The Iraq Inquiry has found that the case for invading Iraq was far from watertight and made without proper care. Deception, however, is another matter.
Iraqi doctors weighs a child at a Baghdad clinic.
Jamal Nasrallah/EPA
Too many people still believe that Iraq collapsed because there was no plan for it; others think the West has learnt from its mistakes. Wrong and wrong.
Obama’s military strategy in Iraq and Syria hasn’t defeated the Islamic State, but it isn’t a total failure either. A retired major general and law professor looks at the successes and shortcomings.
The Sykes-Picot Agreement divided up the Asiatic provinces of the Ottoman Empire into zones of direct and indirect British and French control.
By Royal Geographical Society via Wikimedia Commons
Over the years the words Sykes-Picot have taken on two meanings – one significant, the other less so.
The promise of recently explored oilfields dictated British interest in Mesopotamia (roughly, modern-day Iraq) during the Sykes-Picot Agreement negotiations.
Reuters/Thaier Al-Sudani
The urgent need to respond to ISIS has redefined the use of “self-defense” to include attacking a nonstate threat in another country. But what are the implications of this? change?
The world can only expect more attacks such that that took place in Brussels, as Islamic State continues to decline and lash out.
EPA/Christophe Petit Tesson
What is the likelihood of stateless terror suspects being brought to book for their crimes?
Without the perfect-storm conditions of post-invasion insurgency, this most potent expression of al-Qaedaism yet would never have risen to dominate both the Middle East and the world in the way that it does.
Reuters/Stringer
The final article of our series on the historical roots of Islamic State examines the role recent Western intervention in the Middle East played in the group’s inexorable rise.
Free Syrian Army fighters on their smartphones.
Jalal Al-mamo/Reuters