jambalaya – Member
@seosamh thanks yes very interesting. I am reading Emma Sky’s book “The Unraveling” and she speaks at length about the Kurdish / Sunni conflicts with Sadam ethnically cleansing Kurdish areas and installing Sunnis and about how they are now retaking them with a measure of revenge. Also you have the Shia/Sunni conflicts. Creates huge opportunities for disruptive groups to form. Also interesting how the article comments about how much of the Iraqi army was fake, ghost soldiers to allow officers to claim multiple salaries and certainly not interested in fighting.
I’ll maybe take a look at that book, sounds interesting.
Aye, I think a quagmire is somewhat lacking in descriptive terms for what is actually happening over there, I see no end to it. Even if the current well publicised battles are resolved(unlikely), Assad, and islam state, the sunni/shia sectarianism. There’s still plenty to come, how will the turks for example react to a kurdish state on the southern border once the americans lose interest in bombing runs and arming them?
I think it’s more likely we’ll see further expansion and more conflicts arising.
Regarding Islamic state though, it’s interesting how some locals view them as a vehicle against what they perceive as forces that have failed them and also how fluid they seem to be. Strikes me that we view this as a conventional war against IS, but it’s not really, it’s a quasi conventional war, with alot of aspects of a guerilla war added in there. So somewhat more difficult to fight as they aren’t always visible and are willing to give up territory at the drop of a hat. As I say IS strike me as very fluid, and i think it’s a tactic they’ll export/they are exporting elsewhere in the world.
They aren’t going anywhere soon imo. We need to start thinking outside the box about how to deal with them, as war alone won’t deal do it, imo.
