The
former UK prime minister used to claim the 2003 invasion would
undermine jihadis. The 12 years since have proved how wrong he was
Only one of
Tony Blair’s mea culpas in his CNN interview stands out as truly
significant: his partial acknowledgment that without the Iraq war
there would be no Islamic State (Isis).
Until now,
Blair had refused to link the two, insisting instead in the lead-up
to the war that sending western troops would deny jihadis an arena
and prevent Saddam Hussein from using them as proxies in his standoff
with the west.
The 12 years
since have constantly disproved both claims. Within six months of
British troops landing in Iraq, the SAS was sent to Baghdad’s
western outskirts to attack jihadis who had taken up residence in
Ramadi. Back then, they were a mob of foreigners and Iraqis who fed
off a broad Sunni discontent fuelled by the invasion; a serendipitous
vanguard that not long afterwards organised into al-Qaida in Iraq,
then the Islamic State of Iraq and, since mid-2013, Isis.
More:
Read
also:
Comments
Post a Comment