Headline News 01/07/2017

Headlines

• Kissinger Prepares Grounds for Upcoming Trump-Putin Meeting

• Mattis Struggles to have NATO Commit More Force for Afghanistan

• Haider al-Abadi Declares End of “Caliphate” in Mosul

Details

Kissinger Prepares Grounds for Upcoming Trump-Putin Meeting

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will have an opportunity to meet personally at the scheduled G-20 meeting next week, and the aged former US Secretary of State Dr Henry Kissinger has been preparing the ground for this by meeting with Putin in Moscow on Thursday after previously meeting Trump. According to the Business Insider:

“Speaking at an international affairs conference in Moscow, Kissinger said of the planned Trump-Putin meeting: "I believe that at this moment our two countries have a responsibility, and an opportunity, to make significant progress not just by improving relations, but by improving situations around the world through cooperative efforts."

"Tensions between Russia and the United States ... have happened often before and they have been overcome often before," Kissinger, 94, said. He did not take questions from reporters at the event.”

In fact, Kissinger is trying to prepare American public opinion for an already established relationship. America and Russia are collaborating closely with each other, particularly in Syria, despite American public rhetoric to the contrary. Indeed America is much weaker than it appears and cannot manage its affairs without close cooperation from its allies and agents. How long is the world prepared to tolerate weakened American hegemony?

Mattis Struggles to have NATO Commit More Force for Afghanistan

At a meeting for NATO defence ministers, US Defence Secretary James Mattis pleaded for further troops to be sent to Afghanistan, but with limited results. According to the Washington Post:

“Nearly three years after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ended combat operations in Afghanistan, the 29-nation alliance will send troops once more into the country with hopes that the renewed surge will help the Afghan military beat back a resurgent Taliban.

Speaking ahead of a defense ministerial meeting here Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said thousands of troops have been requested, but he did not say how many would deploy.

With the Taliban in control of broad swaths of the country and the Afghan military locked in a primarily defensive war, it is unclear how a new infusion of NATO or U.S. forces could radically turn the tide of the conflict...

“It’s not like you can declare a war over,” Mattis said. “What is the price of not fighting this war? And in that case we’re not willing to pay that price.”

The United States knows that it is badly losing the war in Afghanistan, and that its puppet regime in Kabul faces collapse. America’s actual plan for Afghanistan involves not Western military force but its agents and allies in the region. According to NDTV.com:

“The Pentagon has been asked by a key Senate panel to identify ways to ensure that India plays a larger role in providing increased and coordinated defence-related support to war-torn Afghanistan...

"This provision encourages the Department of Defence to identify ways that India can play a larger role in providing increased and coordinated defence-related support to Afghanistan, a critical part of overcoming the current "stalemate" in the fight against the Taliban," said a statement issued by office of Senator Sullivan.”

But the real power to solve the issue of Afghanistan belongs to Pakistan. It was Pakistan that facilitated the Americans in invading and occupying Afghanistan. And it is Pakistan that can eject the Americans from the region. But this requires that Pakistan is ruled by sincere leadership committed to the worship of Allah (swt) instead of being enslaved to Western powers and interests.

Haider al-Abadi declares end of “Caliphate” in Mosul According to Reuters:

“U.S.-backed Iraqi forces attacked Islamic State's remaining redoubt in Mosul's Old City on Friday, a day after hailing the end of the insurgents' self-declared caliphate with the capture of an historic mosque that symbolized their power.”

In fact, America could have uprooted the Islamic State group much earlier from Mosul. America has been playing a strategic game in Iraq, dividing the population into Kurd, Sunni and Shia segments and focussing them regionally. Accordingly, America did not want Kurd or Shia forces to enter western Iraq to displace the IS group. Nor was America prepared to engage in conflict alone after its previous critical experiences in fighting Muslims on the ground. Therefore, they took time to build local Sunni forces to support their efforts, and so were only now able to capture Mosul. Reuters adds:

“Iraqi Prime Minister Hailer al-Abadi declared the end of Islamic State's caliphate -- which he called "a state of falsehoood" -- on Thursday after CTS units captured the ground of the ruined 850-year-old mosque.”

The world knows that Mosul was temporarily occupied only by a group that called itself Islamic State, and was not the location of any actual state. With Allah’s permission, the advent of the real Islamic State re-established on the method of the Prophet (saw) is near. The state will not be a small fraction of one or two countries, but will encompass entire countries and will expand to include the entire Muslim world.