) trying to liberate the town of Azaz from the islamo-fascist terrorists. Turkish PM Davotuglu openly speaks of even greater intervention by the Turkish military if the attempts to liberate the strategical border town, a lifeline to terrorists, continue. Meanwhile the Russian Foreign Ministry denounced the attack as a breach of UN resolutions and called for Turkey to step out of Syria. Damascus also condemned Turkish actions as support of terrorism and has sent an official protest to the UN. Even France issued an ambiguous note rejecting the Turkish bombardment against Kurds.

A more detailed analysis by the independent site South Front shows that Turkey has also been transferring, through Turkish territory, Al Qaeda militants from the crumbling Latakia province front to the embattled town of Azaz.

Turkey embarrassment or battering ram of NATO?

The reckless attitude of Turkey in the Syrian (in-)civil war has brought a growing chorus of opinions (for example) claiming that Turkey should be expelled from NATO, because otherwise NATO members are formally obliged to defend Turkey against attacks, even if Turkey is the one provoking them, as they clearly are.

However these opinions remain low profile and as of now not a single government has formally asked the Islamist regime to be even temporarily suspended of membership in NATO or anything of the like. This has only one possible meaning: Turkey is acting within NATO directives and has more or less full backup from its NATO allies, notably Washington (which is the one calling the shots). 

It also means that we are very close to World War III. Too close: the tensions are there and growing and any miscalculation by either side can be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Podemos and NATO

Maybe the most criticized program stand of Podemos is that it is not questioning NATO in the short term (they call for a European alliance to replace it but otherwise nothing), unlike for instance Jeremy Corbyn is doing in Britain. Yesterday the new leftist party (which came third in the December elections and may well come first in the upcoming ones that will take place in June if government formation fails, as looks most likely) made public a draft government plan in a last ditch attempt to lure the socialdemocrats into a coalition government. Again the issue of NATO is missing and that is a problem of growing relevance in an international situation like the one that is going on at the Turkish-Syrian border. The least thing that a party with intention of forming government today can do is to ignore the immediate threat of all out international war caused by the aggressive and terrorist stand of Turkey, conveniently protected under the skirt of NATO. This absence of international policy is a major flaw in Podemos' program and political praxis. I understand that there are other priorities but when WW3 comes in force, with nukes raining all over our heads for no good reason at all, all those other priorities will become irrelevant in comparison.

Therefore I argue that NATO must be questioned, for many reasons but right now very particularly for the sole reason that Erdogan's Turkey is a regime we do not want to get bogged into defending, rather the opposite.

Curfew imposed on Northern Kurdistan capital of Diyarbakir

Several districts of the effective capital of Northern Kurdistan, Diyarbakir (known as Amed to Kurds), have been put under total curfew by the occupant power, Turkey. People has been forced to leave the area, while those who remain can't go out even to recover the bodies of their dead children.

The situation of North Kurdistan is everyday more similar to that of Palestine: discrimination and genocide under massive military occupation.

Turkey: hands off Kurdistan now!

In related news, several Basque, Valencian and Castilian internationalists, as well as Kurdish exile, were arrested yesterday by Spanish police under the accusation of trying to join Kurdish forces fighting for democracy and socialism. Spain, as usual, joins forces with Turkey and the Islamists against the will of the peoples.

Update (Jan 30): Grand Inquisitor¹ Eloy Velasco has declared the small party Refundación Comunista (Communist Refoundation) illegal for the next year for allegedly aiding the PKK, forcibly closing their sees in Madrid and Valencia. Most of the arrested have been set free but two, including the Kurdish one, have been sent to prison, a bail of 10,000 and 6000 euros respectively are demanded.

¹ Naturally I mean judge of the political tribunal Audiencia Nacional, infamous for all kind of political persecutions and also for aiding the impunity of politicians.

Turkey invades Syria

Yesterday I had to report that Turkey had invaded parts of Iraq, today that it has done the same in Syria, almost simultaneously, occupying and fortifying a position across the border, not far from the Islamist capital, Raqqa, with the effect of splitting the Kurdish-controlled area in two and guaranteeing the oil, arms and zombie trade between th Caliphate and the Turkish state. 

Together with the "sneakers on the ground" (actual but hidden US military presence in Northern Iraq, that has been going on for some time) and the apparent Turkish confirmation of installing a military base near Mosul, with apparent complicity of the contested pro-Washington regime in Southern Kurdistan (Iraq), the NATO intervention in (and against) these two beleaguered states is fait accomplí. 

Erdogan: the new Mussolini!

Turkey invades Iraq

With the likely aim to aid their embattled Islamic State (DAESH) puppet allies and consolidate the (Washington and Tel Aviv promoted) "Hornets Nest", under threat of extermination by the joint Russian and Syrian offensive, Turkey has sent troops to Mosul District, an area under DAESH control but disputed by Kurdish militias. 

Iraq has demanded the immediate exit of the Turkish invader force but this request is likely to be ignored by Erdogan's unbearable cynicism.

Ankara claims that it is just "an incursion" and that they are there "to train Iraqi troops". What "Iraqi troops" might those be (if at all)? Only those of the Islamic State. 

The most obvious aim of the attack is probably to set a barrier between DAESH and Kurdish forces, which might otherwise take control of Mosul, the second largest city of Iraq and a key hub in the oil smuggling business of the DAESH and the Erdogan clan. 

This mafioso-terrorist association of the Ankara regime and the DAESH puppet of the Pentagon has been denounced for a long time in the alternative media but only recently, after Turkey downed a Russian jet in a calculated act of war, the usually reserved Moscow government has provided strong evidence of this association. Iraq has also denounced the illegal trade and I guess this is yet another reason for Erdogan pushing it within the frail Iraqi borders. 

What can happen? Well, Iraq has let clear that they do not want US "boots on the ground" within their borders no matter what, pretexting that Shia militias had threatened to kill them but actually because they do not trust Washington nor their semi-autonomous protectorates (Tel Aviv, Ankara, Riyadh) at all. This underlines the alignment of Iraq, a major oil producer (second only to Saudia before the troubles began), with Iran, Russia and China, something that surely is not taken lightly in Washington nor in Ankara. 

Russia had pondered to extend their air operations into Iraq, while China did openly offer its air forces to Baghdad last year in order to fight DAESH. Recently China also signed a military base agreement with Djibouti, located at the strategical Bab-el-Madeb strait, near Yemen, and which also holds a French naval base. So the whole region is each day resembling a mini World War scenario, in which the Western Empire (NATO-plus) is clearly not afraid of provoking its Eurasian rivals into greater intervention, nor these seemingly coy about replying with a "bring it, cowboy", sorta.

Nevertheless I think that a likely development will be the destabilization of Saudia and Turkey themselves, because the Eurasian allies must know that only playing a defensive "cold war" is not enough, that Washington and their satellites must feel the pain themselves, else they will never be brought to any sort of semi-good faith negotiation or understanding. As Sun Tzu said: in order to win the war, take what the enemy values most.

Erdogan tries to trigger World War III

Putin described the attack as "a stab in the back,
carried out against us by accomplices of terrorists".

Turkey has shot down a Russian airplane in Syria (source 2), apparently killing one of the pilots and getting the other to be captured by some militia allied of the Islamists.

Regardless of whether the airplane accidentally stepped or not into Turkish airspace (Russia says nope), the attack is a clear act of war. Terrorist Islamist Turkey feels backed by NATO (otherwise they would not have dared to) and is trying to bring Russia and NATO to start the feared World War III, which implies, almost certainly, total destruction of Humankind by nuclear suicide. 

Turkey is well known as the main direct backer of the Islamist terrorists who, among many other crimes, attacked Paris earlier this month. The very legitimacy of Erdogan's latest electoral "victory" is heavily under question as many observers consider that the polls were rigged, also the campaign was marred by repression against the media and state-organized terror attacks against the opposition campaign. 

The attitude of Erdogan is clearly one of provocation and we should all take this most seriously because, make no mistake, this is an act of war and Russia would be totally legitimate to respond with military means. However this could drag NATO into an all-out war, which would quickly escalate into nuclear war, with catastrophic consequences for all Humankind, probably extinction.


Update: mapping footage made available by Russia clearly indicates that the bomber never entered Turkish territory and that the attack took place inside Syria. In other words: the only air space violation was done by the Turkish fighter.

Russia has also announced the first counter-measures: all bombings will be escorted by fighter jets and air defense of the Syrian coastal strip will be reinforced by air-defense cruiser Moskva.

I expect more counter-measures however, notably economic sanctions but also probably (just my guess so far) that Russia will arm the Kurdish guerrilla in ways that will be able to effectively challenge the Turkish armed forces, much like Turkey arms the Islamists in Syria. Until now the Kurds had been mostly on their own, because their socialist ideals made them ineligible for aid by any power, all of which are bourgeois regimes but today's attack is a step too far by Ankara and I'm sure it will not go unanswered.

"An act of war"? Against whom?

Several French newspaper opened yesterday with the term "guerre" (war) in their headers. Later, the President of the Republic, François Hollande, spoke to the media using the expression "an act of war". 

It is becoming obvious that the "French 9/11", again an attack not against oligarchies or the state apparatus but against common workers, is meant to direct the public opinion in the direction of war. But against whom?

The most obvious answer is the Islamic State or DAESH. However the DAESH is not a real state but a terrorist gang with only some weak territorial control, heavily disputed by the legitimate states of Syria and Iraq and many other forces such as the Kurdish militias, Hizbollah, the Iranian and Russian military and even as of late the elusive Free Syrian Army, which Moscow now claims is aiding them against DAESH. 

The DAESH however has sponsors that can be named: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United States of America and some other allies, including France itself. So is France going to declare war to the USA? To Saudi Arabia? To Turkey or Qatar? To its own secret services under NATO? It may sound like a joke but it is a very pertinent question. 

Yemeni forces capture Saudi town of Al Raboah

Yemeni "rebel" forces (Sana'a government) captured the Saudi border town of Al Raboah (also Ar Raboah) earlier this month (sources: ABNA, Khabar Agency, Odio de Clase[es]). When Saudi Arabia began its military intervention in Yemen this Spring, I predicted that something like this would happen eventually. It may be just the beginning.

Raw footage of the takeover (source: Almasirah TV):

Syria War: latest developments

A couple of updated informative videos from South Front channel.

The first one is dated to October 19th and explains with nice maps the offensives of the Syrian Army, mentioning that the "Caliph" al-Baghdadi has been injured and moved to Turkey for treatment under US protection.

The second one is dated to yesterday October 23rd and complements the previous outline with some further details.

Of course, the videos have a mild pro-Russian and pro-Assad bias but it's not like we can rely on Western "free media" to get any useful information, so it is necessary to reach out to other sources.

Erdoğan = Islamic State terror

From Voltaire Network:

Sümeyye Erdoğan

President Erdoğan has set up a secret hospital on Turkish territory at Şanlıurfa, outside of the combat zones, to look after wounded Daesh jihadists.

The town also shelters a secret al-Qaïda training camp [1].

The wounded are transported in military vehicles by the MIT (Turkish secret services).

The supervision of the hospital is coordinated by Sümeyye Erdoğan, the daughter of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (photo) [2], who is also responsible for the international relations of the AKP (Islamist party).

Apart from that, according to the spokesman for the CHP (Socialist party), Gürsel Tekin, the crude oil stolen by Daesh is now being exported by BMZ Ltd, the maritime company of Bilal Erdoğan, the son of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in violation of resolution 2170 of the United Nations Security Council [3].

Western bloc infighting in Syria

More details and analysis are provided in other articles by the Thierry Meyssan, the persecuted and exiled French journalist who leads the site. The most relevant one is dedicated to analyze the convoluted relations between Erdoğan's Islamist Turkey, the USA and other regional powers such as France, Israel, Russia or Saudi Arabia. 

According to Meyssan, initially Erdogan was against the neo-colonialist intervention in Libya and Syria that was orchestrated as offshoots of the so-called Arab Spring. However in 2011, Alain Juppé (Foreign Minister under Sarkozy, involved in several corruption scandals and eventually turned into US-style Neoliberal Hawk), persuaded the Turkish government to change course with promises of favoring their entrance in the European Union. In a secret document signed by Juppé and the Turkish Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, the outline of the partition of Syria and Iraq was defined. 

France intended to reconstitute a colonial empire in Syria. Moreover, it had connections within the Islamist terrorist movements and anticipated the creation of Daesh. In order to guarantee the Juppé plan, Qatar agreed to make massive investments in eastern Turkey, hoping that the Turkish Kurds would then abandon the PKK.

Apparently the Turkish role in agitating Misrata Libyans was crucial for the overthrown of Gadafi. 

However Washington and London seem to have for some time abandoned the intervention plan, which remained pretty much a French and Turkish project. That explains why the situation in Syria has remained relatively stagnant all these years. 

Turkey however insisted on it and organized the plundering of the Syrian economic assets, be these machinery from Aleppo's industrial belt or archaeological treasuries to be sold in a black market set ad-hoc in Antioch. They also set a false-flag chemical attack in the outskirts of Damascus in an attempt to trigger NATO's unilateral intervention. 

The progress in negotiations between Washington and Teheran also weakened Turkey's gamble, so Turkey looked to Russia and signed in the Southern Stream pipeline project. However last month Washington (with support of London) blackmailed Turkey with threats of excluding it from NATO. Turkey backed but began direct dealings with the US emissary for Syria, the strongly anti-Iranian General Allen, who is a close ally of Gral. Petraeus (former US "prefect" for the Middel East) and Senator Clinton (main candidate to be the next US President and a well known Zionist Hawk).

According to Meyssan, the Franco-Turkish plan also met another new obstacle as the Tel Aviv-Riyadh axis changed their stand and positioned themselves against the Islamic State and the partition of Syria and Iraq, even reaching to the extreme of supporting Kurdish militias, and not just those sanctioned by Ankara (basically the puppet autonomous regime in Iraqi Kurdistan). 

Meyssan thinks that Israel is particularly wary of Erdoğan's policies and that explains their recent reinforced alliance with Greece and Cyprus, traditional enemies of Turkey. Yes, after signing the third memorandum, the Tsipras government signed a preferential military treaty with Israel of the kind only the USA has. If anyone remains doubtful about how treacherous is Tsipras for the European and global Left, this speaks volumes. 

In any case the exiled French journalist concludes that Erdoğan has chosen to remain in power by means of forcing Turkey to a civil war, by which he hopes to attract the support of the secularist fascists (MHP) and contain the advance of the left, which has rallied around the multi-ethnic HDP, with a large Kurdish and crypto-Armenian support base but also significant backing in the big Turkish cities. 

Internal problems in Turkey

In another only slightly older article, Meyssan reviews the internal developments in the Turkish state: its economy is collapsing, its army has been weakened by political purges, the fabric of society itself is deeply divided by the Islamist policies of Erdoğan, etc. He also explains how the Islamic State is controlled by Turkish agents (West Asian Turkmens and Muslims from the former USSR).  

He also explains that Obama's threat of excluding Turkey from NATO would surely mean the formation of an independent Kurdistan in what is now official Turkish territory. The threat meant to force Turkey to drop its cooperation with Russia (Southern Stream) and with the Islamic State. 

Erdoğan has appeased Washington but uses this anti-IS rhetoric to actually attack the PKK and its allies south of the Baghdad Railroad (the artificial border between the Turkish and Syrian states). According to Meyssan if the AKP-MHP coalition fails to form in the next few days, new elections will have to take place but these will not help Erdoğan the least, so in Meyssan's opinion Turkey is bound to collapse into civil war. 

We'll see. Because while I strongly respect Meyssan's knowledge and research ability, I am not so sure about his forecasting powers nor I necessarily see the complexity of the conflicts on his light (i.e. the position of Tel Aviv and Riyadh is not as clear as he thinks). 

Importantly, the USA is holding presidential elections this Autumn and Hillary Clinton is expected to win them. Nearly all other options (Trump for example, or Jeb Bush too) are not even slightly better (all are very aggressive hawks). One can presume that Erdoğan will be able to hold up until then one way or another and then relaunch his project with full Washington's blessings.

Of course we can all dream with the victory of Bernie Sanders but that's not likely to happen and, if it'd happen, it'd be such a game-breaker that everything would have to be reconsidered, and not just in West Asia.



Counterpoint: Petras thinks Israel and Turkey are in fact allied

James Petras, another brilliant analyst, does not seem to believe that Israel and Turkey are actually at odds, in spite of the appearances. His analysis (published at Global Research) may be less nuanced than Meyssan's but it is clear to me that there are many things that unite Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia in a common strategy.

First of all there is Iran: none of these three Western-aligned regional powers is happy with the signature of the Washington-Teheran treaty that effectively recognizes Iran as a regional power with some "rights". The emphasis may be different but all three are united against Iran and its allies (Syria, Iraq, Lebanon or parts of it and the Palestinian cause).

Petras agrees that Erdoğan mainly intends to ban the People's Democratic Party, an inter-ethnic leftist alliance that has managed to establish itself as the fourth political party of Turkey with good prospects. The other front of Erdoğan is to undermine Syria's sovereignty.

Meanwhile Netanyahu aims to consolidate the anti-Iran alliance, which also includes undermining the sovereignty of Syria and Iraq (Israel has been known to heal and support Syrian guerrillas of the same type that Turkey most openly backs, namely Al Qaeda).

According to Petras, all these anti-IS coalitions are actually meant against other players. That is quite obvious in the case of Turkey attacking the Kurdish militias but also in the case of intervention in Iraq, where the main goal seems to be the weakening of the Shia militias.


This explains why all anti-IS action is producing no fruit, nor will ever do: because the actual targets of such operations are never the IS but rather other actors who can undermine the interests of Israel, Turkey or Saudi Arabia (and therefore those of the USA and NATO).

Erodoğan (sic), like, Netanyahu, wants a ‘pure’ ethnic state – one Jewish, the other Turkish!   Both leaders have no regard for the sovereignty of neighboring states, let alone the security of their civilian populations.   Both depend on the military support of the US.   Both are in the process of igniting wider and more destructive wars in the Middle East.   Netanyahu and Erodoğan want to reconfigure the Middle East:   Turkey seizes Kurdistan and Syria; Netanyahu expands military dominance in the Persian Gulf through the destruction of Iran.

These two leaders appear to hate each other because they are so similar in arrogance and action…   But according to Professor Zelikow, the US will step in ‘god-like’ to ‘mediate’ the different power grabs among what he mindlessly refers to as the ‘partners of the coalition’.

Erdogan's anti-IS attacks fake, pretext for big offensive against Kurds

Yesterday I was quite surprised reading in the news that the Turkish Islamist President had suddenly decided to take action against the so-called Islamic State (IS). After all Turkey has been its most adamant, even if covert, supporter after its invasion of Iraq and proclamation of the Caliphate appeared to have officially alienated other supporters like Saudi Arabia (big question mark) and their common Kafiri allies, the USA, Israel and your usual suspects in Europe (again all with huge flashing question marks). All these, as well as Turkey, still openly supported Al Qaeda and its array of satellites so-called "Free Syrian Army", magically turned into "moderates", of course.

But why would Turkey turn against the IS? It was obviously not because it had massacred 32 "Turkish" Kurds in a social center in Suruç. If there was any doubt the brutal repression of the subsequent protests in Istanbul and other cities underlined that the only interest Erdogan has on Kurds is to keep them under his boot. Not at all.

The 32 Kurdish comrades massacred by the Islamist-Fascists (source: BGD!)

But (oh, wait!) Erdogan did get an ethnic-Turkish pretext as well: an officer was killed yesterday in a shooting at a crossing point in the artificial border, so artificial that runs along the Istanbul-Baghdad railroad. Well, it was probably engineered somehow but it seems that just killing "Turkish citizens" is not enough for Erdogan if these are Kurds, even as a pretext. 

So what has he done so far?

Well, actually mostly attack Kurds inside three states: Turkey, Syria and Iraq. 

Inside Turkey they have made massive raids against suspects of sympathizing with the outlawed (but in a long-lasting unilateral truce) Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) and allegedly the IS as well. However not a single arrested (out of 590) is identified (as of yet) as IS member or sympathizer, most however are clearly labeled as sympathizers of the PKK, i.e. Kurdish Revolutionaries of any type, surely mostly civilians like you or me. 

Only one person, who was killed in alleged shooting, was identified as member of an illegal Turkish communist group, the DHKP-C.

Outside the Turkish official borders, nine positions of the PKK were bombed in lands under Iraqi formal sovereignty, while unspecified "Kurdish and Islamist" targets were also attacked in Syrian territory.

After these attacks, the PKK said that the truce with Turkey had "no meaning anymore". 

No-fly zone to protect the IS?

An intriguing development of this new stage is the agreement by the USA and Turkey to establish a no-fly zone in a very specific zone of the Aleppo province of Northern Syria. Of course this is a violation of Syrian sovereignty but the bullies of the World don't seem to care. 

The no-fly zone goes between the towns of Mare' and Jarabulus and 90 km south of the Turkish border. In other words: almost exactly the territory controlled by the Islamic State in the province of Aleppo.

Detail of control zones in Northern Syria. Credit: (CC: محک)
[yellow: Kurds, red: Syria, black: IS, green: Al Qaeda et al.]

The no-fly zone as described by Press TV (approx.) - based on the previous map

Naturally a question arises: does the IS or even the Kurdish militias have airplanes? Not at all. The only airplanes in the Syrian war, other than the occasional US incursion, are those of the Syrian state. So what's the point of establishing a no-fly zone over the lands controlled by the IS? Necessarily to protect them against the Syrian operations, and maybe those of their allies such as Iran. 

We must notice that in the last year the Kurdish control zone of the border region has been growing and I guess that the Turkish state is concerned that they might also manage to gain control of the remaining border strip, disconnecting the IS from its main provider: Turkey. 

Reigniting the Kurdish war to 'save Turkey'?

The Turkish Islamist regime must also be worried that the Kurdish backed all-Turkey party HDP made important gains in the last elections, not just in Kurdistan but also in many other provinces, denying the Islamists their much coveted absolute majority in the Turkish Parliament and weakening Erdogan's decade-long tight control of the state apparatus. 

It seems apparent to me that the actual goal of all this performance is no other than to declare the HDP illegal at risk of expanding the Kurdish armed struggle back to Turkey after several years of difficult but continued peace. 

These years, particularly the latest ones, saw the Kurdish population take a much more active presence in the all-Turkey politics hand-on-hand with ethnic Turks, not just via the HDP, but more importantly maybe in the many protests that shattered the bicontinental state in 2011. Surely Erdogan believes that by reopening the Kurdish front in terms military he can make political gains inside Turkey. I just hope he is wrong and that he will pay dearly for this criminal miscalculation.

Did Israel nuke Yemen?

An Israeli F-16, painted as Saudi, has quite apparently bombed the Yemeni capital with a nuclear bomb.

The brutal amount of energy released, the fungus-shaped explosion and the white pixelization of the film caused by radiation release is pretty much unmistakable.

It was not (not directly) Saudi Arabia because the Islamist state does not have F-16 airplanes nor, for all we know, nuclear weapons. So it was Israel or the USA (most opinions think that Israel). 

There's not much more to say other than it is dramatically necessary to stop the terrorist state of Israel and its allies: USA, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the Islamic State. It is very late already but better late than never.

Colombia: FARC suspend unilateral cease-fire after massacre of guerrillas by government

The Colombian peace process has suffered a major setback after the government massacred 27 guerrillas in Guapi and other 10 in Segovia-Antioquía. As result the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have declared the end of their unilateral cease-fire, intended to favor the peace process, which was, on the table at least, advancing steadily. 

Very particularly the FARC blame President Santos of expressing joy at the killing of these Colombians, in what was clearly an attack against the peace process itself, becoming one way or another active accomplice of the sabotage. 

The unilateral cease-fire has lasted just five months.

Full FARC communication (in Spanish) at BGD!

Saudi intervention in Yemen: a major step in the direction of total chaos

Religion in Arabia

Yemen is not Bahrain. Bahrain is a small urban island while Yemen is larger than Spain or Thailand, a largely rural and impoverished country with large mountainous areas. 

Conquering Yemen, as the Saudis and their North American allies seem to hope is pretty much impossible (much less for a mercenary army as the Saudi one, which lacks the ideological motivation and will be easily demoralized). So this attack is a very risky move that allows the troubles of Yemen to split across the border, particularly to 'Asir, which has a very large Shia population which is also ethnically akin to Yemenis.

As we can see in the map, Saudi Arabia is made up of two vast desertic areas in the North and South, plus three more populated areas, primarily the Southwest (largely Sunni but also Shia), then the central "oasis area" (stronghold of the fundamentalist Wahabbi ideology that shapes the theocracy) and finally the Eastern Shia region that used to be part of Bahrain. While an extension of the conflict to the central region can be surely discarded in the short run and the Eastern Shia uprising was quelled in blood (although it is still latent and tightly associated to the developments in Bahrain, where protests continue in spite of brutal repression), a Houti advance in Eastern Arabia, particularly into 'Asir but potentially even threatening Mecca should not be discarded at all. In fact I can't but foresee it as the more natural development of the Saudi invasion in the short run. 

The weakness of Saudi power

Another thing to consider is who rules Saudi Arabia and how solid is their power. The recently crowned King Salman, 79, is widely believed to suffer from Alzheimer disease or some other sort of incapacitating dementia so there is a shadowy junta actually ruling the state and clear fractures in the ruling family are known to exist in spite of the secrecy that governs the Islamist state.

In other words: Saudi power is, in spite of oil revenues, at its weakest point ever, suffering intestine dynastic disputes, facing major dissidence from that 50% of the population that are women (whose condition under Wahabbism is surely one of the worst on Earth) and from the majority of the population in the Eastern Province. Now add to all that a powerful and consolidated Shia militia spawning from Yemen. The only pillars of Saudi power are the more and more questioned totalitarian religious police and a mercenary army, with good equipment and salaries but without the "soul" of a really compromised force, as it lacks of nationalist or otherwise ideological motivation of any sort. 

We are talking after all of a mere feudal state: a pre-modern residue stagnated on oil wealth and international alliances, heavily relying on an immigrant workforce with slave-like conditions, and almost certainly unable to withstand any serious turmoil. 

What can we expect

Yemen conflict (from Al Yazeera)

I foresee short-term Pyrrhic victories of the invaders (high sustained cost, low gain) followed by backslash in both Yemen and SW Saudi territory. Backslash that might well threaten Mecca. The boundaries are artificial and the intervention just made them meaningless: now it's an all-Arabian conflict and not anymore one just circumscribed to Yemen.

I also foresee increased unrest in Saudi Arabia as such: both from the people, for which Wahabbi totalitarianism is not anymore a valid option in this globalized and secularized age, but also from important segments of the dominant elite which have been apparently excluded from power with the still fresh crowning putsch of Salman the Ailing. 

It is probable that the intervention in Yemen is seen by the current shadow junta as a way to reinforce their power: nothing like a glorious military campaign, right? But there is a major problem: the campaign won't succeed and it will be painful and dirty, spilling into Saudi territory, so eventually its promoters will gain only increased weakness and not increased strength from it.

Finally there is another and very serious danger that can't be understated: that the besieged Sunni Islamists in Yemen will join the Islamic State, as those in Libya and Nigeria have done, and roll over Saudia from both Iraq and Yemen with likely opportunist support (as in Iraq) from inside the military. They would offer the rotten Saudi elites the "best" (worst!) of both worlds: a continuation of totalitarian Sunni Islamism and a modernizing fascist regime apparently more capable than the rotten Saudi dynasty. 

No need to say that such a development would dramatically alter the geostrategy of the region and the whole World. I is not unlikely though.

What I wonder at this stage is how controlled does the Pentagon has the situation. Isn't the risk of the Islamic State (effectively supported by Turkey, the USA and Israel but apparently not by Saudi Arabia) going out of control getting too big? This seems more and more like a repetition of the Hitler experiment: we (the Anglo-Saxon Empire) put a dictator in power and a few years later we have no choice but to wage war against him because he's become too independent and is challenging the status quo beyond what we can put up with. 

Obviously the IS is not your usual military junta or old-fashioned fossilized monarchy: they literally know no bounds in their brutal religious madness and are extremely ambitious. They have also shown to be very efficient at taking over weakened states, at least large chunks of them. And Saudi Arabia is one of those.

I wonder if that is what the USA wants and, if so, why? How do they plan to retain hegemony in the middle of such chaos and consolidated state of war? Conquering it in some sort of WW3? Will they be able to rally the masses around such a major imperial campaign in the midst of the worst socio-economic crisis in the history of Capitalism? I don't think so. All this can only backfire, even if I feel unable to foresee the details of the near-future developments.


Update (Mar 29):

06:48 GMT: Houthi rebels are moving artillery units closer to the border with Saudi Arabia, RIA Novosti cited Al Jazeera as saying (from RT live updates blog on the crisis). What did I say about the war spilling to Saudia?

Other details from the same source:

• Yemeni forces (army or rebels) can hit Saudi targets up to 500 km away (Iranian source)
• Saudia has massed up 150,000 troops at the border with Yemen. It is unclear if they plan to invade or just defend the border. Analyst suggest that a land invasion would be a disaster, however it is unclear how can the operation succeed without ground occupation, more so when the Houtis are clearly redirecting their efforts against the Saudi aggressor.
• While Egypt has joined the Saudi-led coalition with 16 airplanes and one frigate, Pakistan has remained uncompromising.
• The official Yemeni President (with almost no support inside the country) seems to have left the country for Riyadh and then for Egypt to attend an Arab League summit. 

Update 2 (Mar 29): Israel may be an active partner in the coalition bombing Yemen, according to sources in Sanaa mentioned by Fars Agency.