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Oh dear… Just when you thought the Iraq
problem was solved

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because you haven’t heard about it
for a while,

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everything’s back to murderous
chaos and terror.

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What happened?

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In 2003, the US invaded Iraq because of
its alleged connections to terrorism

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and weapons of mass destruction.

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At the time, Saddam Hussein, a brutal
dictator, ruled the country.

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He was part of the Sunni minority

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and suppressed the Shia majority.

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Iraq was conquered fairly quickly,

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but the US had no plan for the country.

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The until-then suppressed Shia majority
took over

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and began oppressing the Sunnis,

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because suppressing other faiths has
proven to be such a good idea.

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Unsurprisingly, a Sunni rebel
uprising began

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and terrorist groups, like al-Qaeda,
trickled into Iraq

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and local forces, often former Sunni
military, began

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fighting the US troops and the newly
formed Iraqi state,

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peaking in a bloody civil war in 2006.

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Since then, people in Iraq have basically
been segregated by religion.

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So, in a tragic irony of history, the US
invasion led to the formation of

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the very terrorists the US wanted to
eliminate in the first place,

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because Iraq was now the perfect training
ground for terrorism.

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To understand this complicated conflict
better, we need to understand

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the relationship between the two main
branches of the Muslim faith:

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Shia and Sunni Islam.

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Sunnis make up about 80% of the Muslim
world and Shia about 20%.

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And the hard-liners on both sides don’t
like each other very much.

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Saudi Arabia and Iran are the two most
powerful players in the game of faiths.

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They both have no separation of state and
religion, domestic problems, and

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a lot of oil money.

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And they support groups that fight the
other religious orientation.

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And one of those terror organizations
supported by Saudi Arabia

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was the Islamic State in Iraq,
or ISI for short.

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In 2010, the Arab Spring happened

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and changed the whole situation
in the Middle East.

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In Syria, dictator Bashar al-Assad didn’t
think much of resigning

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and started a gruesome civil war
against his own people.

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The longer the war went on, the more
foreign groups joined the fight,

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most of them for religious reasons,

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and with the goal of building an
Islamic state in the region.

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And one of them was the infamous ISI,
which now became

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the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria,
or ISIS.

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They had fought in Iraq for years, and had

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thousands of well-trained and
fanatic soldiers.

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They already quasi-controlled parts of
northern Iraq

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and were very determined to build
their religious state.

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And they changed the game in Syria like
no-one expected.

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ISIS was so unbelievably violent and
radical that soon it was

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a war with almost every other faction of
the Syrian rebel armies.

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They attacked and killed member of other
Muslim terrorist groups.

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In the territories they controlled, they
built an Islamic state

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with rules so strict that even the
hard-liners of al-Qaeda and Saudi Arabia

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were shocked and withdrew their support.

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ISIS has been accused of responsibility
for multiple massacres against civilians,

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countless suicide bombings, the
hostage-taking of women and children,

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the execution of their prisoners, and
beheadings.

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All kinds of medieval hororrs we would
rather not have to illustrate.

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And this lovely gathering of human beings
recently decided it was time to

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take more territory in Iraq.

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Since the US left Iraq, the Shia prime
minister, Nouri al-Maliki,

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has monopolized power and discriminated
against Sunnis wherever possible.

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The government of Iraq is widely regarded
as being corrupt, incapable,

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and it’s cetainly hated by a large part
of its citizens.

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The Iraqi army, consisting of about
300,000 soldiers,

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was created using 25 billion US dollars in
tax money,

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but it’s not loyal to its government and

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has been withdrawing or completely
disbanding, giving up city after city.

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Because ISIS has announced that everyone
who opposes them will be killed,

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they have proven they mean business.

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By June 2014, they’d conquered a big
chunk of Iraq,

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including Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest
city.

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They’d stolen hundreds of millions from
captured banks,

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making them the richest terror
organization on Earth.

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And they are constantly working on
establishing

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a super-medieval religious state.

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Iran and the US are even considering
working together to fight them.

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That’s how gruesome the situation is.

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Events in Iraq show again that exploiting
the people you’ve defeated in a war,

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denying them power, a living, and a stake
in the rebuilding of the country

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is just sowing the seeds of the next bout
of violence.

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Somehow, we have to break this circle.