Juan Cole, who knows a lot more than most people:
1. “The Sunni radicals of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are popular.” They are not. Opinion polling shows that most Iraqi Sunnis are secular-minded. The ISIS is brutal and fundamentalist. Where the Sunnis have rallied to it, it is because of severe discontents with their situation after the fall of the Baath Party in 2003 with the American invasion. The appearance of video showing ISIS massacring police (most of them Sunnis) in Tikrit will severely detract from such popularity as they enjoyed.
2. “ISIS fighters achieved victory after victory in the Sunni north.” While this assertion is true, and towns continue to fall to it, it is simplistic. The central government troops, many of them Shiite, in Mosul and in towns of the north, were unpopular because representatives of a sectarian Shiite regime. The populace of Mosul, including town quarters and clan groups (‘tribes’) on the city’s outskirts, appear to have risen up in conjunction with the ISIS advance, as Patrick Cockburn argues. It was a pluralist urban rebellion, with nationalists of a socialist bent (former Baathists) joining in. In some instances locals were suppressed by the fundamentalist guerrillas and there already have been instances of local Sunnis helping the Iraqi army reassert itself in Salahuddin Province and then celebrating the departure of ISIS.
Go read the rest.
Here’s where we are: 1) Assad will maintain control in Syria. ISIL (Islamic State in the Levant) got suckered. 2) The Shiites will maintain control in Iraq. They are the majority and the country will not break into three parts. 3) Saudi Arabia will be replaced by Iran as the dominante regional power. The Saudis funded and armed the ISIL group. 4) Israel’s ability to project power will be dramatically diminished. Israel’s interests and U.S. interests are quite different. Even though the Zionist neo-con propagandists would have us believe otherwise. 5) The U.S. and Iran will have full diplomatic relations shortly.
Now a word about Israel. Five days ago somebody—-nobody knows who—-kidnapped 3 illegal Israel settlers near Hebron. One has dual American/Israeli citizenship. Netanyahu’s Zionists have responded since then by going door to door, guns drawn Nazi style trying to root out the “evil doers.” So far the Israeli Gestapo has rounded up 150, probably innocent, Palestinian hostages. When are the Israelis going to wise up and get rid of Netanyahu and the Zionists? They’re worse than the T-Party.