A map marked with crude chinagraph-pencil in the second decade of the 20th Century shows the ambition – and folly – of the 100-year old British-French plan that helped create the modern-day Middle East.  Courtesy of the BBC

 

 

 

The BBC, most recently in the shape of Mardell and Bowen, disregard history and context at will in order to push a particular narrative of events in the Middle East.  They should realise that the ISIS blitz is an echo from the past…a modern day recreation of the first Islamic conquests by Muhammed…..the difference being that ISIS are unlikely to succeed long term considering the number and power of its opponents should they have the will to combat them….something lacking at present in the US regime.

The reality is that what is going on now is merely a continuation of ancient internescine fighting amongst the Arabs on top of which there is the equally historic Sunni/Shia divide and conflict.

 

 

Whilst the BBC acknowledges the role that the failures of the Shia dominated Iraqi government played in creating the crisis in Iraq the BBC’s predominant narrative is that of historic British ‘folly’ being to blame for all the problems now apparent in the Middle East, compounded by the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

However things aren’t as simple as the partisan BBC’s world view of might suggest.

Bowen knows who is to blame for the ISIS attacks in Iraq:

[The Allied] invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 helped create and strengthen jihadist groups.

 

The trouble with that is that in 1990 Osama Bin Laden pronounced that Al Qaeda would invade Iraq and take down Saddam Hussein…..so he already had strong Jihadist forces and the intention to attack Iraq…..long before 2003.

And it is really the Arab Spring that has given the opportunity and impetus to the Jihadis to  wage such open warfare as an army rather than as terrorists riding on the back of the democratic protestors, especially in Syria….the same democratic protestors who instead of wanting to break up the nation states created by the Sykes Picot agreement want to enhance them by introducing democracy, liberty and equality.

And how does Bowen explain the Shia uprisings in Saudi Arabia?  A nation that is not a product of Sykes Picot.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZWco58RDVc

 

Here Mark Mardell has raced to defend his fallen hero’s reputation…paradoxically firstly claiming that ‘the problem’ is ‘our’ fault, then claiming it would have happened anyway without the 2003 invasion…..which is true, Saddam after all couldn’t last forever and when he went…..:

 

Is Obama right over Iraq?

This is the case for the defence – although it is one that the leader of the “indispensable nation” cannot state.

US and Western intervention is unlikely to actually do much good. In fact, it created the problem in the first place.

 

After the first world war the imperial powers of France and Great Britain, greedy for oil, carved up the Ottoman Empire between them and created the French dominated state of Syria and the British dominated one of Iraq. The two men redrawing the map, Sykes and Picot, had little regard for what anybody on the ground felt or thought about nationality or tribe or religion.

The countries now “falling apart” were stuck together in the first place by outside powers.

 

Of course the Ottoman Empire had great consideration for the various ethnicities, tribes and religions, didn’t it?…..and a pan Arab empire that Mardell seems to think would have been a suitable replacement would have been similarly considerate of difference wouldn’t it?  Saudi Arabia suggests not. Mardell’s simplistic finger wagging is just lazy anti-Western rhetoric…as is his little slur ‘Greedy for oil’.….a deliberately malicious charge from Mardell that is meant to feed into the anti-Western flow of the BBC’s narrative blaming the West for everything wrong in the world….and there’s no evidence that oil was the prime motivation for the Sykes-Picot agreement.

And what of that ‘falling apart’ of countries ‘stuck together by outside powers’?

What if they hadn’t been ‘stuck together’?

What is going on now would have happened post WWI with the different tribes, ethnicities and religions left to their own devices all fighting for dominance and continuing probably until some outside force came in to bring some order and knock heads together…..under the Sykes Picot agreement we have had 90 years of nation states that held such forces in check….as Mardell admits in his own biased way:

George W Bush and Tony Blair’s invasion of Iraq toppled a terrible dictator. But Saddam Hussein was a secular terrible dictator keeping a lid on forces that, unlike him, were a real threat to the US and its allies.

The BBC wants to have it all ways…and every way seems to blame the West….if they create nation states and some sort of conflict breaks out it is the fault of those who created those nation states…if they had left the Arabs to it they would have been also blamed for the subsequent conflicts that would inevitably have broken out.

And who ironically is at the centre of the terrorist surge across the world?  The one nation state that was left to control its own destiny…that which became Saudi Arabia….the main source of ideology and funding for Islamist groups around the world including here in the UK.

‘Saudi Arabia’ has long been one of the dominant forces in the Middle East as a result of firstly its own empire building and then the discovery of oil and the wealth that has funded Jihad across the world …..as well as the spread of the ideology into our own schools, universities and into the social and political minds of our own rulers as they bow down before the power of Saudi oil and increasingly close relationships with the Saudi Royal family as well as other Gulf States such as Qatar and Oman.

Almost immediately after the first World War the independent Arabs began to attack Iraq, Transjordan and Kuwait in an attempt to spread Sunni Wahhabism…sound familiar?

 

Here is Robert Fisk….this time he is right about one thing:

Iraq crisis: Sunni caliphate has been bankrolled by Saudi Arabia

From Aleppo in northern Syria almost to the Iraqi-Iranian border, the jihadists of Isis and sundry other groupuscules paid by the Saudi Wahhabis – and by Kuwaiti oligarchs – now rule thousands of square miles.

Of course Fisk being Fisk he has his own agenda…

We will all be told to regard the new armed “caliphate” as a “terror nation”. Abu Mohamed al-Adnani, the Isis spokesman, is intelligent, warning against arrogance, talking of an advance on Baghdad when he may be thinking of Damascus. Isis is largely leaving the civilians of Mosul unharmed.

 

Just as Jeremy Bowen ignores the realities of the Muslim Brotherhood Fisk finds much to like about ISIS.

As you can see blaming Britain for the Sunni/Shia conflict is utter rubbish……once again we are forced to have the news filtered through the left wing view of history where the British are responsible for all the ills of the world.

Even Boko Haram is billed by the BBC as an inevitable consequence of British colonialism (in 1903):

The word’s evolution is bound up with colonialism. In 1903 the Sokoto caliphate, which ruled parts of what is now northern Nigeria, Niger and southern Cameroon, fell under British control. It led to anger among Muslims at the imposition of a non-Islamic education system.

 

And here’s Mardell’s paradoxical change in attitude towards the Iraq War and the subsequent insurgency…it would have happened Iraq War or no Iraq War:

The pressure from below would have probably blown the lid off by now, perhaps with similar results to Syria.

 

Turmoil was coming anyway, and the Iraq war brought it a little sooner and laid the responsibility at Western doors, creating more resentment in the Islamic world, and fuelling extremism.

 

Remember this view doesn’t get much of a hearing – many journalists and think tankers are liberal interventionists and believe something must be done – whatever it is.

 

So Bush and Blair were right to invade….so says Mardell……at least with 200,000 troops on the ground they could eventually stabilise Iraq, as they did.  The mistake was to leave.  Which was Obama’s decision.

 

 

For the BBC to paint the ISIS crisis as purely the result of British or American interference in the region is dishonest, and politically motivated.  Islam, radical or not, imposed itself upon the world centuries ago before Britain and the USA were themselves genuine nation states, the Wahhabis are just a continuation of that Islamic colonisation having joined forces with the Al Saud family to conquer Arabia:

‘This alliance formed in the 18th century provided the ideological impetus to Saudi expansion and remains the basis of Saudi Arabian dynastic rule today.’

 

So Saudi ‘expansion’ began in the 18th century and continues today both by military force using proxy groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS and by funding Mosques, schools, universities and Islamic communal institutions around the world…including in the UK.

This is a long fought battle not the result of British or US foreign policy…certainly they play a part but not the part Bowen et al like to tell us.

As for Obama not wanting to get involved in Iraq until a political agreement is made in order to provide a stable and acceptable government to all parties…that ain’t going to happen…and whilst Obama is waiting ISIS will quite possibly take control of even more of Iraq and getting it back will be long, hard and bloody….even if possible.

To turn their backs on Iraq now will not be forgotten.  The invasion did not create this crisis…the Sunni tribes were on board politically and the insurgency was crushed…but the subsequent retreat by Obama did….along with the failures of the Maliki government to keep the Sunnis on side.

Obama either has to admit he is abandoning Iraq or he puts troops back on the ground.  If not Turkey, the Kurds and Iran will move in, the Kurds have already taken Kirkuk, Iran has its troops in Syria and Iraq on the quiet…and Saudi Arabia will be in there also.  The whole region could erupt in total war….with the not inconsiderable problems that that will be created due to oil production slowing or stopping.  The BBC will proclaim horror that oil is a consideration…but try getting your next meal from Waitrose when the delivery lorry hasn’t any fuel…then you might realise the importance of oil.

The BBC’s North America editor Mark Mardell says Mr Obama made it clear the US would not be dragged into another conflict in Iraq.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague also confirmed that the UK was not planning a British military intervention.

The price of Brent crude spiked on Friday over concerns about the ongoing violence.