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My grandmother hated the Germans until the day she died. Nothing I could say about the greatness of Bach or German regret over the war would make any difference. I could sympathize with her view, though, given she had lived through the Blitz in East Ham and been bombed by the Germans on a daily basis for weeks on end.

So maybe it was my Grandmother who made me think that the plans of US neo-conservatives to bomb the Iraqis into a state of western democracy would never work. Surely such bombing would do no more than create a new generation of terrorists, just like my grandmother would have been if Germany had won the war? (She was a very strong minded woman). Except that this next generation of terrorists would, quite understandably, be even more radical and hate-filled than the last.

But was I really clever enough to work all this out on my own? Or is my subconscious just tricking me into believing a certain expertise in international relations? Most of the western media supported Gulf War II, but might there have been dissenting voices that I now remember as my own? Let’s take a look:

Bernie Sanders seems to have got it about right in this speech made the day after bombing commenced in Gulf War I:

“Despite the fact that we are now aligned with such Middle Eastern dictatorships such as Syria, a terrorist dictatorship, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, feudalistic dictatorships, and Egypt, a one-party state that receives seven billion dollars in debt forgiveness to wage this war with us, I believe that in the long run, the action unleashed last night will go strongly against our interests in the Middle East. Clearly the United States and allies will win this war, but the death and destruction caused, will in my opinion, not be forgotten by the poor people of the Third World and the people of the Middle East in particular. ...
I fear that one day we will regret that decision and that we are in fact laying the ground-work for more and more wars for years to come�.�

Bernie goes to prove what we all knew already, that he is the only US presidential candidate with any foresight or independent powers of analysis. But can we find a more accurate prediction of the outcome of Gulf War II?

We can. The . Here is what they had to say about Gulf War II a few days after military hostilities commenced:

�...This war will not put an end to anti-Americanism; it will fan the flames of hatred even higher... And it will not lay the groundwork for the flourishing of democracy throughout the Mideast; it will harden the resolve of Arab states to drive out all Western (i.e. U.S.) influence.
If you thought Osama bin Laden was bad, just wait until the countless children who become orphaned by U.S. bombs in the coming weeks are all grown up. Do you think they will forget what country dropped the bombs that killed their parents? In 10 or 15 years, we will look back fondly on the days when there were only a few thousand Middle Easterners dedicated to destroying the U.S. and willing to die for the fundamentalist cause. From this war, a million bin Ladens will bloom.

And what exactly is our endgame here? Do we really believe that we can install Gen. Tommy Franks as the ruler of Iraq? Is our arrogance and hubris so great that we actually believe that a U.S. provisional military regime will be welcomed with open arms by the Iraqi people? Democracy cannot possibly thrive under coercion. To take over a country and impose one's own system of government without regard for the people of that country is the very antithesis of democracy. And it is doomed to fail.

A war against Iraq is not only morally wrong, it will be an unmitigated disaster…�

For the sake of balance The Onion included an opposing viewpoint in their article, which was also the view promulgated by most of the mainstream media at the time, namely:

�...You're getting worked up over nothing. Everything is going to be fine. So just relax, okay? You're really overreacting..�.

Seriously though, it’s a sad day for US journalism when an article in The Onion is a more reliable source of analysis than .

The Onion was spot on and as an occasional reader I may have subconsciously adopted their view. However it is still worth looking at the details of how the current disaster in the Syria and Iraq developed to help assess how things may go in the future . This work is an excellent starting point to understanding how events moved on from the days of Bush’s pathetic “Mission Accomplished� to the fulfillment of The Onion’s well thought out and tragically correct prediction.

Despite the somewhat lurid title, “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror� is not sensationalist but rather a serious journalist work with a great deal of information about the early history of ISIS and its precursor groups in Syria and Iraq. The main actors in this story are the governments of Syria, Iraq and Iran, Al Qaeda, Sunni and Shi’ite communities across those countries and the various individuals opposing or acting in their name.

The main thesis of the book is illustrated by this diagram which recently appeared in The New York Times. It is a diagram showing the distribution of Sunni, Shi’ite and mixed areas of Baghdad in 2005 and 2007.



You will notice that in 2007 there are far fewer mixed areas and far more areas that are purely Sunni or Shi’ite. This diagram is evidence of the increasing sectarian split between Sunni and Shi’ite that was first broken open by the coalition invasion and US attempts at regime change. This split - which is fundamentally a political rather than a religious divide; religion plays a very secondary role here - was fed by the favoritism and patronage of al-Maliki, the first post invasion Prime Minister of Iraq, and by the meddling of other Shi’ite sponsors - Assad in Syria and Iran - all made possible by the invasion. Based on this book I would tag al-Maliki as a rarely recognised villain in this story for his Shi’ite partisanship and for his betrayal of the Sunni moslems who did try and stand up to extremism.

The Sunni-Shi’ite sectarian split started to show signs of widening to a dangerous level with the first round of democratic elections in Iraq which were boycotted by most of the Sunni population amid concerns that the majority Shi’ite government, once elected, would be biased against the Sunni. This concern seem to have been borne out in practice.

In this early post invasion period the main activity of the founders of ISIS was shit-stirring. Al Qaeda in Iraq at that time behaved like the younger kids in a playground looking for attention while the bigger boys are having a fight. Tragically their shit-stirring was very successful, promoting the sectarian split through the bombing of important Shi’ite shrines and Iraqi government targets and helping raise their profile as a possible Sunni opposition.

The heroic but ultimately tragic people who emerged in this period were the Sunni individuals who responded to requests from the US occupiers to oppose the al Qaeda style terrorist groups and help enforce law and order in the Sunni areas, mainly in the provinces to the west of Baghdad extending to the Syrian and Jordanian borders. Governments of countries that participated in Gulf War II have betrayed these people and for that we should truly feel shame and regret.

By this time much of the Sunni population in Iraq was sick and tired of al Qaeda and other assorted jihadis, who were often foreign, running around setting bombs or dictating to them in their homes. The Sunni groups that stood up to the extremists were the main reason for the success of the US “surge�; extra US troops had far less to do with it. However these people were let down by al-Maliki’s government as soon as the US forces departed. They received no support so were exposed to revenge from the terrorist groups; their wages were unpaid; they were abandoned. In due course they would be victims of ISIS or, if they were lucky, end up joining them.

Iran played and must continue to play a key role in the crisis, mainly through supporting Shi’ite groups including the Iraqi government under al-Maliki and the Shi’ite Syrian state under Assad. This support comes from mainly from Iran sponsored proxy groups such as Hizbollah or Hamas.

My reading of Assad from the book is that he is one part ruthless dictator to nine parts fool. His main error in relation to ISIS was encouraging them in the earlier years of their development in order, pretty much, to make his regime look good in comparison. After all, how can he show his importance in the world fight against terrorism if there aren’t any terrorists around to fight? Assad assisted ISIS by letting its members train in Syria, travel freely through the Syria/Iraq border and sometimes by coordinating military attacks with ISIS while their movement was still growing.

Assad adopted his policy towards ISIS despite his being a Shi’ite and hence their natural enemy, given ISIS’s belief that Shi’ites are heretics whose killing can be justified on religious grounds In doing so, as the books says, Assad may now be suffering from the worst case of ever seen.

The book puts forward a good case that ISIS is, in many senses, a replay of Saddam Hussein with extra religious baggage to help distinguish themselves from his secular Baathist regime. Most of the senior leadership of ISIS is comprised of ex-Baathists, which is one reason they are so successful raising money and organising among the Sunni tribes. The Baathists who now head up ISIS were responsible for oil smuggling routes and similar covert action when the worked for Hussein. Also, like Hussein, ISIS powerbase is in the Sunni tribes; like Hussein ISIS, are uncompromising totalitarians. What more sensationalist reporting ignores but the book makes clear is that - along with the more insane aspects of their rule - ISIS had, at least to begin with, brought some order to the region by establishing a modicum of civil infrastructure, relief from fighting and sharia courts and similar. Almost a return to the good old, pre-invasion days of Hussein.

What are we to make of the neo-conservatives who orchestrated this mess?

I am still left speechless at the utter stupidity of the idiots who believed that - as a result of bombing, invading and occupying Iraq - US troops would somehow be welcomed as friends. What were they thinking? Had they never read a book? Could they not have ordered any history of the Middle East from amazon.com and spent a few evenings reading it so inevitably coming to the conclusion that their ideas were utterly insane? I am always prepared to credit a lot of what goes on to the raw power of human stupidity rather than malice, greed or other evil intentions. But could the neo-conservatives really be this stupid? It’s difficult to tell.

So where are we now?

- Fighting on the Shi’ite side: Assad, Russia, Iran, Iraqi government (more or less), various rebel groups fighting Assad.
- Fighting on the Sunni side: ISIS, Turkey, Saudi Arabia; various rebel groups fighting Assad.
- Fighting, but not sure whose side they are on: US, UK, France.
- Fighting for their lives: the Kurds; the populations of Iraq and Syria who want to be left to carry on their lives in peace.

And what of the future? We now have a small region of the earth’s surface filled with bombs being dropped, guns being shot and and missiles being launched by a whole range of trigger happy gun-slingers (including more than one Hitler admirer) who bear a whole of grudges against each other. The targets these bombs, bullets or missiles are going to hit are increasingly a matter of random chance, as Turkey and Russia have already demonstrated. This situation does not bode well for the future, even before we think of the utter devastation of the homes and lives of the people trying to live under all this.

My guess would be that the ISIS controlled areas will remain a battleground for years to come. The ISIS genie is out of the bottle and will be very difficult to bomb back in, especially given there is little appetite to put neutral troops on the ground who might be able to at least slow down the madness. Look at Afghanistan and ask yourself, why should it be any different?

To my mind the real risk is that the dispute expands into a larger Sunni-Shi’ite conflict destabilizing the rest of the Middle East. My biggest worry here would be Saudi Arabia descending into chaos as a result of escalating social and economic problems and increasing belligerence in the rest of the Middle East. That would also not end well.

There is little doubt about it. In decades to come historians will look on Gulf War II as the biggest error in the history of US foreign policy by a large margin. And let’s not forget the culpability of fools like Blair who, in his case apparently on advice from God, were stupid enough to go along with it.