Patrick Cockburn, author of The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution, is well-known in his native Britain as one of the best commentators on the unending conflicts in the Middle East.

Cockburn has lived in the Middle East for over three decades, and currently works as a correspondent for the British newspaper, the Independent.

His three-decade long experience as a journalist covering the conflict-torn region means that Cockburn’s new book is a reliable account of the events that led to the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a movement that is better known as ISIS.

In his book, the author articulates the events that led to the “swift” rise of the notorious militants.

Cockburn’s book suggests that it was the US and its allies — notably the UK, Turkey, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — that created the conditions that helped ISIS to rise and thrive.

“ISIS is a child of war,” he writes. “Its toxic but potent mix of extreme religious beliefs and military skill is the outcome of the war in Iraq since the US invasion of 2003 and the war in Syria since 2011.”

In June 2014, ISIS attacked and captured Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, inhabited by two million people. In the same month, it captured Tikrit — another Iraqi city located 140 kilometres northwest of the capital Baghdad and 220 kilometres southeast of Mosul.

In August, the militants stormed into Iraqi Kurdistan and defeated their opponents.

By September, ISIS had proved to be an invincible force when they overran the Syrian Kurdish enclave at Kobani on the border with Turkey, capturing a wide range of American-made military equipment along the way.

These swift victories took many by surprise, considering that the group was little-known before the capture of Mosul. “Enemies and supporters alike are flabbergasted,” boasted Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, the group’s spokesperson.

But Abu Muhammed was quick to warn his comrades not to rest on their laurels. “Do not fall prey to your vanities and egos, march towards Baghdad,” he told them.

The newly declared Islamic State continued to expand and, by the end of last year, controlled an area larger than the UK and inhabited by six million people.

On airstrikes launched by America against the militants in a bid to neutralise them, Cockburn writes that the strikes can only do so much because this time round the Americans are “more aware than during the invasion of 2013 of the dangerous complexities of politics and warfare in Iraq,” and that air power “may be counterproductive in terms of alienating the local population.”

In the book, Cockburn sees no significant solution in sight as the conflict rages. He writes, “The battle lines may continue to change, but the overall expansion of their power will be difficult to reverse.”

And the writer’s predictions seem to be confirmed by the current state of affairs. Even though in the recent past ISIS was beaten back from Kobani and Tikrit, the militants still control large swathes of territory across Iraq and Syria.

In Syria, ISIS is expanding in Hasaka Province in the northeast of the country, and in the Damascus, Qalamoun, and Bekaa valley in the southwest. In western Iraq, more than half of Anbar Province is also still under ISIS, including the cities of Mosul and Falluja.

But what really went wrong?

In Iraq, the Sunni community was marginalised by the new Shia-dominated government after the fall of Saddam Husein and, according to Cockburn, “It is evident that ISIS has been able to exploit the growing sense of alienation and persecution among the Sunni.”

In Syria, the writer blames the US and its allies for supporting members of the Syrian military opposition. And because the US and its allies were more concerned with kicking Syrian President Bashar al-Assad out of power than anything else, “They kept the war going in Syria, though it was obvious from 2012 that Assad would not fall. He was not about to go, and ideal conditions were created for ISIS to prosper,” Cockburn writes.

The writer heaps more blame on Saudi Arabia for not only being a major sponsor of jihadi activities in the Middle East for many years, but also propagating Wahhabism, an ideology he defines as a fundamentalist 18th century version of Islam that imposes sharia law, relegates women to the status of second-class citizens and regards Shia and Sufi Muslims as non-Muslims to be persecuted along with Christians and Jews.

“The ideology of Al Qaeda and Isis draws a great deal from Wahhabism,” Cockburn writes.