ISIS forces just took Mosul. Mosul. Let me repeat that: Mosul.
Worse yet, Iraqi forces fell apart in a way that reminds of Batista’s army during the tail end of the Cuban Revolution. This is bad news. Now, ISIS has been building an infrastructure in Mosul for quite some time. (The link alludes to a parallel tax system in the city.) But this is shocking.
When you add to it evidence that ISIS is in the process of establishing a tax system in the areas under their control it gets very worrisome.
And strangely, the TV news and the big-traffic interweb sites seem to find Eric Cantor’s loss more important. Which, of course, shows you how little we really cared about any of the things supposedly at stake in the Iraq war.
I would like to think that Americans will remain more vested in the Afghan war after the last U.S. soldiers leaves. But this is mostly because I was, you know, there. I might hope that should the Taliban retake Jalalabad we would pay a little more attention, but somehow I doubt it.
In defense of apathy, there really is no American option on the table in Iraq. Moreover, for all the parallels this isn’t Cuba in 1959 let alone Indochina in 1975; ISIS is not about to sweep into Baghdad. In a sense, then, why not ignore the news from Mesopotamia? It tastes of defeat and there is nothing to be done.
But rational or not, that feels wrong. I am sad.
The most "fun" thing about "out of the blue" disasters was reading what the paranoids made of it. There was a lot of very crazy analysis in the comment sections today.
Jamie, however, sends people to an excellent summary in the Arabist.net blog.
Posted by: shah8 | June 11, 2014 at 07:32 PM