The Present — Richard Moore

We began the stories of Tribes of the Nahrain in the past; here they are brought forward into deeply unsettled times and their present. Again, their stories yield questions to make the mind pause. How, within the blink of an eye, did history turn from ‘Mission Accomplished' to a quagmire spinning helplessly out of control? The tribes knew this was coming; how did we in the west not? How does a young man with scarcely two years of high school and the skills of a carpenter take on the mighty and infinite forces of ‘the occupier'? What's deep within the mind of a jihadist … ‘the way' … that yields no fear of martyrdom and others to always take their place? How might an assassin deal with another assassin? What of those that fled the violence, and what of the wounded warrior who could not flee, now returning home? Their stories have futures yet to be written, but, insha' Allah, it will be written by them. Still, two lingering questions from the past and present remain; questions only they can answer and will frame their future â€" how is it better now, and how might it have been different?