Collapse War in the Middle East?


Apr 7, 2015 | Jean-Michel Valantin
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The current war raging throughout Syria and Iraq is profoundly singular, because it combines itself with the social and environmental collapse, combined with the severe effects of climate change, known by these societies. In Iraq, the current war is waged between, on the one hand, the Kurdish forces, and the Iraqi army, both supported in a way or another by the Iranian forces and air strikes delivered by the US-led coalition. It is in itself politically quite strange, given its character of “coalition of the enemies” against a common and very dangerous foe. The Iraqi war is even more singular considering it takes place in a country that is devastated down to the very depth of its social and environmental fabric. This devastation goes much beyond the horrible “banality” of war, because the transformation of Iraq through both industrial development and modern war has installed the country in a dynamic of social-environmental collapse