Iraqi Journalist Who Embedded With Shiites: U.S. Strategy Will Fail

Two months after the United States began airstrikes in Iraq that expanded to Syria, Islamic State is poised to gain control of more than half of Syria’s border with Turkey. Independent reporter Patrick Cockburn and Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, who recently embedded with Shiite militias, discuss the “massive military failure” of the response strategy.

Abdul-Ahad, who is working with The Guardian, told “Democracy Now!”:

The war that ISIS is raging on the Iraqi government is a coalition of many different tiny little wars. … Everyone has his own grievances against the central government of Iraq, yet ISIS has managed to include them all under a single umbrella. … By sending more weapons, sending more money, you’re just adding to the fuel of the war. You need a social contract with the Sunnis of Iraq.

Cockburn is the author of the new book “The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising.”

‘Democracy Now!’:

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly