Inkwell Institute

Subject:  Iraq/Terrorism

Before I began my post let me add a little info for the benefit of my new followers and readers.  I, unlike most Americans, have an interest in the going on in the Middle East…I have studied International Relations and Middle East Studies…..so I am constantly reading papers from the area learning more about the situation than I will ever read or hear in the US and the MSM…..just a little background for my readers.

Think back to 2003……(pause for the scratching of heads)……the US decided to invade Iraq to get Saddam for past deeds and to eliminate the presence of the terrorist organization, Al Qaeda…….does any of that ring a bell in the back of your ….(pause in search of proper word)…….brain?

We went, We saw and we conquered…..well sort of…..all we basically did was turn Iraq into a ghetto and empowered Iran to become a world player……if that was our intention….then job well done….but if our intention was to make AQ in Iraq a distant memory….we failed miserably!

National Counterterrorism Center chief Matthew Olsen warned today that al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) continues to grow in strength in both Iraq and Syria, and said the group is now believed to be at its strongest since 2006, the height of the US occupation of Iraq.

AQI revived itself initially through operations in neighboring Syria, joining the rebellion and quickly gaining a position of significant influence among the foreign Islamist factions that dominate the rebels.

The group’s renaissance in Iraq itself, however, has continued throughout the summer. The Iraqi government launched a crackdown on Sunni protesters in April, and al-Qaeda has used that as a recruitment tool in the nation’s west, as a summer of violence has killed nearly 10,000 people.

Olsen’s report stopped short of speculating whether or not AQI posed any direct threat to the United States, but for the time being the group seems mostly centered around Iraq and Syria, with a lot of efforts going into fighting not only Syria’s Assad government, but secular rebels and Kurdish secessionist factions as well.