The Atlantic

Mosul Holds Clues About a Post-ISIS Future

Those who believe the people of the Middle East unsuited to democracy may think their bias has been borne out by events. That is not what I saw in Iraq.
Source: Khalid Mohammed / AP

The devastation the so-called Islamic State wreaked on the Iraqi city of Mosul stuns the senses. Suicide bombers blew up the hospital so that ISIS leaders being treated there couldn’t be captured and interrogated. A water plant mechanic tells of being lashed 40 times because his wife answered the door unveiled. An engineer tells of seeing neighbors burned alive. Children haven’t been to school in nearly three years. The jewel of a university, some of the most modern buildings in the city, are rubble; its library’s 2 million volumes now ashes. ISIS

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