London’s Daily Telegraph really is the world’s best news source. Compared to the American papers and networks with their mix of shallow left wing ideologies and celebrity gossip, the Telegraph offers sensible conservative, sound and objective reporting.

This article by Peter Osborne, combined with embedded links, explains succinctly and brilliantly the horrible morass in the Middle East. If you want to understand why the Middle East is dissolving into a state of anarchic terror, bloodshed and tribalistic slaughter–all motivated by Jihadists read Osborne’s article. He outlines how a combination of historic French, British and now American incompetence, greed and lust for power have created the maelstrom.

Iraq? All we have done after spending billions of dollars and tossing away thousands of lives is to create a state disintegrating into total chaos. The Kurdish area to the North has become an isolated independent state…

Meanwhile the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is building a sectarian state around Baghdad and the south capable of commanding the support of most Shia Muslims. The fate of the remainder of his country, however, is of extraordinary interest, because it is falling very fast into the hands of a terrifyingly violent new entity called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis).

Isis recognises none of the rules inherited from Sykes-Picot. Photographs on Facebook show its fighters dismantling border points and burning their passports, thus making a virtue of statelessness. However, Isis does levy taxes and controls a tranche of territory ranging from northern Iraq through to eastern Syria. No local army seems capable of confronting it. Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, says he is a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed, thus claiming to be more than a mere political leader or general. According to one Arab observer, al-Baghdadi “has designated himself as a global leader of the jihad fighters in particular and Muslims in general, and as a herald of the caliphate”.

Notice that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi claims descent from Mohammed. Once you bring in the religious aspect any hope of negotiation is lost. These people don’t know the meaning of compromise, negotiation or diplomacy. Their once goal is to establish, by force Sharia law on the whole world. This is where the secular powers are so often so incompetently stupid. They continue to have a huge blind spot about the importance of religion in world affairs. Because they believe in separation of church and state–by which they mean religion is a weekend past time for nice people–they cannot see that it motivates everything other people do and that unless you deal with the religious dimension you will get nowhere–and how are you going to discuss religion with a Jihadist? Invite him to a prayer meeting in a garden?

His RSVP will be a grenade and he’ll lop off your head with a butter knife at the reception afterward….and praise Allah for the ability to do so.

ISIS fighters are the thugs, like Boko Haram in Nigeria who despise all Muslims who do not hold to their own narrow views, despise all Muslims who have compromised with Western decadent values and are willing to be-head any Jew or Christian who crosses their path. They are gathering strength across the Middle East and North Africa, picking up the disenchanted, unemployed and angry youths left over from the fall of the Middle Eastern dictatorships.

And Osborne is convinced it is our fault:

In order to understand this new phenomenon, it is essential to grasp what brought it into being. Its emergence can be traced straight back to the Iraq invasion. Some of its fighters (who bring formidable military capability) are former Ba’athist soldiers. Others learnt their trade with the so-called “Awakening fighting” groups created by the US to head off an all-out Iraqi civil war back in 2007.

The Western campaign to dislodge President Assad of Syria was another contributing factor. While our leaders were ready to call for Assad to go, they were unwilling to intervene directly to dislodge him. Instead, mainly through allies such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the West supported militant rebel groups which have since mutated into Isis and other al‑Qaeda connected militias.

It’s a huge mess made worse by the incompetence of the Western powers

It ain’t pretty and it ain’t gonna get better any time soon.

Read the whole Osborne article here.