US imperialist strategy in tatters
12/06/2015
A year after ISIS captured Mosul, the jihadist group controls about half of Syria and a third of Iraq – more territory than ever before
Serge Jordan (CWI)
A year after the self-proclaimed “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” (ISIS) captured Mosul and declared its “caliphate”, it now controls about half of Syria and a third of Iraq - more territory than ever before. The legacy of imperialism, with decades of divide-and-rule policies, power struggles, corporate plunder, support for brutal dictatorships, flirtations with jihadist forces and bloody military interventions, has left these two countries in ruins, reflected in a rapid descent into sectarian fragmentation.
Existing nation States, creations of colonialism, are being increasingly hollowed out, as the old map of the Middle East is redrawn with the blood of the masses. The old imperialist order, established after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire a hundred years ago, is being radically reshaped in a sectarian battleground that has engulfed much of the region. The advance of ISIS is merely symptomatic of this general process. The fight against this group—a common agenda that had supposedly united all nations over the last year--is faltering as the competing powers have failed to come up with any unified strategy.
On May 17, the Iraqi city of Ramadi fell into the hands of ISIS. The takeover of Ramadi, capital of Anbar, Iraq’s largest province, represented the biggest military victory for the Sunni fundamentalist group since the fall of Mosul a year ago. In a replay of the military debacle in Mosul, fleeing Iraqi elite units abandoned a vast amount of their U.S-supplied equipment to ISIS fighters.
