Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials On The War Against The Islamic State -- May 30, 2015

Displaced people from the minority Yazidi sect flee violence from forces loyal to the Islamic State. (Reuters/Rodi Said)

Jesse Rosenfeld, The Nation: Massacre and Reprisal in a Shattered Iraq

The refugee crisis is growing as civilians flee a war that is drawing ethnic and religious borders in blood.

Erbil— Ali Ahmed Hassan, 31, sits on the floor of his one-room portable metal home in the sprawling Baharka refugee camp on the northern outskirts of Erbil, reflecting on the sectarian warfare that has forced him to flee with his family to the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq. Horrific bloodshed and reprisal killings—inflicted by the Sunni extremists of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, or ISIS, as well as the Shia militias—has torn apart his homeland and is leaving long-term, festering wounds, he says. Now he would rather build a future as a minority under Kurdish control than return to his home. Indeed, the muddy streets of refugee camps like this one are some of the last places in Iraq where you can still find multi-ethnic and religious coexistence.

An emergency-room doctor by training, Hassan, a Sunni Arab, first fled Iraq’s Diyala province after the Iranian-backed Shia militia Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq carried out a bloody campaign of attacks against Sunni civilians in 2012. He then settled in the Sunni-majority city of Tikrit, until the atrocities that followed the 2014 blitzkrieg by ISIS forced him to escape once again, to the capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government.

Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials On The War Against The Islamic State -- May 30, 2015

What a new Iraq ‘surge’ could look like -- Michael Crowley, Politico
ISIS Wins No Matter What Happens Next -- Michael Weiss, Daily Beast
The U.S. must do more to help Iraq fight the Islamic State -- Washington Post editorial
Jihad, the Failed ‘Surge,’ and the Abandonment of Iraq’s Non-Muslim Minorities -- Andrew G. Bostom, PJ Media
Recognize Kurdistan and Arm It, against ISIS in Northern Iraq -- Andrew Doran, NRO
How to defeat ISIS -- David L. Phillips, CNBC
Kurds In Iraq And Syria Move Closer Together In ISIS Fight Because Blood 'Trumps Everything' -- Huffington Post
No One Really Knows What Is Happening in Iraq -- Steven A. Cook, Newsweek
Syria and Iraq can’t be solved by western boots on the ground -- Mary Dejevsky, The Guardian
How Disbanding the Iraqi Army Fueled ISIS -- Mark Thompson, Times
Iraq Has Imploded -- Fareed Zakaria, Newsmax
Emboldened in Syria and Iraq, Islamic State may be reaching limits of expansion -- Peter Graff, Reuters
Iraq's Sunni-Shiite divide: Does US experience show how it can be bridged? -- Howar Lafranchi, CSM
Did Iraq's Army Genuinely 'Collapse' In Ramadi (And Mosul)? What Really Happened. -- Melik Kaylan, Forbes
Why Republicans can't blame Obama for Iraq or ISIS -- H.A. Goodman, The Hill
The opposite of ISIS: Compassion flows freely in refugee camp -- Arwa Damon and Hamdi Alkhshali, CNN