What Isis Really Wants
What is the Islamic State?
"Where did it come from, and what are its intentions? The simplicity of these questions can be deceiving, and few Western leaders seem to know the answers. In December, The New York Times published confidential comments by Major General Michael K. Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East, admitting that he had hardly begun figuring out the Islamic State’s appeal. “We have not defeated the idea,” he said. “We do not even understand the idea.” In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as “not Islamic” and as al-Qaeda’s “jayvee team,” statements that reflected confusion about the group, and may have contributed to significant strategic errors."...
"...Given everything we know about the Islamic State, continuing to slowly bleed it, through air strikes and proxy warfare, appears the best of bad military options. Neither the Kurds nor the Shia will ever subdue and control the whole Sunni heartland of Syria and Iraq—they are hated there, and have no appetite for such an adventure anyway. But they can keep the Islamic State from fulfilling its duty to expand. And with every month that it fails to expand, it resembles less the conquering state of the Prophet Muhammad than yet another Middle Eastern government failing to bring prosperity to its people."
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/
Interesting Article which basically endorses Isis as a Death Cult. Interestingly enough much of what is described here reminds me of what I learned back in the 70's in a Secular Religion class I took about Islam back in college. It boils down to religious fundamentalism and tribalism. So what do you do with a large swath of people who hate modernity yet use it's tools against it? How do you combat the irrational?
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