Summary of The Age of Jihad

Islamic State and the Great War for the Middle East

Patrick Cockburn

Verso Books, 2016 more...

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The Age of Jihad won’t end with the defeat of ISIS.

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Irish journalist Patrick Cockburn reveals the intractability of the Middle East conflict, from Syria to Nigeria, from Tunisia to Afghanistan. He fills in his dispatches, written between 2001 and 2016, with anecdotes from eight Middle East wars. He explains how sectarianism weights any peace process and one country’s circumstances “cross-infect” neighboring countries. He asks if these conflicts could be stopped, if the lust for revenge could be staunched and if the wounds of history could be lanced. Most probably not, he concludes, because, “the demons in this age of chaos and war have become an unstoppable force.” While always politically neutral, getAbstract recommends this informed, sweeping overview.

In this summary, you will learn

How the Arab spring turned to winter;
How Iraq’s Sunni uprising birthed ISIS;
Why US regional policy failed;
How the nature of Arab alliances between tribes, religious groups or nations dooms peace initiatives; and
How events in one nation “cross-infect” events in neighboring countries.

Summary

Afghanistan (2001)
After the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the US had a narrow focus: to strike back at its Arab enemies in Northeast Afghanistan – a country that already had been at war for a generation. In the four-year civil war leading up to Taliban rule in...

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