IS Tendency statement on the new war in the Middle East
Tuesday 7th October 2014

The United States, heading a “coalition of the willing” embracing NATO states and Arab regimes, has launched a new war in the Middle East. Barack Obama and other Western leaders assure us that it is quite different from George W Bush’s military adventure in the Middle East. The aim is simply to “degrade and ultimately to destroy” the group variously known as the Islamic State, ISIS, and ISIL. The media are full of reports of the atrocities committed by this group.
In fact the bombing offensive against ISIS is a continuation of Bush’s “war on terrorism”. ISIS emerged amid the chaos caused by the US invasion of Iraq. It has flourished thanks to the sectarian civil war waged by the regime of Bashar al-Assad to destroy the Syrian Revolution – a civil war that has been fed by Washington’s staunch allies in Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf ...