Islamic State in Iraq and Syria: Bin Laden Won

Osama Bin Laden’s goal in 9/11 was to suck the US into Afghanistan and Iraq, sparking a regional conflagration that would sweep away the imperial legacy and establish a new caliphate. Over a decade later,…

ISIS: Spoils of "Great Loot" in M. East

Adding yet more warfare to the current crisis in the Middle East will perpetuate exactly what the imperial powers set out to do: tear an entire region of the world asunder.“So far as Syria is concerned, it is France and not Turkey that is the enemy.” – T. E. Lawrence, February 1915. It was a curious comment by the oddball but unarguably brilliant British agent and scholar, Thomas Edward Lawrence. The time was World War I, and England and France were locked in a death match with the Triple Alliance, of which Ottoman Turkey was a prominent member. But it was nonetheless true, and no less now than then. In the Middle East, to paraphrase William Faulkner, history is not the past; it’s the present. In his 1915 letter, Lawrence was describing French machinations over Syria, but he could just as well have been commenting on England’s designs in the region, which Allied leaders in World War I came to call “The Great Loot”—the imperial vivisection of the Middle East.

Many Sunnis Already Returning To Mosul

    It seems that ISIS has emptied the prisons (a popular move); removed concrete barricades (a gesture of confidence); and dropped the price of gasoline, cooking oil and other staples. See, many Sunni Mosul…