The recent death of a Marine in Iraq exposed the fact the United States set up a firebase there, which in turn exposed the fact the Pentagon misrepresented the number of American personnel in Iraq by as many as 2,000. It appears a second firebase exists, set up on the grounds of one of America’s largest installations in the last Iraq war. Special operations forces range across the landscape. The Pentagon is planning for even more troops. There can be no more wordplay: America now has boots on the ground in Iraq.

The regional picture is dismal. In Syria, militias backed by the Central Intelligence Agency are fighting those backed by the Pentagon. British, Jordanian and American special forces are fighting various enemies in Libya, which, as a failed state, is little more than a nascent Iraq likely to metastasize in its neighbors.

But Iraq remains the center of what Jordanian King Abdullah now refers to as the Third World War. It is where Islamic State was birthed, and where the United States seems to be digging in for the long haul.

Though arguably the story of Islamic State, Iraq and the United States can be traced to the lazy division of the Ottoman Empire after World War One, things truly popped out of place in 2003, when the U.S. invasion of Iraq unleashed the forces now playing out across the Middle East. The garbled post-invasion strategy installed a Shi’ite-dominated, Iranian-supported government in Baghdad, with limited Sunni buy-in.

Sectarian fighting and central-government corruption favoring the Shi’ites drove non-ideologues without jobs, and religious zealots with an agenda, together. Clumsy policy cemented the relationship. A senior Islamic State commander explained that the prison at Camp Bucca, operated by the United States, was directly responsible for the rise of the violent, theocratic state inside the divided, but then still largely secular Iraq. “It made it all; it built our ideology,” he said. “We could never have all got together like this in Baghdad, or anywhere else.” So, first came al Qaeda in Iraq, followed by its successor, Islamic State.

Fast-forward through about a year and half of Washington fear-mongering (that caliphate, those lone wolves), as well as the terror attacks in Paris and Brussels, and America’s re-entry into Iraq moved quickly from a Yazidi rescue mission to advisors to air power to commandos to today’s boots on the ground.

Even if Islamic State is destroyed (as every American leader or potential leader has promised), the problems in Iraq, Syria and virtually everywhere else in the Middle East would still plague the rest of the world. Islamic State is a response, and its absence would only leave a void to be filled by something else. The root problem is the disruption of the balance of power in the Middle East, brought on by a couple of regime changes too many.

The primary forces that the United States are supporting to attack Islamic State in Iraq’s Sunni territories are Shi’ite militias. Though they have been given a new name — Popular Mobilization Units — that does not change who they are. One particularly horrifying example: A Shi’ite fighter asked his Instagram viewers to vote on whether or not he should execute a Sunni prisoner.

Washington clings to the hope that the militias and the U.S. administration are united against a common foe – the bad Sunnis in Islamic State. The Iranians and their allies in Baghdad, who are also supporting many of the same militias, are more likely to see this is as a war against the Sunnis in general.

As for any sort of brokered settlement among the non-Islamic State actors in Iraq, if 170,000 American troops could not accomplish that in almost nine years of trying, retrying it on a tighter timetable with fewer resources is highly unlikely to work. It is unclear what solutions the United States has left to peddle anyway, or with what credibility it would sell them, but many groups will play along to gain access to American military power for their own ends.

With no change on the horizon, it seems likely that President Barack Obama’s successor will be inheriting, in the words of one commentator, a “bold new decade-old strategy” that relies on enormous expenditures for minimal gains. The question that needs to be asked is: If war in Iraq didn’t work last time, why will it work this time?

(Reuters)

ALBERT EDWARDS: A 'tidal wave' is coming that will throw the US into recession

The Societe Generale economist, and noted perma-bear, believes that the profit recession facing American corporations is going to lead to a collapse in corporate credit.

"Despite risk assets enjoying a few weeks in the sun our fail-safe recession indicator has stopped flashing amber and turned to red," wrote Edwards in a note to clients on Thursday.

He continued (emphasis added):

Whole economy profits never normally fall this deeply without a recession unfolding. And with the US corporate sector up to its eyes in debt, the one asset class to be avoided — even more so than the ridiculously overvalued equity market — is US corporate debt. The economy will surely be swept away by a tidal wave of corporate default.

Edwards said that many economic researchers discredit profits as a measure of the business cycle, and it is one of the reasons why they are so bad at predicting recessions.

Profits are on the decline for two reasons, according to Edwards. On the one hand, they are dropping because of margin pressure from rising labor costs. But this sort of decrease because of higher wages does not always signal a recession, like in 1986. Additionally, much like the mid-1980s decline, an oil-price crash is disproportionately dragging down profits.

The second reason is because companies cannot pass on these increasing wage pressures to consumers through prices. In turn, they decrease spending and hiring, and the most vulnerable cannot make debt payments.

Edwards enumerated three reasons why this time around is a recessionary decrease, not a 1986-style aberration. They are:

1. "When the oil price slumped in 1986 the economy was steaming ahead at a 4% pace and so withstood the downturn in business investment."
2. "In 1986 Fed Funds were cut from over 8% to less than 6% at a time when the consumer was re-leveraging, i.e. not debt averse as now."
3. "Finally, companies in 1986 were not up to their necks in debt as they currently are, and their solvency now is far more vulnerable to a profits downturn."

So this time will not be a quick, oil-driven recovery. The US is in for a full-blown end to the economic cycle.

Edwards did include some advice to investors on how to weather the coming wave, though.

"And if I had to pick one asset class to avoid it would be US corporate bonds, for which sky high default rates will shock investors," he wrote.

You've been warned.

Geneva (AFP) - The Syrian conflict has set the stage globally for the Islamic State group to spread like cancer or Ebola, the UN chief and the top UN Syria envoy said Friday.

The war raging in Syria has "provided the perfect breeding ground for extremists and terrorists to take root in the society," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters in Geneva.

"Now (the Islamic State group) and all the extremists are spreading like a cancer around the world," he told reporters on the sidelines of a high-level conference on preventing violent extremism.

In an address before some of the 700 participants, including around 30 ministers and deputy ministers, UN envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura meanwhile said IS and other violent extremists are "like Ebola. They are looking for a weak body" to infect.

"Any conflict that we allow to be protracted... is now being infiltrated by the DNA of (IS) or international terrorism," he said.

But both Ban and de Mistura insisted that, like disease, the extremist threat can be beaten with the right remedies.

- 'Move beyond violence' -

"Ebola has been treated and... I think (IS) and international terrorism can be treated, but with a series of different medicines used simultaneously," de Mistura said.

Ban meanwhile urged a radical rethink of ways to counter the global terrorist threat, which he stressed was "not rooted or confined to any religion, region, nationality or ethnic group."

"Evidence shows that security and military responses alone cannot defeat this scourge," he said, adding that heavy-handed responses have sometimes been "counter-productive" and can "end up further fuelling violent extremism".

UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al-Hussein agreed, telling the conference that "to fight violence, we must move beyond violence, lawful or otherwise."

"If counter-terrorism operations compound fear and divisiveness... (they) do the extremists' work," he said.

In January, Ban launched a global action plan, asking countries to come up with national plans to address the problem.

His strategy encompasses 79 recommendations, from boosting education and promoting human rights to countering the recruitment drives of groups like IS and Boko Haram which prey on disaffected youth.

It also calls for countries to try to appeal to fighters who have joined groups like IS to return home by offering education and job opportunities, and urges governments to engage with social media to find ways to challenge the jihadists' messages.

Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders, whose country last month was rocked by terror attacks that killed 32 people, was among the many ministers who voiced support for Ban's plan.

"We must remain vigilant to ensure that our fight against terrorism respects freedom of expression, the freedom of citizens," he told delegates.

"Respecting human rights is not only an efficient way to fight terrorism, but it is also a way to not give in to the terrorists," he said.

Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter, whose country co-hosted the conference, agreed.

"Preventing violent extremism means stepping up efforts to promote the rule of law, human rights and, in armed conflicts, international humanitarian law," he told the conference.

Countries also need to "offer young people opportunities and render them unreceptive to the temptations of terrorism," through education and job opportunities, he said.

Ban said Friday he aimed to create a high-level action group to review and help implement his plan to prevent violent extremism.