Iraq




As the country continues to crumble, the Telegraph provides a good overview of developments:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10892299/Iraq-crisis-al-Qaeda-militants-push-towards-Baghdad-live.html

Calls for U.S. involvement so far have largely ignored the fact that Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, has been openly hostile to the U.S. and U.S. forces, and is basically a pawn of Iran. Of course, he's been even worse to his country's Sunni population.

What's about to happen here is the same thing that happened in Syria - Iran is going to intervene on the side of the government; in fact Quds units are already reported inside the country.

Two things:

- though they're getting most of the attention, the ISIS is not the only player among the mujaheddin forces,
- the speed of the takeover is mostly a function of the disillusionment, disorder and corruption on the army and government's side, not the abilities of the mujaheddin.

Things are going to get bloodier before they get better.