“Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is.”
T.E. Lawrence, Arab Bulletin, August 20, 1917
The Arab Spring that began in 2010 spread across the greater Middle East and North Africa. With little exception, it has not been resolved peacefully or resulted in greater democratic representation. Syria remains embroiled in a civil war that started in March 2011 and the immature Iraqi government was easily contested by the growth in Islamic State in Syria and Levant (ISIS).
Nothing is more horrific than the actions of ISIS, also known as DAESH (Dawla al-Islamiya al-Iraq al-Sham), and this game is not intended to glorify them in any way. ISIS is a radical extreme with megalomaniac goals that has fed off the turmoil and instability of this region inside the Fertile Crescent. Their actions fall into three broad categories: atrocities in Syria or Iraq, atrocities inspired by their radical ideas occurring outside the region, and other external ISIS planned and executed events—largely in Europe.
Western powers have attempted a multitude of approaches with each of the revolutionary uprisings but the global ambitions of ISIS placed them in direct confrontation. Of all the contestants, ISIS is the most aggressive, far reaching and extreme in their methods; ensuring that they cannot be ignored or contained without direct intervention.
—description from the publisher