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Iraq Expert Dahr Jamail Expects Drawn-Out Struggle for Iraq, Syria

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[audio https://www.peterbcollins.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Jamail.mp3]

Dahr Jamail, now a staff reporter at Truthout, covered the invasion and occupation of Iraq and now believes the US is the biggest obstacle to ending the wars in Iraq and Syria.

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Jamail’s new ebook, co-authored with William Rivers Pitt, is The Mass Destruction of Iraq, available at Amazon or Truthout..  He also wrote The Will to Resist and Beyond the Greenzone.

In this conversation, Jamail offers history and context for the return of US warplanes to Iraq under the guise of humanitarian intervention and the risk of an incident that could be used to justify new escalation of US involvement in Iraq and possible expansion into Syria.  Contrary to media and political memes, US military involvement is the biggest obstacle to a resolution.  While the US position supports the overthrow of Assad in Syria, Jamail reports that we are not supplying the Assad government with coordinates for Syrian airstrikes on IS.  Jamail says the Pentagon is exaggerating the threat from IS in the region, and says there is no evidence that IS might strike in the US.

We also talk about the serious risk of a wider regional war that could draw in Russia and China–one year ago, Putin intervened to save Obama from his own brinksmanship in Syria, but with the new cold war over Ukraine, Putin is unlikely to help Obama.