“Iraq is turning into a nightmare. There are real risks that this movement will spread to other countries. Our economies are too weak to pay for oil at $120, and they can’t stand $140 if it spikes that high,” said Chris Skrebowski, a veteran oil analyst and former editor of Petroleum Review.

Iraq is Opec’s second-biggest producer, though output has slipped 8 per cent to 3.3 million barrels a day (b/d) since February due to sabotage of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline to Turkey. Ole Hansen, from Saxo Bank, said a fall in Iraqi output to levels seen in the last Gulf war would cause a $20 price spike. “The entire economic recovery could stall, and we could even slip back into recession in some regions,” he said.

While the Americans support the Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his elected Shia government in Iraq, the same Americans still demand the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad of Syria and his regime, even though both leaders are now brothers-in-arms against the victors of Mosul and Tikrit.

Under Obama, Saudi Arabia will continue to be treated as a friendly “moderate” in the Arab world, even though its royal family is founded upon the Wahhabist convictions of the Sunni Islamists in Syria and Iraq – and even though millions of its dollars are arming those same fighters. Thus does Saudi power both feed the monster in the deserts of Syria and Iraq and cosy up to the Western powers that protect it.

Mr Lyons, though, goes further than Mr Carney, arguing that UK rates could peak “at a very high level” - a view at odds with the Bank Governor, who has consistently argued borrowing costs will rise by less than in previous cycles.

“Mark Carney and the Bank of England are indicating rates will peak at 3 per cent,” Mr Lyons told The Telegraph. “I think that rates, eventually, in 4 or 5 years' time will have to peak at over 5 per cent”. Speaking in London at the annual Mansion House dinner last night, Mr Carney acknowledged there was “already great speculation about the exact timing of the first rate hike” from the record low of 0.5 per cent, adding that the decision was “becoming more balanced”.

Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said the EU decision would fast track the maize, which is resistant to the industrial weedkiller Roundup, into farms and onto supermarket shelves. He said: “This is a real step forward in unblocking the dysfunctional EU process for approving GM crops, which is letting down farmers and stopping scientific development. Farmers will have more power in deciding whether to grow GM crops that have passed a robust, independent safety assessment.”

The crops have been blocked by the Scottish and Welsh governments and anti-GM campaigners have criticised the so-called ‘opt-out’ decision as “catastrophic” for wildlife and organic farming.

Dr Helen Wallace, Director of GeneWatch UK, said: "The UK Government has colluded with commercial lobbyists to fast track RoundUp Ready GM maize into England, despite the expected harm to British wildlife such as birds and butterflies caused by blanket spraying of these crops with weedkiller. If some farmers in England press ahead with GM cultivation as a result of this proposal, conventional and organic farmers across the country will face the unnecessary risk of loss of markets due to contamination with GM".

More to the point: the multi-million dollar research program seeks to uncover “warfighter-relevant insights” to help senior ranking officials in the “defense policy community” come up with “combatant commands” that work in civil unrest situations, The Guardian reported. One area of study that’s planned for the 2014-2017 time frame partners Cornell University researchers with the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research to come up with a model for the “dynamics of social movement mobilization and contagions,” the text of the program stated.

That particular research area will ultimately determine the “critical mass (tipping point),” of civil uprisings, where protests turn violent, the program text states, The Guardian reported. The research will also analyze social media users’ accounts, and look at Twitter posts and conversations “to identify individuals mobilized in a social contagion and when they become mobilized.”

In a question to a key project researcher that went largely unaddressed, The Guardian raised some troubling issues: “Does the US Department of Defense see protest movements and social activism in different parts of the world as a threat to US national security ? If so, why? Does the US Department of Defense consider political movements aiming for large scale political and economic change as a national security matter? If so, why? Activism, protest, ‘political movements’ and of course NGOs are a vital element of a healthy civil society and democracy — why is it that the DoD is funding research to investigate such issues?”

“Or should we be fostering a spirit of scepticism? I think it’s rather pernicious to inculcate into a child a view of the world which includes supernaturalism … Even fairy tales, the ones we all love, with wizards or princesses turning into frogs or whatever it was. There’s a very interesting reason why a prince could not turn into a frog – it’s statistically too improbable”. As if any child in his audience couldn’t tell him that fairy stories are wonderful precisely because they have nothing to do with statistical improbability. For years, Dawkins has been trying to demonstrate the equivalence of the supernatural with superstition.

But now he has plainly gone one step too far. It would serve him right if all the characters of Grimm’s Fairy Tales invaded his country estate, just as they invaded Shrek’s precious swamp. Is Dawkins, in his zeal for the cause of science, succumbing to the paranoia of fundamentalism? What comes next? Santa Claus? Sadly, it may come to that. Let’s wait until the Christmas decorations go up later in the year to see. When it comes to believing in fairy tales, Richard Dawkins and your four-year-old have far more in common than you ever thought. But your four-year-old will grow out of it.

In this official narrative, unquestioned by left and right alike, moderation and centrism are equated with reasonableness. So Hillary Rodham Clinton describes herself as a middle-way realist who values compromise — ie a moderate and therefore a Very Serious Person, and thus qualified to be president. To be feared and marginalized, by contrast, are those the system defines as “extremists.” (Some might call them men and women of principle. But that would be on funny little blogs no one reads.) If you criticize the mainstream (the current government, the biggest corporations, the most well-connected journalistic elites) in a sustained way — especially if you call those in charge out for breaking their own rules and laws — you will be categorized as one of these horrible “extremists.”

A recent example: Michael Kinsley, lately of Slate and The New Republic (the most centrist of moderate magazines), comparing Glenn Greenwald to Robespierre (within the context of the pretty extreme French revolution, extreme) in the New York Times (down to the tone of any given sentence, the most centrist of moderate newspapers), for the sin of complaining about NSA spying, drone assassinations, Guantánamo and other (when you think about it, extreme) US government activities that violate — US government laws.

Though, actually, “violate” doesn’t quite go far enough. Bombing countries without bothering to declare war against them [is against] the Constitution, numerous federal laws — the whole spirit of the American endeavor. Extreme, no?

For asking that political elites obey their own laws on domestic spying and not assassinating American citizens on American soil — even being willing to mount an actual filibuster over it — Rand Paul gets portrayed as a wacky fringe loony-toons extremist. For listening to our calls and reading our email and dropping Hellfire missiles on American citizens — and children! — without a warrant, Barack Obama is a moderate.

What the “moderates” call “mainstream” is, in truth, about as extreme as it gets.

Analysis: Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East editor -

If ISIS can hold Mosul and consolidate its presence there, it will have taken a giant step towards its goal of creating an Islamist emirate that straddles Iraq and Syria. It would be the most significant act by a jihadist group since al-Qaeda attacked the US on 11 September 2001. It could also lead to other changes to the borders Britain and France imposed on the Middle East a century ago, starting with break-up of Iraq on sectarian lines.

The success of ISIS can only make the turmoil in the Middle East worse. ISIS is an ultra-extremist Sunni Muslim group. Its success will deepen the sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shias that is already the most dangerous fault line in the Middle East. Iran, which is a majority Shia Muslim country, shares a border with Iraq. It has a direct line to Iraq's Shia Muslim Prime Minister, Nouri Maliki, and close links with some Iraqi Shia militias. The Iranians could direct their proxies, and even their own special forces units, at ISIS.

That might end up further inflaming the anger of Iraqi Sunnis, who have already helped the advance of ISIS through Iraq. US air strikes, if they happen, might do the same thing. Once again in the Middle East, the Americans have limited options. Its invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 helped create and strengthen jihadist groups.

The result is a stark reminder of the Tea Party's power and its determination to defeat even conservative Republicans if they are seen as making any concessions to the White House. Republican leaders are now unlikely to take the political risk of any negotiations with Mr Obama, effectively dooming the prospects of a deal to reform America's immigration system or deal with the deficit while he is still in office.

"The message to us is that negotiations or compromise can get you beat," said Congressman Lee Terry, a Republican from Nebraska. Mr Cantor, one of the most powerful Republicans in the country, was roundly defeated in his Virginia primary election by David Brat, a right-wing academic with almost no campaign funds.