[Sonsowey]

Is the Islamic State a real country?

Time will tell, but it seems like right now, Syria and Iraq are not at all in a position to take back the territory that the Islamic State has claimed for themselves.

Is this just a new country that will exist in the middle east? Or will The Islamic State be wiped away by some combination of local/foreign forces and the borders of Syria and Iraq reinstated?

Think about this... Do you think this is some aberration that will last a few months until forces can be mustered to reclaim Syrian and Iraqi territory, or are these guys really the new government in the area they claim?

Because if you live in that area, sure as hell you're not listening to the rules of Syria or Iraq anymore...

[L M McCoy]

The only way other countries will ever try to take down ISIS is if it teams up with Hezbollah; my .02

[RexImperator]

Isn't Hezbollah Shi'ite?

[Maciano]

These ISIS fighters do what any bunch of 10000-40000 young motivated guys working together could do: break down a state in no time. It doesn't matter if it's fascism, Jihad, communism, riches, colonialism or the British crown they fight for in that sense. An eye-opener is to read about the Monghols & Seljuk Turks, they fought whole empires with arrows & horses.

What matters is what comes after they can't expand and must hold on to their conquered grounds. Now, in the short term, they're just profiteering from mayhem and disorganized conquered peoples. There's no way ISIS can ever build anything resembling a functioning state or society.

1) They're destined to be countered by guerillas -- ranging from Shia rivals or secular nationalist (or Marxist) backgrounds or disgruntled minorities
2) They're a mashup of all sorts of ethnies who will not be able to work closely together. Guys with this revolutionary psychological profile never do, they'll be in-fighting in no-time.
3) They're not socially competent, they're brutes. They'll be shoved aside by more subtle & skilled powerplayers. Sooner or later some slick dictator will rise along with his clan and replace the Jihadists. That's the story of the Middle East. As it shall always be.

Neocons always assume a muslim caliphate will be a mighty world power endangering the West. More likely, you'll witness an orgy of violence and barbarity, mixed up with near-comical ineptness that will claim a lot of needless suffering & wasted lives.

[Seth_Rose]

(07-27-2014 10:59 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  

Is the Islamic State a real country?

No, it is not a real country, but it seems that their purpose is to establish one in the Levant or Mesopotamia region.

Quote:

Time will tell, but it seems like right now, Syria and Iraq are not at all in a position to take back the territory that the Islamic State has claimed for themselves.

I agree. I don't think they're in a position to take back the territory lost, but at the same time I don't think Assad's regime or Iraq's government will capitulate anytime soon. Syria has been going at it two years now I think, and I don't see an end soon.

Also, from what I've been reading, Assad is actually winning. Perhaps ISIS is spreading itself too thin.

Quote:

Is this just a new country that will exist in the middle east? Or will The Islamic State be wiped away by some combination of local/foreign forces and the borders of Syria and Iraq reinstated?

I don't think many countries will recognize their sovereignty, but then again I don't think they care about that. If they can take over Badghdad then they will have some credibility and leverage, but until then they're just a rag tag bunch of Islamic extremists.

Quote:

Think about this... Do you think this is some aberration that will last a few months until forces can be mustered to reclaim Syrian and Iraqi territory, or are these guys really the new government in the area they claim?

Because if you live in that area, sure as hell you're not listening to the rules of Syria or Iraq anymore...

I don't think it will last forever, but you're right they do "run the town" in those areas, but many are fleeing those areas. In addition to that, much of their territory is desert.

Overall it is definitely a crazy development. Having a group come to fruition that is so crazy even Al-Qaeda is distancing itself from can only mean trouble.

However, according to this chart, ISIS has no allies:



Unless they find wealthy backers or a country to sponsor them, their resources will eventually dwindle.

[Sonsowey]

Razib Khan, the atheist conservative Bengali-American genomist, discusses The Islamic State in relation to cobsiderations of nationhood and statehood.

" From everything we read it seems that a shockingly high proportion of the front line troops of the Islamic State are psychopaths. By this, I don’t mean that they are normal people caught up in conforming to a cruel system, but that they are literally mentally unstable violent individuals. The fact that the Islamic State can organize a less venal system of political order than what came before in regions under its rule despite the human capital it has to work with tells you something both about the Islamic State and its enemies. It is cliche to suggest that the “nation-states” of the Middle East are all artificial kleptocracies derived from the imaginations of Europeans. What is less palatable is to admit that the Islamic State is presenting a positive vision which can impose order upon its subjects as well its less than mentally normal foot soldiers. I don’t think this is scalable or sustainable, but it is something we have to admit as truth. The Islamic State has Asabiyyah."

http://www.unz.com/gnxp/reality-may-not-have-your-bias/

[durangotang]

If you are Sunni, you ain't Shi'ite.

[Saweeep]

What most people don't realise is that the various sects of Islam hate each other more than they hate us!