Get ready for an IS takeover

In 1941, when Adolf Hitler was preparing to invade Russia, he told his generals:
"All we have to do is kick the door in and the whole rotten structure will fall in."
Not only did he underestimate the potent effect of generals January and February, he also underestimated the will of the Russian people to resist his advances.

In Iraq there is no general January or February, and the will of the Iraqi people, and particularly the Iraqi army has been shown to be found wanting whenever it faces a threat. Hence when IS kicks the door in they will indeed find the whole rotten structure of post-war Iraq falls in, leaving a vacuum IS will fill all too easily.
IS forces, well organised and well equipped, are closing on Baghdad as I write. I predict that within a few months, or even weeks, they will be the "legitimate" government of Iraq. They are also surrounding the desert city of Palmyra, furthest outpost of the Roman Empire and still astonishingly well preserved. Standing next to the remains of the Roman city is the great Temple of Baal, an even older structure and unique in the ancient world. Based on their actions thus far, there appears to be a significant risk they will bulldoze the entire site, thus removing from the face of the Earth one of the finest archaeological sites in the world.

I visited Palmyra in 2008 and was almost overwhelmed by its grandeur. To think that quite soon the whole place may be reduced to a pile of rubble is more than I can bear. As for Iraq, sites like Samara and Ur may also destroyed, while the contents of the great museum in Baghdad, already badly looted in the aftermath of the 2003 war, may either be smashed or, even more cynically, sold off to the highest bidder.

How has all this come about? To answer this question we need look no further than our own doorstep, and our friends and allies, the Americans. To put it another way, this is the sort of thing that happens when you decide to indulge in a spot of regime change...