The violent rise of the Islamic State and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a classic case of the dog biting its master.
© AP
Two-and-a-half months after the latest avatar of a long-existent Islamist army, the Islamic State (formerly Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), cut into Iraq, its ranks swelled to some 30,000 fighters in Iraq and 50,000 in Syria. It has entrenched itself in Mosul, Tikrit, Fallujah and Ramadi in northern Iraq, captured the Baiji oilfield, overran and lost the Mosul dam, and has been generally murdering and pillaging on a scale that has not been seen since Pope Innocent III's 20-year-long crusade against the 'heretical' Cathars of southern France in 1209 AD.
One man could have broken the IS long before it went berserk - US President Barack Obama. Until almost up to the minute that the IS beheaded its second American news reporter, Steven Sotloff, (allegedly on 2 September), the most powerful man in the world was dithering.
There is a good reason why: because
the IS cannot be defeated without denying it a safe haven in Syria - and this, as General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointed out on 21 August,
cannot be done without the cooperation of the Syrian government. Placed in an uncomfortable position - Iran has long been the US government's resident bugbear - Obama is unwilling to concede this,
not only because it would be an admission of the monumental folly of his stance on Syria, but also because it would have him locking horns with Israel. Trying to keep it light, Gen Dempsey then told reporters on 24 August on his way to Afghanistan that he believed that the IS was primarily "a regional threat".
Comment: For more information on how the CIA has infiltrated the media read:
Controlled Media: CIA Admits Using News To Manipulate People
CIA media infiltration is real: From Operation Mockingbird to Pentagon social media trolls