The desert sun gathers laser-light momentum, seething through the mist-like sands of southwestern Iraq.
Pressing an advance from Arar, the capital city of the Northern Border Province, the Royal Saudi Land Force reaches the troubled border and awaits potential incursions from the newly-announced 'Islamic State' (formerly ISIS, or ISIL). Lieutenant-General Qassim Atta, spokesman for the Iraqi Army, officially disparaged the move after Saudi allegations that the soldiers manned at the border had been "ordered to quit their posts without justification," claiming this to be an attempt by the Saudi's to undermine Iraqi Army morale.
There is a strange irony about the presence of the Saudi army at this border post of history, as it is the same arbitrary demarcation between desert and desert that the American and coalition forces crossed once in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm, and once again in 2003 for Operation Iraqi Freedom. After 8 years of war and slow bleeding on the part of the American military industrial complex, as well as the greater American economy (and, thus, world economy), President Obama declared an end to the occupation in 2011, completing the total withdrawal of all combat forces by the end of December the same year. In their place, they left President Nouri al-Maliki to his own devices, forced to brave the remainder of the dusty, blood-strewn road towards Peaceful and Egalitarian Democracy all on his own.
As can be expected in a country long torn and trashed by war and systemic totalitarianism, Nouri suffers from a Nixonian paranoia. Constantly fearing there was and/or is a Ba'athist plot to overthrow him, he implemented his own systemic form of totalitarian sectarianism by expunging all with a Sunni religious background from the armed forces and as many high posts of authority as his power would allow. Founded less on any disdain for Sunni practices, and more on the historical Sunni connection to Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party, Maliki tore the country in two and created a system of dangerously implied polarisation. Although this did not cause the current crisis in the country, it almost seemed to organize the stage itself and hand the keys to the backstage dressing room directly into the blood-and-sweat caked palms of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his rag-tag team of battle-hardened Sunni extremists.
The situation seems to lose a peg with every passing day. The fog of war hangs viciously over the entire region, with every report of a victory or defeat remaining unsubstantiated in the face of zero empirical observation. The tides of changing fortunes seem to edge at the sandy rockshores of ISIS gains without really sweeping in to any true Iraqi advantage. The Kurds continue to push for unconditional independence in the face of unproductive insults and accusations to treason from Maliki and his cabinet, showcasing, once again, Maliki's paranoia and uncanny talent to polarize the opposition. It almost seems as if any attempt to remedy the situation would end up being counterproductive across the board, leading to future issues liable to fractalize in complexity ad infinitum. This, perhaps, is why the United States sees nothing but future issue were they to ever intervene. At this point, the situation in Iraq, regardless of whose fault it is, is centered around damage control as opposed to solutions. The most tragic fact out of all of this is, however, that this seems to be the wisest decision available to all who are involved. At least for the time being.
The official creation of an Islamic Caliphate is an unprecedented victory for radical Islam, and the most significant gain since the attacks of September 11th, 2001. It seems highly unlikely that the Islamic State will remain victorious with all long-term variables considered, but the symbolic triumph will act as a match-to-oil for jihadists worldwide in the years to come. At the tail end of June, the Islamic State even went so far as to physically destroy the border posts and checkpoints between Iraq and Syria, allowing a free flow of men, weapons, and other supplies on both fronts. They also released a video in which a group of militants held their respective passports from their countries of origin up to a camera and tore them to bits for the world to see. Soon afterwards, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (now known as 'Caliph Ibrahim') called upon Muslims the world over to flock to the new Caliphate to join the war and strengthen the society as a whole. He asked Muslim doctors and scholars to join the emigre in an effort to develop an 'intelligentsia' and reignite the Islamic Golden Age. This was followed by the double-standard of threatening the Christian community in Mosul with the choice between execution, or paying a 'religious protection tax' known as 'jizya.' The Christians were, understandably, more content with fleeing east into Kurdish territory to find asylum.
This kind of double-standard, between a demand for Muslim intelligence and the imposition of medieval religious law (which, let it be noted, would not have been tolerated or implemented under the Prophet Muhammad) has become one of the hypocrisies key to understanding the Islamic States fractured message. As they crucify their enemies in public squares, they attempt to foster a desire for Muslim intellectualism, causing all Muslims of moderate and rational intelligence to publicly denounce the group for its barbarism, and denying it any sense of international legitimacy.
The interwoven intrigues of Middle Eastern politics continue to exacerbate the problem ten-fold. With the Sunni majority Saudis coming under warranted investigation for having funded Sunni jihadist groups like ISIS in the past, and Iran trying to protect itself in assisting both Ba'athist Syria and Shiite Iraq, it seems unlikely that any solution.. whether permanent or temporary.. will be reached in the foreseeable future. Adding to all of this chaos is the reignited war between Israel and the fractured remains of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip... it is geopolitically impossible that Israel will calmly stand-by and allow ISIS to become wholly successful in neighboring Syria. They are already at odds with Hamas, which is battle-hardened and motivated to fight after assisting Bashar al-Assad in fending off the moderate rebellion. Should the Islamic State see any more concrete success in the field of battle, you can bet that Israel will begin to take stock of its situation, and fight back. It may be, perhaps, that Syria's ultimate vindication of its crisis will come in the form of a violent Israeli intervention a year or so down the road... and it will be a catch-22 for all who are forced to become inexorably involved in this globalizing conflict.
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