These are Sunni cities that ISIS is “conquering.” The Shi’ite army has no skin in this game.
Why do Americans recognize the names of Tikrit, Ramadi and Fallujah? Not because of their loyalty to the new Iraqi “nation.”
Agree, and that’s a very good point. Back at the end of World War I, when the Ottomans gave up their Middle East holdings, Iraq—as the nation it is—should not have been formed.
Lebanon should have been bigger, and encompassed more of the parts of Syria that were Christian, and Arabic Sunni Syria and western Iraq should have been one nation, and then the Shia of Iraq another. The Kurds should have got their own country, too. No reason for the Armenians, Azerbaijanis and others to get a country and the Kurds nothing.
The only reason that it didn’t happen was that’s they way France and Great Britain divvied them up. To the victor go the spoils. 100 years later and we’re still living with those spoils, though.