Commentaries, Opinions, And Editorials -- June 20, 2014

Desperate Odds: The Sunni Rebellion In Iraq -- The Economist

Titanic forces are pulling Iraq apart. The best way to avoid years of bloodshed is to hold it together

ALMOST a century ago, as war raged in Flanders, Britain took the fateful decision to carve up the Ottoman empire. It wanted to stop Russia and others from gaining influence over Islam that could be used to inflame Muslims in British possessions from Egypt to India. Working with France, Britain set up monarchies and protectorates, forging nations out of the tribes and sects that littered the Ottoman provinces.

After independence this imperial construction continued to be imposed by despots and dictators. Today it is falling apart (see article). At its heart, in Iraq, a Sunni rebellion is boiling. In the past ten days the jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) in league with large numbers of ex-Baathists and Sunni militias have taken the second city, Mosul, and swarmed to within striking distance of the capital. Shia-dominated Baghdad is unlikely to fall, but a stand-off beckons in which large parts of Iraq remain in rebel hands and the Kurdish north drifts towards independence. At the same time, Syria is engulfed by civil war, split between a western part under Bashar Assad and an eastern jumble of fiefs and territories under the Kurds and rival Sunni militias. Earlier this month ISIS took a symbolic step towards creating a new Islamic state by bulldozing a berm on the line drawn by French and British diplomats to divide Syria from Iraq all those years ago.

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Commentaries, Opinions, And Editorials -- June 20, 2014

An enclave strategy for Iraq -- Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post

War Without End: Why Iraq Can Never Be A Stable Democracy -- Loren Thompson, Forbes

Analysis: Obama plan leaves Iraq mostly on its own -- Lara Jakes, AP

The Jihadists Want a Petro State of Their Own Too -- Piotr Zalewsk, Bloomberg Businessweek

'More Extreme Than Al Qaeda'? How ISIS Compares to Other Terror Groups -- Erin McClam, NBC

How Will the Iraq Crisis Turn Out? Here Are a Few Scenarios. -- Jessica Schulberg, New Republic

What Does the Iraq Crisis Mean for Assad? -- Joshua Keating, Slate

America's Middle East Mistakes Keep Multiplying -- Robert W. Merry, National Interest

The New Map of the Middle East -- Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic

Afghanistan's Election Tipping Point -- Ankit Panda, The Diplomat

Afghan Presidential Election Takes Dangerous Turn -- Sam Schneider, Huffington Post

Why China Isn't the Next Soviet Union -- Michael Crowley, US News and World Report

No Illusions Left, I'm Leaving Russia -- Leonid Bershidsky, Moscow Times

Russia’s New Brain Drain -- Marc Bennetts, Vocativ

U.S. says Thailand, Malaysia, Venezuela among worst human trafficking centers -- David Brunnstrom, Reuters

Faces of the World's Refugees (Photo gallery) -- US News and World Report