The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising

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Though capable of staging spectacular attacks like 9 11, jihadist organizations were not a significant force on the ground when they first became notorious in the shape of al Qa ida at the turn of century The West s initial successes in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan weakened their support still further.Today, as renowned Middle East commentator Patrick Cockburn sets out in this explosive new book, that s all changed Exploiting the missteps of the West s wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, as well as its misjudgments in relation to Syria and the uprisings of the Arab Spring, jihadist organizations, of which ISIS is the most important, are swiftly expanding They now control a geographical territory greater in size than Britain or Michigan, stretching from the Sunni heartlands in the north and west of Iraq through a broad swath of north east Syria On the back of their capture of Mosul and much of northern Iraq in June 2014, the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, has been declared the head of a new caliphate that demands the allegiance of all Muslims.The secular, democratic politics that were supposedly at the fore of the Arab Spring have been buried by the return of the jihadis As the Islamic State announced by ISIS confronts its enemies, the West will once again become a target Cockburn cites an observer in southern Turkey interviewing Syrian jihadi rebels early in 2014 and finding that without exception they all expressed enthusiasm for the 9 11 attacks and hoped the same thing would happen in Europe as well as the US How could things have gone so badly wrong Writing in these pages with customary calmness and clarity, and drawing on unrivaled experience as a reporter in the region, Cockburn analyzes the unfolding of one of the West s greatest foreign policy debacles and the rise of the new jihadis. Best Read [ The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising ] Author [ Patrick Cockburn ] – kino-fada.fr Patrick Cockburn may come as a surprise to American readers who do not follow his reports in the British newspaper, The Independent This book, published in November 2014, is a collection of his writings on Syria and ISIS and a summation of his opinion to that time His assessment is not optimistic about stability in the region for some years to come and he is harsh in his judgment of the missteps that led us to this place When I first saw the depth and clarity of his analysis, I couldn t under Patrick Cockburn may come as a surprise to American readers who do not follow his reports in the British newspaper, The Independent This book, published in November 2014, is a collection of his writings on Syria and ISIS and a summation of his opinion to that time His assessment is not optimistic about stability in the region for some years to come and he is harsh in his judgment of the missteps that led us to this place When I first saw the depth and clarity of his analysis, I couldn t understand why media outlets in the United States weren t reporting what he was reporting After I finished the book, however, I could see that Cockburn reserved some of his most lashing criticism for the U.S government and big media Cockburn believes Western alliances with states like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have precluded a clear eyed view of those states promotion and assistance of regressive Islamic doctrines like Wahhabism ...A bit repetitive and feels a bit rushed which it probably was Some of the chapters seemedlike expanded newspaper articles and I suspect this is what happened A tacked on afterword brings events up to October 2014 Still a very useful overview for me as someone struggling to make sense of the IS crisis The main points are That the Iraqi govt military are too corrupt to defend the country properly The Iraqi Sunni civilians are stuck between a national army, full of Shia militi A bit repetitive and...The Rise of Islamic State ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution Patrick CockburnVerso Books978 1 78478 040 1 16.95, 172 pgsOn June 10, 2014 the collection of psychopaths known variously as ISIS, ISIL, DAESH and now as Islamic State, captured Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, in only four days of fighting, which is when the western half of the globe looked around and thought, What the hell By the end of June IS declared a caliphate comprising an area larger than Britain that is, in the word The Rise of Islamic State ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution Patrick CockburnVerso Books978 1 78478 040 1 16.95, 172 pgsOn June 10, 2014 the collection of psychopaths known variously as ISIS, ISIL, DAESH and now as Islamic State, captured Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, in only four days of figh...The most important book you could read this year to understand the conflict in Syria and Iraq resulting from the rising power of ISIS and the Wahabists The US politics of convenience are once again planting the seed that will in all likelihood cause devastating blowback in the West, not to mention utt...A topical book, pulled together at speed and published cheaply, this is not better or worse than some of the lengthy analytical articles available in the press Indeed, giventime it would have been a useful thing for the book to have borrowedinformation from such sources to provide acoherent and structured picture than it manages to do An example is this one, giving a lot of information about the origins of ISIS in America s prison camps A topical book, pulled together at speed and published cheaply, this is not better or worse than some of the lengthy analytical articles available in the press Indeed, giventime it would have been a useful thing for the book to have borrowedinformation from such sources to provide acoherent and structured picture than it manages to do An example is this one, giving a lot of information about the origins of ISIS in America s prison camps Still, the point is it is not worse and has a lot of interesting insights and arguments The sponsors for the 9 11 outrage were in Saudi Arabia, that great ally of the US elite if not the American people the agency which made it possible for the Taliban to control Afghanistan was the Pakistani army and its intelligence service, who are US allies and beyond reproach the Taliban was not defeated or even properly engaged by the Americans in their invasion of Afghanistan, but stepped out of sight or parked up over ...Terrible This was clearly rushed to press before the ISIS Crisis falls out of news The book has no coherent structure Some of the chapters seem like articles extended by inserting an anonymous source or two Other chapters seem like first drafts with amateurish gravitas and lack of fluency There is a lot of irritating repetition in every chapter Granted, Cockburn s account isn t the black and white narrative of CNN, Fox, BBC co but it still simplifies the situation He also downpla Terrible This was clearly rushed to press before the ISIS Crisis falls out of news The book has no coherent structure...Probably the absolute best thing you can read in an afternoon to come to grips with the nightmare that has befallen the Middle East About a third of the way in, Cockburn offers his thesis statement The war on terror has failed because it did not target the jihadi movement as a whole and, above all, was not aimed at Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the two countries that fostered jihadism as a creed and a movement The US did not do so because these countries were important Amercian allies whom it Probably the absolute best thing you can read in an afternoon to come to grips with the nightmare that has befallen the Middle East About a third of the way in, Cockburn offers his thesis statement The war on terror has failed because it did not target the ji...The Saudi plotThrough my ratings, reviews and edits I m providing intellectual property and labor to .com Inc., listed on Nasdaq, which fully owns Goodreads.com and in 2013 posted revenues for 74 billion and 274 million profits Intellectual property and labor require compensation .com Inc is also requested to provide assurance that its employees and contractors work conditions meet the highest health and safety standards at all the company s sites.The book reads the low i The Saudi plotThrough my ratings, reviews and edits I m providing intellectual property and labor to .com Inc., listed on Nasdaq, which fully owns Goodreads.com and in 2013 posted revenues for 74 billion and 274 million profits Intellectual property and labor require compensation .com Inc is also requested to provide assurance that its employees and contractors work conditions meet the highest health and safety standards at all the company s sites.The book reads the low impact conflicts currently taking place in Iraq and Syria exclusively in the light of an old sunni shia religious rivalry,...It s true what some of these reviews are saying that this volume seems to have been rushed to publication lest it miss its window of relevance Nonetheless, I found it to be a very informative introduction to the ISIS calamity It is rather discouraging to see how little Western governments and media understand the political situation in the Middle East We have this assumption that attempts to overthrow a tyrannical and or corrupt regime are motivated entirely by a thirst for democracy Yet It s true what some of these reviews are saying that this volume seems to have been rushed to publication lest it miss its window of relevance Nonetheless, I found it to be a very informative intr...Short, easy overview of the larger context of the rise of the Islamic State This is not an academic study there are no citations or footnotes or sources, and there isn t a whole lot of depth but Patrick Cockburn has generally been a reliable journalist with lots of experience with on the ground reporting and investigation in the Middle East This shouldn t be the only thing you read about IS and the ongoing wars in Syria and Iraq, but it is a decent quick read if you have some time to kill an Short, easy overview of the larger context of the rise of the Islamic State This is not an academic study there are no citations or footnotes or sources, and there isn t a whole lot of depth but Patrick Cockburn has generally been a reliable journalist with lots of experience with on the ground reporting and investigation in the Middl...

The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising
  • English
  • 23 October 2017
  • Paperback
  • 150 pages
  • Patrick Cockburn
  • The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising