freediver wrote on Aug 31^st, 2014 at 8:15am:


As has political Christianity. Both religions are responding to modernity. The Islamists are one response. The erection of George W Bush was another. The Arab Spring was another too, and on and on it goes.

We can’t say now it’s a last gasp. You believe Freeedom is on an unstoppable momentum, but this is just the BBC/CNN view of the world. As media becomes more fragmented, we’ll see more extremist groups.

Global power is shifting. East Asia and the Middle East now have their own capital - almost enough to rival the Western financial centres. Hard power hasn’t shifted since the Cold War. Thus we find people taking up the new light weapons themselves - because they can.

There will be no last gasps. We might put down a spotfire in one region, but a new one will start in another. These fires are regional, ethnic, tribal, but they have a narrative that can be sold around the world. Ukrainians have returned to fight the Russians, just as Sunnis have gone to Iraq to fight for ISIS.

The last gasp, if you want, is the end of the Cold War - an edifice that in diplomatic and military terms, has not actually ended. The UN security Council still has all the Cold War players. As Putin has just pointed out, Russia is still one of the largest nuclear powers in the world.

The world needs a new model to respond to global security concerns. Coalitions of Willing powers are not enough. Look what they’ve done in Iraq.

The Iraqi government can't do it. Their Sunni solidiers put down their weapons. An army of Shi'a soldiers would just create a new regional conflict. The winner? Iran. The Kurds can't do it - with who's army? Who's weapons?

Are you participating in Francis Fukuyama's Nostradamus Award this year?

No they don't. Many Muslims see a glorious Islamic military victory just around the corner. Abu for example genuinely believed the Palestinians were on the verge of defeating Israel. Islam is a cult of supremacy. It knows nothing else.

Once they are back in Syria I believe they will be hunted down and ripped apart as the Syrian Government gets unheard of support.

freediver wrote on Sep 1^st, 2014 at 6:53pm:


The end game has to be to protect Kurdish Iraq - thats really the only viable military intervention the west can do.

The reality is IS is now pretty much hemmed in from all sides - Iraqi shiites will keep them from advancing any further south, the Syrian army will hold them at bay to the west and now the Kurds will stifle their northern advance. What they are left holding, while impressive looking on a map, is in reality mostly empty desert. With the right strategy they can be starved out of existence.

Then pressure can be applied to the new Iraqi government - with Maliki gone, the international community has a fresh chance to pressure Baghdad to facilitate a more inclusive government that will get the sunni tribal leaders onside. This can be done in concert with the US reestablishing links with their old "sons of Iraq" contacts, who were so instrumental in kicking out Al Qaeda in Iraq a few years back.

Karnal raised the most pertinent point - the gung ho, all guns blazing approach to IS will almost certainly create a different and potentially worse sort of conflict. The strategy must be to firstly contain IS's advances, then isolate them and let them simply implode on themselves in the desert.