Life - After IS !

The "Caliphate " that  IS staked out in Iraq and Syria is shrinking.  Its creation was a matter of sheer luck.  A small band of Wahabist terrorists from Saudi Arabia took advantage of social media to project themselves as an unstoppable force and the western trained Iraqi army fled in panic, abandoning tanks, artillery and a trove of weapons that allowed IS to attract recruits and arm them with modern weapons.

The various tribes pushing them back are becoming more organized and IS is fast losing territory. When it seemed an unstopable force it attracted many western converts and it deliberately engaged in sickening cruelty which some young men felt as an attraction.    It is still attracting zealots, but the numbers of western converts is shrinking as the news depicts death and destruction reigning down on this terrorist army.

The western powers hoped to see the Middle East emerge as secular democracies.  Exactly the opposite happened.   The " Arab Spring " certainly deposed tyrants and there was a brief hope that better regimes would emerge, but everywhere except Tunisia new dictators seized power or the country remained a fighting mass of opposing tribes.   This Arab " revolution " simply changed the faces of those oppressing the masses.

This mess which is the Middle East was primarily caused by the victors of the first World War drawing lined on a map to designate countries with no regards to the religion or tribal loyalties of the people who lived there.  These divisions were drawn to suit their national interests and were maintained with military force.

Now the west is locked in battle trying to maintain those unrealistic divisions of territory into National countries.   This is fast developing into a power play.  America is training and arming the tribes which suits its purpose while Russia has committed air power to assist the Syrian dictator hold on to his divided capital.

Logic insists that if both the western countries and Russia completely withdraw then eventually the Middle East will settle into national groupings dictated by religion, race and customs.  Unfortunately, it will probably take years of internal warfare as regimes try and hold onto land that was never originally part of their domain.   It is also inevitable that there be vast movements of people as what will be new countries emerge.  At present, the dispossessed are heading to Europe in the hope of a better life.   That can be turned around once the prospect of tribes amalgamating along religious and customary lines becomes a reality.

Unfortunately, this will never happen.  Theoretically, the United Nations was supposed to be a symposium of equals who would adjudicate world problems as a world court.   The fact that five nations were granted super powers and equipped with the power of veto completely negated that possibility.    The oil in the Middle East and the control of that commodity ensures that there will never be great power agreement.

It seems that when IS fades into history the Middle East will still roil the world.