ISIS BLITZKRIEG

June 2014 returned the Middle East to the past. First, the specter of hanged Saddam Hussein is haunting Iraq again. As it turned out, the long 11-year road to democracy and normal life in this Middle Eastern country turned out to be just walking around the circle of hell. Second, there is a new terrorist organization, in comparison with which even the famous Al-Qa'eda pales, while the leader of the organization itself, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is even referred to as "second bin Laden".

In early June, the situation deteriorated dramatically in Iraq - militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant" (ISIS) began to seize major cities one after another, including the second most populous and extremely important oil-producing city of Mosul, the small homeland of Hussein, Tikrit, Tal Afar, which is densely populated by Iraqi Turkmans, and Fallujah, which Baghdad lost early this year. The main objective of the Islamists is the country's capital Baghdad. The further plans of the fundamentalists allegedly include the establishment of a new Grand Caliphate on the territory of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

The activities of the group, whose members have excellent skills in urban combat conditions, are brutal and swift - not only civilians, but also the professional military immediately obeyed the fighters. The Internet has footage of Iraqi army soldiers fleeing, leaving their uniforms and ammunition behind. As a result, ISIS seized a lot of modern weapons, including US military equipment. Covering their faces and with guns at the ready, militants riding armoured jeeps have already become a kind of symbol of the group's victorious campaign. ISIS has been extremely lucky with finances - the group seized local banks with brand new crispy banknotes and gold bars worth almost half a billion dollars.

The movement is known for its special brutality. ISIS has posted pictures of one of its mass executions of prisoners in the province of Salah al-Din. About 1,700 Shiite soldiers were shot in a common grave. No one has any accurate information about how many civilians were killed. Militants indiscriminately seized foreign hostages: their list includes about 80 employees of the Turkish consulate, workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Turkmenistan. In addition, ISIS has released a new set of rules, or rather, prohibitions - for example, Iraqi women are no longer allowed to sit on a chair and men - to comb their hair and beards. But the Islamists humanely treat prisoners - three thousand prisoners are now walking free, and some of them joined the "liberators". However, despite the fundamental prohibitions, militants do not mind actively using social networks and YouTube, so the Iraqi government even decided to block the Internet.

Where did ISIS come from? The armed organization of Sunni tribes has roots both in Iraq and Syria. It gained full strength during the civil war in Syria, where the main base is located, but the main fighters are Iraqis, former members of the Iraqi branch of Al-Qa'eda - the Al-Qa'eda in Mesopotamia group. However, ISIS openly broke with Al-Qa'eda, as well as with pro-Al-Qa'eda Al-Nusra Front operating in Syria. Now the movement, which is seizing Iraq, has from 20,000 to 60,000 active members. The leader of ISIS is a 45-year-old theologian Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who, incidentally, was in American captivity. It happened in 2004-2005, when the Americans took the "Sunni Triangle" between Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra. In 2009, al-Baghdadi was considered no longer dangerous and released - rumour has it that before his release he even met with General David Petraeus. History is silent about what the American general and the Islamic scholar discussed.

It is noteworthy that a tactical alliance with ISIS was also concluded by former Ba'athists. One of the chief deputies of Saddam, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, is now fighting together with ISIS - he has set up the so-called Naqshbandi Army. At one time, the Americans somehow "spared" (read did "not find") al-Douri, as well as al-Baghdadi, and now, as it were, they are working together.

Thus, the "face" of the new "Al-Qa'eda" is clear, but it is still not entirely clear how the group managed to make such a dizzying blitz? Or rather, how could the Americans patronizing Iraq allow this to happen? Meanwhile, many of the world media reported that the US strongly miscalculated with ISIS. Their summary reads - US President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama really wanted to end the war in Afghanistan and Iraq initiated by the Bush administration. Things looked more or less clear with Iraq - elections were held and the new Iraqi army trained hard with the help of American instructors. But at the same time, the US began to support anti-dictatorial uprisings in several countries in the Middle East and North Africa, including Egypt and Syria. In these countries overwhelmed by people's anger, strange alliances began to take shape in a particular configuration - for a common goal, pro-Western groups found a common language with radicals and fundamentalists. However, at some point, the radical forces began to gain the upper hand. In Egypt, it led to the arrival of a new (time will tell how strong) leader and show public executions of Muslim Brotherhood members. In Syria, Assad remains in power. What fate awaits Iraq, we will see soon. At least Washington is not going to come to the rescue and send troops to Iraq again. All that the US is ready to do is to send military advisers and carry out drone strikes. So Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is likely to have to leave. It will be good if he escapes alive.

However, even despite the fact that American politicians of the highest rank periodically confuse Iran and Iraq (Jennifer Psaki distinguished herself in this just recently), somehow we do not want to believe that the US military and intelligence agencies are so inattentive that they missed the appearance of such a powerful force as ISIS in Iraq, a country they control. Especially as a similar error happened earlier - the generally-recognized version is that the backbone of the Taleban movement in Afghanistan was formed by militants once cultivated with the help of Americans to fight the Soviet Union. According to the "legend", when "the colossus with feet of clay" collapsed, the militants seized the opportunity and got out of hand. But a bomb does not fall into the same hole twice, and if it does, not in the most powerful army in the world. Then what's the deal? The New York Times, citing sources in the US and Iraqi governments, reported that Baghdad has repeatedly appealed to the Americans to carry out air strikes on militant camps, but has been refused. On 16 May, al-Maliki personally asked Vice-President Joe Biden for that during a telephone conversation accompanied by a formal written request.

But, unlike the Americans, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani expressed his willingness to provide military assistance to Baghdad. According to media reports, Iranian drones are already flying in the Iraqi sky, and about two thousand IRGC troops and fighters of various Shiite groups have crossed the border. However, officially Tehran has not confirmed this information. In turn, the Americans hastily stated through White House spokesman Josh Earnest that Washington has no intention of discussing with Tehran the issue of military cooperation in connection with the situation in Iraq.

In any case, no power in the region will stay away from the Iraq conflict, which is based on the conflict of Sunnis and Shiites. For example, in the heart of what is happening are the Kurds, who have long existed as quite self-sufficient autonomy in northern Iraq, if not more. Judging by the incoming reports, ISIS is not entering into confrontation with the Kurdish "Peshmerga" and the latter got the opportunity to quickly resolve their local tactical tasks. Of course, Turkey, which still appears to be one of the biggest victims after Iraq, cannot stay away either. First, Ankara cannot allow the creation of an independent Kurdistan. Secondly, according to Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Taner Yildiz, the crisis in Iraq affects the country's economy because it is an oil importer. And finally, what do they want to tell the Turkish government with hostage-taking?

It is not clear how the events in Iraq will affect Syria. On the one hand, it is reported that several dozen armoured jeeps and weapons from the arsenals in Mosul have already been transferred for the fight against Assad's regime. The Guardian quotes senior US official as saying that the US authorities intend to carry out air strikes on the positions of extremists not only in Iraq but also in Syria, while British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that the operations of the Islamists in Iraq illustrate how the conflict in Syria is undermining the stability of neighbouring countries. But, on the other hand, the atrocities committed by ISIS are so disgusting that the part of the Syrian population, which opposed Assad's regime, is now likely to think hard what alternative awaits them.

By the way, it is no secret that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are involved in the creation of ISIS. Indeed, the Saudis are using ISIS to solve many of their problems - they undermine the rapprochement between Iran and the West (if Tehran really enters Iraq to protect Shiite shrines), pre-empt a possible rapprochement between Iraq and Iran on the basis of oil production and prevent Iraqi competition for a long time in everything that concerns "black gold".

The sad story of the eternal struggle between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq has long been known to all, just like the fact that because of this debilitating war, really secular, truly democratic and stable states cannot appear in the Middle East. So is the fate of this region weak dwarf countries that constantly fight each other and have lowered their people to the medieval level? And now they are talking once again about the possible collapse of Iraq into three parts - Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish. But if it was so easy ... Nowhere in Iraq are there precise boundaries - Shiites live here and Sunnis live there. A case in point is the cosmopolitan city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq. This means that it is practically impossible to stop the bloodshed. The most surprising of all is that there has not even been an attempt to resolve the problem of religious strife at a serious level. What was done for this after the fall of Saddam Hussein? A government dominated by Shiites was formed and an army divided by the same principle was created.

World media grimly declared that Iraq is slowly sinking into chaos, but it has lived there for a long time. It seems that after all the atrocities that happened in the recent period, there can be no reconciliation between Shiites and Sunnis. But we do not want to believe that Iraqis are so fanatical that they can safely put religious disputes going centuries back on one scale pan and the death of their children from machine-gun fire and terrible bombings on the other.