Michael J. Totten's Blog, page 21

Egypt Unites Against ISIS

The Libyan branch of ISIS massacred 21 Egyptian Christians over the weekend. A knife-wielding executioner frog-marched the bound and blind-folded captives to a beach in front of a camera and said, “safety for you crusaders is something you can only wish for,” and cut off their heads. The Egyptian government responded at once and attacked ISIS positions in the city of Derna near the border with at least two waves of air strikes.

Egyptian Christians in Libya are hardly “crusaders.” Like Mexican...

No Proxy War Against Russia

Senator Ted Cruz thinks the United States should arm Ukraine so it can beat Russian-backed separatists in the east. As much as we’d love to help plucky Ukraine resist the giant bear to the north—and we have a solid precedent under our belts—it’s a terrible idea.

Backing the Mujahideen against the Soviet Union during its occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s worked smashingly well. Moscow learned the hard way that it could no longer project enough hard power to shield its vassal states from lo...

ISIS Meets Steel

The idea that what happens in Syria stays in Syria is as dead as Saddam Hussein, but ISIS is meeting steel as it expands.

The Lebanese army is facing as many as 3,000 fighters in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains along the Syrian border and Nicholas Blanford reports a war of attrition is taking place there. In late January the army “roasted” ISIS with artillery, according to a military advisor he spoke to, then picked up “the smoking remains.”

Meanwhile, the Jordanian air force flew devastating sortie...

Moscow is Still Churlish About the Loss of East Germany

The Russian government is considering a proposal to condemn the “annexation” of East Germany by West Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Even Vladimir Putin knows the only reason East Germany ever existed as a separate political entity is because the Russians occupied it an imposed a totalitarian puppet regime on its subjects.

The Russians are just mad that the rest of the world won’t recognize their annexation of Crimea in Ukraine, and Germany has been their favorite Euro punching bag s...

New Audio Book Available

My first book, The Road to Fatima Gate, is now available as an audiobook from Audible and Amazon.com.

It is narrated by the fantastic Steven Roy Grimsley who also narrated the audio versions of Where the West Ends and Resurrection.

OG Image: Middle East

The Truth About American Sniper

Clint Eastwood’s new film, American Sniper, is a blisteringly accurate portrayal of the American war in Iraq. Unlike most films in the genre, it sidesteps the politics and focuses on an individual: the late, small-town Texan, Chris Kyle, who joined the Navy SEALs after 9/11 and did four tours of duty in Fallujah, Ramadi, and Baghdad. He is formally recognized as the deadliest sniper in American history, and the film, based on his bestselling memoir, dramatizes the war he felt duty-bound to fi...

Too Little Too Late in Syria

The US military is gearing up to train moderate Syrian rebels this spring, but there’s virtually no chance this is going to work by itself.

The US spent years training the Iraqi Army, and for what? Baghdad’s forces turned out to be no more effective in the face of the ISIS onslaught than the French were when Hitler invaded.

Had ISIS been nipped in the bud at the beginning this might not have happened, but they’ve had years to build themselves up and grow stronger while an isolationist White Hou...

The Iranian Regime and Charlie Hebdo

As Washington continues its vain quest for a good faith nuclear deal with Tehran, the Iranian regime continues behaving like the gunmen who massacred French cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo earlier this month in Paris.

Here’s Mojtaba Safari in The Daily Beast:

Many in the West talk of the “moderation” of Iran’s regime. Foreign Minister Mohamed Zarif flies around the world claiming that Iran is committed to peace, justice and human rights. That would come as news to the thousands of political prison...

Son of Notorious Hezbollah Commander Killed in Syria

Jihad Mugniyeh, son of notorious Hezbollah commander Imad Mugniyeh, was just killed by an Israeli airstrike in Syria near the Golan Heights.

Hezbollah is fighting against Sunni jihadists in Syria on behalf of the Iranian and Syrian regimes, but that doesn't mean it has abandoned its war against Israel. If the Syrian regime doesn't survive, Hezbollah won't be able to receive high-grade weapon systems from Iran anymore. It already has a formiddable missile arsenal and can now—unlike during the 2...

The ISIS of Africa

Boko Haram galvanized activists all over the world last year when it kidnapped hundreds of school girls in Nigeria and threatened to sell them into slavery, but hardly a peep has been uttered since the Al Qaeda-linked army massacred as many as 2,000 people near the Chad border last week.

“I walked through five villages,” a survivor told The Guardian, “and each one I passed was empty except for dead bodies.”

The attack in Paris at the Charlie Hebdo office sucked up most of the Western media and...