ISIS on the offensive in Iraq

[Seamus Fermanagh]

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opi...139774596.html

He's coloring the discussion for his agenda, but his points cannot be dismissed outright -- there is an element of truth to his take.

[HopAlongBunny]

Coloring?
The US did create the context.
The terror prisons did create a core of jihadis and radicalized the population.
The imposed regime certainly did not act to "win friends and influence people"; it was more narrowly focused than Saddam's old gov't.
And, finally the West did ignore the terror being perpetrated against the local populations until ISIS went on a land grab.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Coloring?
The US did create the context.
The terror prisons did create a core of jihadis and radicalized the population.
The imposed regime certainly did not act to "win friends and influence people"; it was more narrowly focused than Saddam's old gov't.
And, finally the West did ignore the terror being perpetrated against the local populations until ISIS went on a land grab.

All good points he made. He is glossing over the common tendency for all nation-states to pursue their interests somewhat haphazardly in response to shifting public opinion and perceived saliency. He's calling for a consistency that never really happens.

This doesn't undercut his point, I am just offering a comment.

[HopAlongBunny]

I liked the article for its concise summation of the situation.
The failing it has...like almost all opinion on the matter...is the complete lack of a discussion on the way forward.
Removal of ISIS is a distraction; it won't "solve Iraq!"; I would like to see something coherent about how to chip the way forward to a solution.

[rory_20_uk]

For borders to be "solved" in the middle east would require the countries in the middle east to put what the people want in front of their own wants - and that would mean we'd see a couple of new states and Turkey, amongst others, loosing a large amount of land.

I very much doubt this is going to happen - and external players will only make things worse by becoming hated by everyone.

Africa is another land mass that needs to redraw borders from the arbitary colonial ones which replaced the arbitary ones that preceeded them.

ISIS is the latest and nastiest creation from this area. Not the last and as long as the loonies from elsewhere decide to fight (and hopefully die) there they'll not be here.

[HopAlongBunny]

The gift that keeps on giving, indeed

[Rhyfelwyr]

Redrawing borders isn't always going to cut it. Centuries, or even just decades under centralizing states has meant that populations that were once geographically divided are now relatively intermixed. Without resorting to ethnic cleansing, people are going to have to learn to live with each other.