The swift victories of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq bring to mind the prescient words of John Buchan in his famous 1916 spy novel "Greenmantle": "There is a dry wind blowing through the East, and the parched grasses wait the spark."
Buchan was writing about the wildfire of revolt and secession running across the old Ottoman Empire, which had for centuries enjoyed suzerainty over much of the Middle East. Propped up through the late 19th century by Britain and France, the sick man of Europe was finally put out of his misery after World War I, his possessions divided by his erstwhile patrons.
Under the Sykes-Picot agreement, the French share of the old Ottoman territory was to include Mosul; Britain then discovered the region had oil and placed it inside British Iraq. A ferocious band of fanatics aiming at a caliphate in both Iraq and Syria captured the city last week, signaling that the conveniently neat map drawn by European imperialists at the height of their power may finally be erased.