The Iraq war was always about oil. The ISIS extremists who are trying to seize control of the country’s largest refinery know that. Everyone was braced for the battle for Baghdad. But first they went after the oil. Just like the Americans. In 2003, when Baghdad was a chaos of looting, the one thing the Americans secured was the Oil Ministry. Because oil is power. If all you’ve got is a cave on a mountain side somewhere in Afghanistan, you have to do something really big to … [Read more...]
There Are Worse Things Than Dictators
June 18, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Everything they told you about Syria was wrong. The story where the noble, brave resistance were fighting to liberate their country. The story where Assad was the one the world had to worry about. Well, those resistance fighters have shown their faces now. And they are the butchers of ISIS, beheading their way through Iraq towards Baghdad. Syria and Iraq are the same war. They have been for a long time. ISIS is fighting in both countries, it wants to establish a single Taliban-style state … [Read more...]
The people are coming for you
April 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment
In February last year, drunk on the euphoria of the Arab Spring and cheap wine, I put this rant up on Facebook: "Bouteflika, Saleh, Assad, Gaddafi, Ahmadinejad and you silent eminences his masters, Abdullah the Hashemite, Abdullah of the House of Saud, don't sleep, don't turn out the lights, don't blink, the people are coming for you." Well, yes. They really were coming for Gaddafi. Saleh of Yemen is gone too, though allowed to live. Things aren't looking good for Assad, … [Read more...]
