20. WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, 5-5-21
Patrick Cockburn. War In The Age of Trump: The Defeat of ISIS, the Fall of the Kurds, the Conflict with Iran. Verso, 2020.
Hardback
with free ebook . 320 pages .
Publisher’s Description
Is the fall of ISIS the end of the perpetual war in the Middle
East?
In this urgent and timely book, Patrick Cockburn writes the
first draft of the history of the current crisis in the Middle East. Here he
charts the period from the recapture of Mosul in 2017 to Turkey’s attack on
Kurdish territory in November 2019, and recounts the new phase in the wars of
disintegration that have plagued the region. The ground battle with the
caliphate is perhaps over, but was this the end of the conflict that has
scarred these nations for decades?
Cockburn offers panoramic on-the-ground analysis as well as a lifetime’s study
of the region. And here he shows how peace appears a distant possibility with
the continuation of conflict in Syria, Saudi Arabia’s violent intervention in
the Yemen, riots in Baghdad and Tehran. At the same time, the rising aggression
between Israel and Iran, the raising of stakes between the US, Russia and
Turkey, shows that this remains the theatre
of the proxy wars of the world’s superpowers. Has Trump abandoned the area
for good, leaving a vacuum for others—Putin, Erdogan, Mohammed Bin Saud—to
fill? He also looks at what might happen to the Islamic State: will it
disappear now that it has lost its territory or emerge in a new form and with
renewed violence?
“Must-read.”
– TomDispatch
“I hope it’s as good as Bacevitch’s
book on the Middle East.”—DB
Questions to ask --D:
What, Who caused the plague of “wars of disintegration”” and the “conflict that
has scarred these nations for decades”?
What caused the “aggression between Israel and Iran? The “raising of stakes between the US. Russia
and Turkey””?
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