Good to see some truth being published for a change.

The USA is a failed economy that has been looted by it's corrupt financial system. They have growing unrest at home and right throughout Europe. War has always been the solution to broke economies and an angry domestic population.

Dr Paul Craig Roberts says he never seen such a collection of imbeciles with no moral compass which currently runs the US Govt.

We are all at fault because we let our Govts get away with lies and deception constantly. We treat this as the norm.

The UN Security Council needs to show unity, leadership and foresight for bringing peace and reconstruction in Syria and Iraq.

‘morning Marjorie,

Of course the rest of the world should get together with the ME combatants to reach a resolution.

Then we can press them to accept a UN resolution and implement it? There is something wonderful about the “dreamtime” commentaries and solutions that sound so simple we have to wonder why they have not been achieved so far.

Just let me see if I have this right. The combatants are slaughtering their opposition in the most vile and barbaric fashion. They do this in breach of the existing Geneva Convention and yet, you still believe they will comply with yet another UN dictate?

Rocks meet head!

Facts good; recommendations bad.

The idea that the solution is MORE intervention by the US is so obviously failed and immoral and miserable that you can only shake your head in wonder at how people can't free themselves from this vicious belief system. Perhaps they should try keeping out of it for a change?

The statists always seem unable to grasp the fact that the State is by definition based on unilateral aggression. This fact underlies and affects everything they do.

The idea of the USA having any legitimate moral role in Iraq is laughable. If there were justice, all the Presidents and Cabinet ministers, as well as all the British and Australian PMs and Cabinet ministers who participated, should be prosecuted as war criminals. They've spent 25 years, plundered their own people for trillions of dollars, killed untold people mostly civilians, totally failed, and now they're talking about killing and bombing and interfering again!

The flaw in the author's plan is that it gives place to the war criminals who caused the problem in the first place, and keeps on and on and on assuming that the answer is more states, more compulsion, more force, more interfering aggression, more telling everyone else what to do, more pretending that the State knows better.

There is simply no reason why the state of Iraq should be considered sacrosanct or defended; no reason why it should not be dismembered by its own subjects.

The violence of ISIS only demonstrates some small measure of the force people have to bring against the State if they are not to be taxed and hounded and forced into obedience against their will. ISIS are only rejecting the aggressive imperialism we would reject, and only matching force commensurate with force without which they can't get rid of a criminal gang they have every right to throw off.

Have to agree with spindoc.
And can only add, if the seemingly radical extremely self centred J.K.J. objects to paying tax, then he should go to Iraq.
Or, given violence only ever begets violence, wait the obligatory three or so years, and then add his vote to those who would usher in change we can all believe in!?
Few if any pay tax in a country, with that much oil revenue?
It's hard to believe some industry analysts seriously believe, we could have reserves to rival or perhaps eclipse the Middle East!?
The very worst days work we did was to heritage list the Great Barrier Reef.
Which contrary to popular green legend, is not a single reef at all, just a series of adjacent coral reefs.
Some of which may even be dependent on the oil leaks, that tell old fashioned prospectors, there is considerable oil there, and at comparatively shallow depths!
What would happen if there was the postulated oil and in significant quantities, and we gave ourselves permission to access it, as the only sane reaction to an increasingly volatile middle east.
Well first, we'd likely be able to pocket the 26 billion, we currently shell out for fully imported foreign oil; the second, a massive reduction in transport originated carbon, given traditional Australian sweet light crude, leaves the ground as a virtually ready to use higher quality sulfur free diesel, needing little if any carbon creating energy dependent refining.
And petrol variants can run on methanol, made by passing NG through a relatively simple catalyst.
Other than that, LPG is a condensate which flows out of gas wells as a free ready to use condensate, and or, most combustion engines will run on CNG.
What does our government do?
Sit on their hands or rush to sell off the family farm, the family silver, or our national sovereignty, at fire sale prices?
And when we are paying $2-3.00 a litre, what will that do to our economy?
We've got seriously bigger things to worry about, than yet another tribal war in the M.E.
Rhrosty

"Obama has expressed a willingness to collaborate with Iran, a Shiite-led country with close ties to the al-Maliki government, about ending the bloodshed in Iraq. This is a positive development, which hopefully will encompass broader issues, including the conflict in Syria, where Iran supports President Bashar al-Assad."

How ironic! Was not Obama vehemently opposed to Iran not so long ago? Also, was he not proposing military aid to the rebels opposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad?