Needless to say, the world’s attention is now concentrated on the activities of ISIS and the prescriptions for defeating (as opposed to containing) them. Their finances are a major part of this. The Western powers have had some success curtailing hostile groups by attacking their financial flows, restricting movements of cash from ideological supporters and/or members of an ethnic diaspora. However, ISIS has proved more resilient, partly because of its territorial control but also because as much as half of its money is thought to come from petroleum production. The U.S., in the grand tradition of Confederate General Jones’ 1863 attack on the Burning Springs oil field, attempted to cut the groups’ oil income by bombing first, the large Baiji refinery which they had captured and, recently, scores of tanker trucks in Syria carrying off petroleum for sale. For anybody who watched video of the oil well fires in […]