U.S. Hits Nusra + Crocker Remembers Karzai

An interesting, and I would say unexpectedly positive, report of the U.S.-led airstrikes on Islamic State is the inclusion of Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, Al Nusra Front, in the target list. Whether the bombing of Nusra positions was due to the group's connection to the shadowy Khorasan Group (an organization that appears to be a spook confection, breathed into life last week when Director of National Intelligence James Clapper mentioned that "in terms of threat to the homeland, Khorasan may pose as much of a danger as the Islamic State") or payback for the false flag Ghouta poison gas attack (that Seymour Hersh argued last spring was a Nusra operation) is not clear.

Ben Hubbard has the story, "Startling Sight Where Blasts Are the Norm":

While Mr. Obama had announced that the Islamic State would be targeted, the United States also hit at least two bases belonging to the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syria affiliate, exposing the gap between how the United States and many of Syria’s rebels see the group, as well as the hazards of attacking it. 

The United States considers the Nusra Front a terrorist organization, and American officials said the strikes disrupted an imminent plot to attack the West by an offshoot of Qaeda veterans known as Khorasan. 

One strike hit an area of abandoned villas on the western edge of Aleppo Province, killing at least 50 Nusra Front members, most of them foreigners and including at least a dozen leaders, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. 

A second strike in a village farther west, Kafr Dariyan, killed 15 people, including seven Nusra fighters and eight civilians, among them four children, the observatory said. An American military official said this was the strike against Khorasan. 

A video posted online showed residents removing a body from the rubble of a collapsed building.

The Nusra strikes immediately highlighted the shortcoming of Obama's announced strategy of combating IS by supporting "moderate" Syrian rebels. As Hubbard reports, the "moderates" like Al Qaeda and consider Nusra an ally in the fight against the Syrian government:

Even rebels who supported the strikes on the Islamic State criticized the targeting of the Nusra Front, which they consider a loyal partner in the battle against Mr. Assad. 

“It is not the right time to target the Nusra Front,” said Lt. Col. Fares al-Bayyoush, whose rebel group has received support from the United States and its allies. 

Colonel Bayyoush was also angry that the American strike had killed civilians and that the United States was not attacking Mr. Assad and his allies, like the Lebanese group Hezbollah, which the United States also classifies as a terrorist organization. 

“Isn’t Hezbollah a terrorist organization and the coalition wants to target all terrorist organizations in Syria?” he asked.

Hubbard concludes his story with a sensible quote from Shiite villager in northern Syria who worries that the U.S. coalition -- which includes well-known jihad sponsors al-Saud and Qatar -- against Islamic State is inherently unstable and will lead nowhere except to more war:

One activist who had fled Raqqa when the Islamic State took over said he hoped the strikes would weaken the jihadists but worried that Mr. Assad would benefit. 

“Maybe the regime will take over ISIS’ locations if the weak rebels aren’t able to after the strikes,” said the activists, who gave only his nickname, Abu Bakr. 

Many government supporters were worried about where events might lead because some of the countries in the coalition, like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, have called for Mr. Assad to step down or actively supported his enemies with money and arms. 

“I don’t trust the coalition,” said a man who gave only his first name, Jamal, from a Shiite village in northern Syria that is besieged by Sunni rebels. “They might take advantage of the situation and hit important locations, like the airport where the regime is, and I am afraid of errors.”

A coalition designed to wage war against a Sunni fundamentalist state, but the reality is that the coalition is secretly at war with itself -- does that sound familiar? It should because it describes the coalition that has fought the Taliban and occupied Afghanistan for the last 13 years.

Which brings us to Hamid Karzai's farewell address yesterday. There is a good interview with Shamil Sultanov on Pravda's web site. In describing the rise of Islamic State, he mentions that Karzai, like Nouri al-Malaki, is an American creation who grew alienated from his parent: "Al-Maliki is a protege, a puppet of the United States. Sometimes, though, a puppet may start wagging its master. We know this by the example of Hamid Karzai."

The Afghan president could not resist telling it like it is when it comes to the wiles and the ways of the U.S. overlord. Rod Nordland has the story -- an excellent report -- "In Farewell Speech, Karzai Calls American Mission in Afghanistan a Betrayal":

KABUL, Afghanistan — In his nearly 13 years as the leader of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai’s most memorable public stances always seemed driven by some deep emotion, and an almost compulsive need to express it. There was heartbreak for families killed by errant airstrikes, outrage at the scheming of hostile neighbors, palpable longing to preside over a peaceful end to the Taliban insurgency. 

On Tuesday, though he delivered a farewell speech in a loose and sometimes jocular way, there was, again, no doubt of the emotion that inspired his words: bitterness at what he saw as an American betrayal of Afghanistan. 

“America did not want peace for Afghanistan, because it had its own agendas and goals here,” he told an audience of hundreds of cabinet and staff members at the presidential palace in Kabul, warning them not to trust the Americans. “I have always said this: that if America and Pakistan want peace, it is possible to bring peace to Afghanistan.” 

Mr. Karzai’s denunciation of the United States came in terms that had become wearily familiar to the diplomats watching the televised speech from the heavily fortified American Embassy just a few blocks and many blast walls from the palace. But what the president did not say, omitting any recognition of the more than 2,000 American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars the United States expended in fighting the Taliban, may have grated more.

*** 

In his speech, he offered his first piece of advice to Mr. Ghani and to Abdullah Abdullah, the presidential rival who is to join a unity government after months of political crises and wrangling over widespread electoral fraud. It was more a warning than a reflection on the recent political peril: “Both wise brothers should be very careful in maintaining their relationship with Western countries and the United States,” Mr. Karzai said. 

He sought to explain to the government officials his dogged refusal to sign a bilateral security agreement with the United States, which would allow American troops to remain in Afghanistan after this year. Mr. Ghani has promised to sign it as soon as he is inaugurated, and many inside Mr. Karzai’s own government were critical of his stance. 

“I believe the stability of Afghanistan is directly related to the United States and Pakistan,” Mr. Karzai said. “This war is for the personal interest of the foreign policies of others, and this is a fight of outsiders in which Afghans are sacrificed.”

The remainder of Nordland's piece is composed of an interview with foreign-policy guru Ryan Crocker. Of all the Establishment figures I find Crocker one of the most sensible. He has called for peace with Iran and caution regarding regime change in Syria. It's worth to quote Nordland at length:

Ryan C. Crocker, dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M, was the first American ambassador to the post-Taliban government, and he was among those American officials who supported Mr. Karzai’s initial appointment as Afghanistan’s leader. Mr. Crocker also returned as ambassador in 2011, as Afghan relations were souring under the Obama administration, which Mr. Karzai saw as less attentive than the Bush administration had been. 

“I saw over the years an increasing bitterness on his part particularly vis-à-vis Pakistan and the U.S.-Pakistan relationship,” Mr. Crocker said. 

Mr. Karzai’s view was that the United States should have been able to force Pakistan to stop giving sanctuary to the Taliban’s leaders. The American view has been that the expectation was unrealistic, given the deeply troubled relationship between Washington and Islamabad. 

During Mr. Crocker’s second tour here as ambassador, and throughout Mr. Cunningham’s time since then, Mr. Karzai adopted an increasingly strident tone toward the Americans, particularly on the issue of civilian casualties in American airstrikes, and on two occasions actually threatened to join the Taliban, whom he often referred to as “my brothers.” 

He blamed the Americans, too, for his inability to start any sort of meaningful peace talks with the Taliban. The insurgents have consistently refused to talk to him, denouncing him as an American puppet. 

For all of that, Mr. Crocker still believes Hamid Karzai was the right man for the job Americans effectively chose him for at a conference in Bonn in December 2001. “I don’t think there was a better choice than Karzai,” he said. “I didn’t think so then; I don’t think so now.”

*** 

Mr. Crocker remembered Mr. Karzai saying in 2011 that he was counting the days until he could leave office: “I think I remember his words verbatim: ‘The worst thing that could happen to Afghanistan would be for me to continue in office.’ Then he said: ‘No, that would be the second-worst thing. The worst thing would be if one of my brothers was elected.’ ”