In early June, Abbas Saddam, a private soldier from a Shia district in Baghdad serving in the 11th Division of the Iraqi army, was transferred from Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province in western Iraq, to Mosul in the north. The fighting started not long after he got there. But on the morning of 10 June the commanding officer told his men to stop shooting, hand over their rifles to the insurgents, take off their uniforms and get out of the city. Before they could obey, their barracks were invaded by a crowd of civilians. ‘They threw stones at us,’ Abbas recalled, ‘and shouted: “We don’t want you in our city! You are Maliki’s sons! You are the sons of mutta! You are Safavids! You are the army of Iran!”’

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ZAATARI REFUGEE CAMP, Jordan — A young Syrian salesman stopped into Ahmad Bidawi’s barbershop for a shave the other day. Music wafted on fan-cooled air. Outside, on what has become the main commercial strip here in one of the world’s largest refugee camps, workers steered handcarts packed with lumber and kitchen appliances through sunbaked crowds hanging out in front of shops.

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