Behind Enemy Lies: War, News and Chaos in the Middle East

by Patrick Cockburn

Overview

A journalistic account of Trump's wars in the Middle East from a highly acclaimed journalist who has been reporting on the area for decades

In this urgent and timely book, Patrick Cockburn writes the first draft of the history of the current crisis in the Middle East. Here he charts the period from the recapture of Mosul in 2017 to Turkey's attack on Kurdish territory in November 2019, and recounts the new phase in the wars of disintegration that have plagued the region, leading to the assassination of Iranian General Sulemani.

Cockburn offers panoramic on-the-ground analysis as well as a lifetime's study of the region. As author of The Rise of Islamic State, and the Age of Jihad, he has proved to be leading, critical commentator of US intervention and the chaos it has wrecked/ And here he shows how, since Trump entered the White House promising an end to the Forever War, peace appears a distant possibility with the continuation of conflict in Syria, Saudi Arabia's violent intervention in the Yemen, the fall of the Kurds, riots in Baghdad, and the continued aggression towards Iran. While ISIS has been defeated, it is not clear whether it has disappeared from the region. Trump's policies has appeared to pour petrol on the flames, emboldening the other superpowers involved in the proxy wars. Following the collapse of the deal with Iran, and the threat of war crimes, is a new balance of power possible?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781839763960
Publisher:	Verso Books
Publication date:	10/26/2021
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.79(h) x 0.87(d)

About the Author

Patrick Cockburn is a Middle East correspondent for the Independent and has worked previously for the Financial Times. His work on the crisis in the Middle East include the National Book Circle Awards-shortlisted The Occupation and Saddam Hussein: An American Obsession (with Andrew Cockburn), The best-selling The Rise of the Islamic State and The Age of Jihad. He won the Martha Gellhorn Prize in 2005, the James Cameron Prize in 2006, and the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2009. More recently he has been awarded Foreign Commentator of the Year at the 2013 Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards, Foreign Affairs Journalist of the Year in British Journalism Award 2014, and Foreign Reporter of the Year in Press Awards 2014.

Table of Contents

Preface 1

Introduction 3

1 The Killing Fields 17

January 2020 19

2 An Isolationist in the American Tradition 53

November 2016-June 2019 57

3 The Battle for Mosul 85

October 2016-August 2017 89

4 The Iraqi Kurds: An Unnecessary Defeat 125

September-November 2017 129

5 Winners and Losers in the Syrian War 147

October 2016-May 2017 151

6 The Siege of RAQQA 183

June 2017-March 2018 187

7 Two Last Stands: Afrin and Eastern Ghouta-Equal Misery, Unequal Coverage 201

February-April 2018 205

8 Behind Enemy Lies: War Reporting in the Age of Fake Facts 231

April 2018-August 2019 237

9 Iraq at the End of War 257

November 2017-September 2019 263

10 Turkey Invades Rojava 285

October 2019 289

11 An Uprising in Iraq 301

October-November 2019 305

Afterword: The Choice Is between Bread and Masks 323

Acknowledgements 337