ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham) captured the city of Mosul along with it’s state institutions including television stations, police headquarters, prisons, banks, airports and military basis in Iraq’s second largest city. This was despite the fact that there was 60 thousand military forces in the region and was overpowered by an insurgent force that numbered in only several hundreds. This new gain by the Islamists means that the ISIS controls a territory stretching from the eastern side of Aleppo (Syria), a part of Ramadi (Iraq) all the way to Mosul (the capital of Nineveh province).
The ISIS war strategy has been in keeping with all other Al-Qaeda savagery: indiscriminate killing of civilians in both Syria and Iraq. This very significant gain by the Islamists in Iraq alarmed many Western stakeholders, mainly Britain and the U.S. Both countries are now scrambling to find a quick solution to push back the Islamists in the area and regain security of the investments in the region. Mosul is the political capital of northern Iraq but more importantly to the West, it is located near the largest oil reserves in Iraq. In this way, Prime Minister Maliki made a TV announcement and denounced all the top military deserters and pleaded to the Iraqis to support him in building a united Iraq. President Obama on the other hand is “considering” using the US air force to support the Iraqi troops. Meanwhile David Cameron of Britain is building ties with Iranian butchers and dictators to further support securing their investments in Iraq.
Nothing seems to be off the table, once again the old enemies become friends in situations where the West will benefit. Despite the Iranian dictators being butchers of equal calibre to the ISIS: now all their daily executions and torture of the Iranian people are conveniently pushed under the rug. The British embassy is once again opened in Tehran (after 3 years), and Iranian Mullahs are visited by Western diplomats.
The complexity of the crisis in Iraq is often described and explained by the media as a religious war between two major branches of Islam with minor hints at the decade long war that took place in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush doctrine that reduced Iraq to rubbles, effectively became one of the largest (but not the only) contributors to the rise of political Islam in the region. The so called “free” and “liberated” Iraq and Afghanistan are now havens for islamists.
The current Western interest in the Iraq crisis is nothing more than to secure their investments in the region. The media highlights of human genocide taking place is nothing more than a population brainwash necessary to send in the military. Will the scheduled Western bombing of ISIS save the Iraqi people from the Islamists? This remains to be seen. But the one fact that recent history has taught us is that any gains against the Islamists by Western bombing has been temporary and transient at best, simply because proclamations of the West are themselves an empty way of hiding neo-colonial intentions. The working people of Iraq are betwixt and between a rock and a hard place, however any investment in the working people of Iraq for a secular nation independent of the Western and Islamic influence is long lasting, secure and fruitful; despite it being a herculean and long-term endeavour.
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