Two different opinions: Part One worse than the Balkans
This is the first of two pointers. to commentaries by analysts.
First, from Kings of War a new voice:
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That’s why I’m delighted to have had the opportunity to speak in our first Kings of War podcast (18 mins) with Dr Victoria Fontan, currently Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Duhok University in the Kurdish region of Iraq. Victoria, as you will hear, has been kicking around Iraq in one capacity or another for over a decade now and is currently working on her second PhD with us in the War Studies Department (having turned to the dark side) researching ‘slow insurgency in Iraq’. She has been studying ISIS since 2010 and has done more and more intimate interviews with them than any other researcher I know.
The link to the summary & podcast, with some surprises which I cite below:http://kingsofwar.org.uk/2014/06/isi...owcast-vol-1/?
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ISIS has not emerged from nowhere. They were not ‘fading away’ before the onset of the Syrian civil war; rather, they were regrouping, cleaning up their house (imagine the rooftop discussion between Ali La Pointe and Ben M’Hidi in The Battle of Algiers when he declares that before they take the fight to the French they’re first going to sweep up the pipes and dope dealers in the Casbah). Up to July 2013, at least in Salaheddin province, ISIS’s attacks were paid for by the Turkish government, not private donors from the Gulf as is commonly mistaken. ISIS’s presence in Syria did not ‘just happen’; rather, it was orchestrated by Turkey, which then decided to back up the wrong horse–Nusra, in the Spring of 2013. This last aspect of Victoria’s strategic diagnosis is, in my view, the most worrisome.
What we are seeing is not ‘just’ a civil war but an incipient schismatic war with thick tentacles linking it abroad in a patently ominous manner...... While speaking with Victoria the first thought of the near future of the Middle East which sprang to mind was one akin to the Balkan tragedy of the 1990s–only on a larger scale, with more money for weapons and willing suppliers, and with even less scope for external mitigation.
Two different opinions: Part Two
A short comment by Paul Rogers, which I note in particular:
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If Balad air base is over-run in the coming days, the extensive munitions and equipment there will add further to ISIL’s stores. That may well be a priority for ISIL’s limited forces, not Baghdad.
ISIL planners are among the most experienced paramilitary tacticians anywhere in the world, let alone the region, including years of experience against western counter-insurgency forces.
Link:http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.u...aq_crisis_note
There is a third from Hamid Hussain, a SWJ contributor and USA-based analyst has reviewed his earlier work. Alas my IT cannot convert it to a format used by SWC, so standby.
Two different opinions: Part Three
Professor Olivier Roy, a regional expert of some renown, has a short interview on:http://www.newrepublic.com/article/1...unni-shia-rift
Succinct:
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The U.S. invasion of Iraq has just destroyed the main Sunni bulwark against Iran, with two consequences: the solidifying of a de facto independent Kurdistan, the secession of a large Sunni populated area in Northern Iraq that shifted from Baathism to Jihadism and straddles the border with Syria. Saudi Arabia, instead of allying itself with the mainstream Sunni organizations (like the Muslim Brothers), wants to crush them, while it supported for decades the very radicals that are now taking the lead in Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria.
Thus Iran is the great beneficiary of the collapse of the dominant order built between 1918 and 1948, with a minimum engagement on the field.
Shashank Joshi, from RUSI, has a short commentary 'Iran and America in Iraq: a Great Rapprochement, or Hot Air? and he concludes (from the sub-title):
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The crisis in Iraq appear to have united the US and Iran against the jihadists of ISIS. But claims of a historic rapprochement, let alone collaboration, are wildly overblown.
Link:https://www.rusi.org/analysis/commen.../#.U6C-qECRcdW