“Isis will benefit from the slaughter carried out by Omar Mateen in Orlando regardless of how far it was involved in the massacre. It will do so because Isis has always committed very public atrocities which dominate the news agenda, spread fear and show its strength and defiance.”

To hear more, visit The Independent.

“Patrick Cockburn, one of the best commentators and most knowledgeable commentators, has correctly pointed out that what he calls the Wahhibisation of Sunni Islam, the spread of Saudi extremist Wahhabi doctrine over Sunni Islam, the Sunni world, is one of the real disasters of modern—of the modern era. It’s a source of not only funding for extremist radical Islam and the jihadi outgrowths of it, but also, doctrinally, mosques, clerics and so on, schools, you know, madrassas, where you study just Qur’an, is spreading all over the huge Sunni areas from Saudi influence. And it continues.”

To read more, visit Democracy Now!.

“Looking for the good guys in Syria, the moderates…has generally been an act of fantasy.”

To read more, visit The Nation Podcast.

The best hope for an end to the killing in Syria is for the US and Russia to push both sides in the conflict to agree to a ceasefire in which each holds the territory it currently controls. In a civil war of such savagery, diplomacy with any ambition to determine who holds power in future will founder because both sides believe they can still win. Mutual hatred is too great for any long-term deal on sharing power. A ceasefire would have to be policed on the ground by a UN observer force. I recall the much-maligned UN Supervision Mission in Syria in 2012 arranging a ceasefire in the hardcore rebel town of Douma on the outskirts of Damascus. It did not stop all the shooting but many Syrians lived who would otherwise have died.

To read more, visit Truthdig.

“Our guest today, Patrick Cockburn’s new book Chaos and Caliphate: Jihadis and the West in the Struggle for the Middle East, proves the opposite: that a collection of old clippings, or as Cockburn himself describes it, “a contemporary diary drawing on my notes, diaries and writings produced between 2001 and 2015,” can combine the virtues of daily reporting and persistent study and reflection into a gripping account and penetrating analysis of one of the most significant slices of the history of our times.”

To read more, visit Dave Marash.

There is as yet no sign of counter-revolution or even effective armed resistance against a movement that has mercilessly crushed all opponents. Those living within ISIS territory who hate and fear it have reacted by fleeing rather than resisting.

The self-declared caliphate is too well rooted to disappear. Its slogan, “The Islamic State remains, the Islamic State expands,” is still true.

To read more, visit Newsweek.