Is Iraq Becoming America’s Gaza? Netanyahu and Obama substitute endless war for failed occupations.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/is-iraq-becoming-americas-gaza/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=is-iraq-becoming-americas-gaza

Is Iraq Becoming America’s Gaza?

Netanyahu and Obama substitute endless war for failed occupations.

By Leon Hadar • September 16, 2014

During Israel’s recent war with Hamas, which took place at the same time as the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) was conducing its barbaric campaign in Mesopotamia and the Levant, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hoped to score a few points with Americans and other Westerners by equating the Palestinian Islamist movement ruling the Gaza Strip with the radical Sunni forces leading a Caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
But if the communist regimes and movements didn’t constitute a monolithic bloc during the Cold War, the West isn’t facing a unified Islamist force today. There are various shades of green, ranging from the quasi-medieval ISIS terrorists to the Muslim Brotherhood, not to mention the divisions between Sunnis and Shiites.
Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood that promotes a nationalist and Islamist Palestinian agenda, and while it’s not exactly “like” ISIS, it does represent the way Islam is being utilized now an identity and as a political-military force: Arab Sunnis fighting Shi’ites and Westerners in Iraq and Syria; Arab Sunnis combating Jews in Israel/Palestine.
And in both cases, these Islamist groups, reflecting the religious fanaticism of their members, including a willingness to die as suicide bombers for their cause, pose a major challenge to Western leaders and publics in an age dominated by the secular and non-ideological middle-class consumer who wants to live—not to die—for his or her country.