Quote of the Day

U.S. and western policy in the conflagration that is now the Middle East is in the classic mould of imperial divide-and-rule. American forces bomb one set of rebels while backing another in Syria, and mount what are effectively joint military operations with Iran against ISIS in Iraq while supporting Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against Iranian-backed Houthi forces in Yemen. However confused U.S. policy may often be, a weak, partitioned Iraq and Syria fit such an approach perfectly.

What’s clear is that ISIS and its monstrosities won’t be defeated by the same powers that brought it to Iraq and Syria in the first place, or whose open and covert war-making has fostered it in the years since. Endless western military interventions in the Middle East have brought only destruction and division. It’s the people of the region who can cure this disease – not those who incubated the virus.

– Seumas Milne

Excerpted from "Now the Truth Emerges:
How the U.S. Fuelled the Rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq"
The Guardian
June 3, 2015

Related Off-site Link:
The Syrian Refugee Crisis and the 'Do Something' Lie – Adam Johnson (FAIR, September 5, 2015).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Quote of the Day – January 30, 2011
• Something to Think About – June 18, 2014
• The Tenth Anniversary of the U.S. Invasion of Iraq
• Steve Clemens: "If We Wish to Stand with the Holy Innocents, We Must Stand in Opposition to Empire"
• John Pilger on Resisting Empire