Who do they really hate, these Isil nutjobs? It’s not Israel; it’s not America; it’s the people who think that the true heir of the Prophet Mohammed was a chap called Ali, rather than the so-called rightly guided caliphs. It is a dispute that goes back to the 7th century AD and the “Battle of the Camel”, between Ali and Mohammed’s wife Aisha.
You or I might think it was deranged to care about these doctrinal points, just as it was deranged for Christians to slaughter each other over their own tiny differences. Frankly I don’t give a monkey’s.
The real tragedy of the emergence of Isil is that it has been connived at and almost certainly financed by some in rich Sunni states – Saudi Arabia, some Gulf states – who mistakenly see them (or saw them) as a counterweight to Shia influence in the region, in the form of Tehran and Hizbollah. It’s about geopolitical rivalries; and in the face of the horror emerging in Iraq and Syria, it is time for all Muslim states to put aside such differences, and to unite against a group that so grievously misrepresents Islam. That is the coalition that Mr Obama is trying to build now; and he is right. It is overwhelmingly in the interest of the Muslim world to band together and to defeat a terrorist perversion of their religion. It is in Britain’s interest to be there to support, to be engaged, and to give whatever diplomatic and military help we can.
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