Lurching toward catastrophe

BRT has talked about Blowback often as the law of unforeseen consequences, as articulated by the CIA, is more than just apt when talking about Iraq and the rapidly disintegrating Middle East on which actions, carried out by "W" in 2003, set in place an emerging catastrophe of historic proportions, which Obama has enhanced, thanks to continued ineptness when dealing with Iraq, Libya, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, Russia and China.  

The senior Shiite cleric in Iraq issued an urgent call to arms on Friday, telling all able-bodied Iraqis to help the government fight Sunni militants who have seized broad stretches of Iraqi territory, in a sign of the growing desperation of the country’s Shiites and its shaky central government.

In a statement during Friday prayers, a representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the senior Shiite cleric in Iraq, said it was “the legal and national responsibility of whoever can hold a weapon, to hold it to defend the country, the citizens and the holy sites.”

Ayatollah Sistani has enormous stature among Shiites, but it also respected by Sunnis and other groups because in the darkest days of the sectarian fighting in 2006 he refrained from inflammatory language and repeatedly reached out to Sunnis, Kurds, the country’s Christians and other minorities.

But the ayatollah’s plea, while directed at all Iraqis, would most likely be heeded by Shiites, sharply increasing the likelihood of Iraq sliding into open sectarian warfare.

Seen below is a terrific NYTimes graphic depicting the success insurgents have had in Iraq. Click it to view what is happening in the country the US destroyed, thanks, in large part, to Shock & Awe. 

Click here to get the terrific NYTimes Alliance Map. Chaos incarnate without question.

To learn more about Iraq and the foibles of US foreign policy from sources outside of the mainline corporate controlled press, check out informationclearinghouse,  The National Interest, Global Research and Aljazeera/America as they write about world events from different political perspectives. There are many more links on BRT regarding news so getting viable information as to why the US has screwed the pooch in terms of foreign policy is not rocket science by any stretch of the imagination. 

Addendum: To add fuel to the fire, this Zero Hedge piece regarding Russia and the dollar should warm the cockles of your heart.

As we have been reporting (and forecasting for the past several years), the Eurasian anti-US Dollar axis is rapidly taking shape, with recent events catalyzed and certainly accelerated by US foreign policy in Ukraine, which has merely succeeded in pushing Russia that much closer, and faster, to China. The latest proof of this came overnight when the FT reported that Russian companies are preparing to switch contracts to renminbi and other Asian currencies amid fears that western sanctions may freeze them out of the US dollar market, according to two top bankers.

According to Pavel Teplukhin, head of Deutsche Bank in Russia, cited by the Financial Times, "Over the last few weeks there has been a significant interest in the market from large Russian corporations to start using various products in renminbi and other Asian currencies and to set up accounts in Asian locations."

Andrei Kostin, chief executive of state bank VTB, said that expanding the use of non-dollar currencies was one of the bank’s “main tasks”. “Given the extent of our bilateral trade with China, developing the use of settlements in roubles and yuan [renminbi] is a priority on the agenda, and so we are working on it now,” he told Russia’s President Vladimir Putin during a briefing. “Since May, we have been carrying out this work.”

Any questions?

Addendum II: Click The Grand Game - ME Edition to see a possible raison d'etre as to why this catastrophe came to be. Chilling to say the least.