In Patrick Cockburn on Iraq: The West Shakes Up The Middle East, The Independent continues its series of History As It Happened books. Over the past 15 years the US and its allies should have had the greatest interest in maintaining a Middle East status quo. But, as Cockburn details in a series of insightful articles published in The Independent, the West has been the most radical instrument of change in the Middle East.
The essential “on the ground” report on the fastest-growing new threat in the Middle East from the Winner of the 2014 Foreign Affairs Journalist of The Year Award. Out of the failures of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Arab Spring and Syria, a new threat emerges. While Al-Qaeda is weakened, new jihadi movements, especially ISIS, are starting to emerge. In military operations in June 2014 they were far more successful that Al Qaeda ever were, taking territory that reaches across borders and includes...
From the award-winning author of The Rise of Islamic State, the essential story of the Middle East’s disintegration The Age of Jihad charts the turmoil of today’s Middle East and the devastating role the West has played in the region from 2001 to the present. Beginning with the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, Cockburn explores the vast geopolitical struggle that is the Sunni–Shia conflict, a clash that shapes the war on terror, western military interventions, the evolution of the insurgency,...
