A Chance America Riding Off Into the Sunset

 

There has been speculation about what role the United States will play on the world’s stage as threats abound of various severities and natures almost everywhere one looks and still we hear from United States President Obama that he awaits final strategy and complete plans laid out before him from the Pentagon before he can act. This excuse from President Obama for not committing to some plan of action sounds unrealistic, especially as it is well known even personally after having served in the United States Army, the Pentagon has plans, War Scenarios, for near any contingency which might arise. This makes President Obama’s excuse of not having any plans before him sound quite lame. Even had the Pentagon not had an exact battle plan in place when ISIS first reared their ugly heads and started chopping heads, especially since some belonged to the United States, you can bet the Pentagon went to their files and had cobbled together six ways come Sunday for dealing with ISIS which probably had added contingencies for removing Bashir al-Assad from power and potentially addressing the Iranian nuclear issue as well. The one thing is, they were not short of was plans. The only thing necessary would be for the President to choose one and they would be implementing within forty-eight hours. Each set of plans would have in the full layout exactly which units were trained for that exact mission and which of those units was at full strength and had a ready status. They would have decided whether or not to use the ready actions units of which at least two brigades of Army would be on immediate deployment status and I can assume the Marines, Navy and Air Force have similar plans for immediate response to any call up.

 

We can trust the Pentagon has plans and that all the President need do is pick up that phone he claims he could use to call for action if Congress did not pass his legislation in a timely manner and instead call the Pentagon and request their actions and plans be presented. Then he could pick up that pen with which he threatened Congress to use to write Executive Orders and use it to sign off on a plan of action and then write an Executive Memo to the leaders in Congress informing them of the impending actions and the Pentagon would take care of the rest. There is one contingency for which the Pentagon likely has plans but would be unable to implement them until the President ordered them to follow and support somebody else’s initiation of actions. That is President Obama’s famous plan of leading from behind, better known as following which often is the action of those too cowardly to commit to actions and stick their neck out, something which would be risky against ISIS but the President can go ahead and stick his neck out, the military would be out in front and would do or die even knowing that in the end the President would claim the glory, after all he took out Osama bin Laden haven’t you heard. Leading from behind is not an option on this crisis but President Obama is not one to make definitive decisions which might have him owning his actions. President Obama would rather simply follow and take only that action was dictated by somebody else, the United Nations, the European Union, NATO led by another member, actually President Obama would follow anybody, well, anybody but Israel. Were Israel to engage ISIS, it would not be a complete surprise if President Obama gave weapons to ISIS through some obscure middleman leader of another nation who might be supportive of ISIS though doing so would be risky. But until somebody else takes the lead we can expect more excuses over action from the White House.

 

One wonders if President Obama has even requested the Pentagon produce their plans for dealing with ISIS and said plans actually called for the United States to sit this round out. We can figure that the United States is loath to send troops back into Iraq after being pulled out by President Obama in a manner that military planners had informed the President was a premature action which would cause more problems than it could solve. The one problem leaving a residual force would not have addressed was President Obama winning reelection on his promise to bring our boys home come something (keeping it family friendly) or high water. The Pentagon may have been requested to provide plans which would include supporting UN or EU or NATO action taken to facilitate leading from behind at which time the Pentagon action would most likely be exactly what we are seeing, doing nothing waiting for somebody else to take the initiative so they could follow thus leading from behind again allowing President Obama to risk nothing which actually making a choice and lead would mean. But this begs a question; what happens if the United States is about to return to her historic role of isolationism where the United States trades with her friends and with her enemies but on a lesser scale and dares not interfere in worldly matters allowing them to work themselves out without United States interventions. United States entering an isolationist perspective would only allow her deployment of troops to be limited and almost always to support trade more than worrying about such trivialities as world balance and defeating evil, that’s better left to the knights of Europe who have always done this before. Of course this before was before the United States encouraged Europe to stop their militarism and that the United States would spread her umbrella and cover them so they could turn to less harmful pursuits such as taking on debt and squabbling amongst each other, just this time no world wars starting in Europe, that was the deal the United States imposed on Europe. But now it appears the United States may be folding up that umbrella and claiming not to see the storm clouds rising out of the Middle East, a denial which is difficult to swallow.

 

The going theory is that the United States will return to the role of the world’s police and enforce the good behavior between the nations extending force projection where needed. That is not the historic tendency of the United States after any major conflicts; her historic stance has been a laissez-faire attitude of simple sitting back keeping her hands politely to herself, which is the norm from the United States. The average American knows little about world affairs and cares even less. The average American was defined by President Clinton in his initial campaign for the Presidency with his slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid.” The stupid in this case was George Herbert Walker Bush (the elder and first Pres Bush) and the elections proved it as President Bush did not gain reelection largely due to his having broken his promise of, “Read my lips; no new taxes,” and then was forced to raise taxes by a Democrat Congress in order to get his budget passed with the military spending not slashed by the Congress. The election of President Clinton over reelecting President Bush was all about domestic policies over foreign policies.

 

You start to talk about foreign policy with the average American and their eyes gloss over and they drift into some zombie like state all catatonic and in shock after the first two or three sentences. Talk about immigration, taxes, domestic hot-button issues, government spending of which all is unnecessary except those they are or will receive, and the economy then you will engage in a sometimes heated debate. Talk about money and they will listen, talk about something happening in the Mille East or Asia and they will repeat what the media stated, that is bad, that is good and those people sure have as rough time, but then they will turn it back to how the government needs to take care of things at home first. The average American has all the sympathy you could ever ask for and they will donate more to charities than any other peoples on earth but when it comes to sending their young men off to fight in what they mostly see as somebody else’s war, then they need a ton of convincing and President Obama surfs waves, seldom makes waves when it comes to world politics. The President came from a past as a community organizer, read rabble rouser causing trouble to force government actions usually spending more money of which they get the lion’s share, and knows little outside of Chicago, let alone outside of the United States. He treats foreign policy as if it was a plague and to his outlook, as well as many Americans outlooks, simply does not go past the horizon and possibly not past the water’s edge.

 

We can bet that should the Democrat candidate become the next President, they too will do little as they can in foreign policy. We need remember that the Democrat candidate will not likely be Hillary Clinton but more likely somebody not even announced as of yet. Ms. Clinton’s campaign van has the wheels flying off and the engine is about to quit. The van is driving down the road to oblivion. But what if it is the Republican candidate, you inquire. There we need to find out who will take the lead and which ones do not survive the first three or four actual primary votes. We can make some specific and general observations. Rand Paul is an isolationist libertarian who believes if the United States hurts nobody then nobody would target the United States. Of all the governors and ex-governors running, only Jeb Bush might be a President inclined to use military force and actually have an active foreign policy. Others have claimed that they will repair the United States relations with Israel as well as Egypt and Saudi Arabia largely undoing some of the changes made under President Obama. Still, such actions do not necessarily mean a return into Iraq to defeat ISIS unless it becomes a dire threat to the stability of the Middle East. Only Senator Marco Rubio has direct experience with foreign policies as he in on the Senate Intelligence Committee which gives him access beyond the average Senator under the need to know doctrines. Almost any Republican candidate becoming President would easily take four months to a year to become fully briefed on every hot-spot that the Pentagon had plans and counter plans and different options under each plan and time granted each. Such amounts of information is why the President has a Secretary of Defense whose staff is divided so they can divide their work and attend to each contingencies. Still, the final decisions and person who must form the overall foreign police and who has to call in the troops for action when deemed to be necessary lies with the President and the President alone. That is one of the reason it is said that it is lonely at the top. We still have no real available input that any of the Republican candidates would press for an interventionist approach to foreign policies.

 

Likely the most pressing foreign policy might already have their hands tied should President Obama make any Iran nuclear deal somehow into a treaty without gaining Congressional affirmation. Such a decade long deal would actually prevent the next administration from taking any actions without smoking gun style proof that Iran had broken the agreement but as the agreement includes steps all the way through twelve years with little margin for change in the terms or even the terminology during that time period with the Iranians presumably free to complete their desired goal of deliverable nuclear warheads and the ICBMs on which to place them after ten years according to President Obama’s own admission which would leave them at a minimum two years to produce as many weapons systems as they are able starting with an unknown amount of LEU (low enrichment Uranium) with which to work and all of that Uranium a simple two day’s processing to be made weapons grade HEU (highly enriched Uranium over 90% purity) and then they would be capable of molding the cores and producing actual weapons. All of this is a guess of what the eventual agreement will appear to say and Iranian compliance to the terms and inspection protocols as well as their answering numerous questions about previous work performed largely by the military which Iran insists is an unprecedented and unnecessary invasion of their privileges and privacies. So, when it comes to the Iranian nuclear program the next President may be acting with his hands tied and possibly looking at a negative response from a nuclear armed Iran claiming their dominion over Iraq and dismissing the need for United States interference in their area of control which they will claim includes Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and who knows where else by January 21, 2017 when the next President takes office. After Iran there will be other situations such as Russia and their low-grade war with the Ukraine and its possibilities, China and their expansion Islands being built and potentially taking territorial control semi-legally over the entire South China Sea giving them control over one of the most active shipping lanes in the world. Speaking of choke points for shipping, Iran already has menacing control over the Straits of Hormuz where almost one third of the world’s oil is shipped by tankers and may through their proxies in Yemen, Houthis can also threaten to control the Bab-el-Mandeb which would cut off the southern exit of the Red Sea making the Suez Canal unusable and the Israeli southern port to the orient and Africa blockaded, a casus belli which could lead to a state of declared war by Iran on Israel and Egypt as both would have their shipping access to the world impeded illegally as Iran would have no other excuse other than they could close all shipping. These are just the top three and none of these includes the ISIS threat which may grow to the point where Iran and ISIS meet on equal footing with ISIS having gained an Air Force even if of a limited nature, and tactics which are prone to working, at least working well against the Iraqi army. ISIS has had far less success against the Kurdish Militias such as the Peshmerga (literally “one who confronts death”) and the People’s Protection Units (known as the YPG). These have held the northeast parts of Syria having an astonishing turning point in the city of Kobanê as well as the northern third or so of Iraq where the Kurdish forces saved thousands of Yazidi and whose Yazidi Militias have joined ranks with the Kurdish Militias. We could continue to the other continents and their probabilities for causing distress but that would leave Antarctica as probably the only safe haven if you desired no strife, or at least not yet.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The ISIS Cancer is Metastasizing Throughout MENA Within Planet Earth

News reports have attested to the fact that throughout the areas referred to as MENA (Middle East North Africa), the former al-Qaeda groups which had originally pledged their support to Osama bin Laden, which they later transferred them to Ayman al-Zawahiri as al-Qaeda leadership changed with bin Laden’s death, are changing their allegiances one-by-one to ISIS (aka ISIL, IS, Caliphate, but we prefer ISIS and pronounce it {iziz}) and to the self-anointed Caliph, Abu al-Baghdadi, perceiving him as the current strong horse. The latest which occurred this past week were in Nigeria, Libya and on the Libya Tunisia mountainous border area.

The Ansar al-Sharia terror group punctuated their changing their loyalties to ISIS with a parade of vehicles through Darna, Libya. Ansar al-Sharia also has a grip on Benghazi and has been attempting to consolidate and draft more members and then they might see themselves taking the fight to Tripoli and claim the right to lead the nation and attempt to solidify such position by seeking to have as many other terrorist groups, clans and tribal fighters to join with them rather than continue the hopeless fighting which has been tearing Libya apart since Gadhafi was deposed and assassinated.

Boko Haram in Nigeria mostly with some reach into neighboring countries on occasion has declared themselves aligned with Caliph Abu al-Baghdadi and ISIS as well as declaring the areas under their control is an independent nation declaring their independence from the Nigerian government. Their claim is being ignored by the Western powers much as the original ISIS was as it declared itself a state while spreading rapidly across northern and central Iraq meeting its only initial serious opposition when they attempted to move on the Kurdish regions where the Peshmerga Militias put up stiff resistance and even managed to retake areas with presumably air support provided by the United States and those allied with them against ISIS.

The Uqba ben Nafi Brigades have sporadically ambushed Tunisian motorized patrols destroying the vehicles and often most of the soldiers within before melting back into the mountainous impassable region on the Tunisian border with Libya. They have recently claimed to be supporters of ISIS changing from original allegiance with al-Qaeda. Where the Uqba ben Nafi Brigade are not particularly large threat as supremacist and radical Islamic terrorists, the current poor economic state of the Tunisian economy and the fragility of the government which is made up of opposing groups from pure secularists to ardent religious Muslims on to even fanatical Islamist parties presents a particularly susceptible situation for overthrow by any concerted effort by any sizeable terrorist group seeking a nation from which to operate. This means that if ISIS were to decide that the Uqba ben Nafi Brigades were a worthy addition providing a realistic and strong potential that with a relatively small investment of forces could claim all of Tunisia adding it to the areas they claim as part of their Caliphate.

Philippine Islamist militant group Abu Sayyaf has threatened Germany by claiming they plan on beheading one of their two German hostages unless Germany pays a large ransom of two-hundred-fifty million pesos ($5.6 million) and pulls their support for the United States efforts against ISIS in Iraq and Syria to gain the release of both hostages. Communicating in their native Tagalog language they gave a fifteen day deadline. I guess the fact that they only support ISIS and are not declaring their allegiance to ISIS as they have spread enough already and will likely continue their spread across MENA nations.

In Algeria a group claiming alliances with ISIS has threatened to behead a French hostage as they singled out, “the spiteful and filthy French” for severe and serious punishments. They released a video which shows armed men claiming allegiance to Jund al-Khilafa (Soldiers of the Caliphate), an Islamist militant group in Algeria. They pledge allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

There is another ISIS affiliate which has reared its head during the recent Israel conflict with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza. One of the many supporting terrorist entities which stood out was the claim that an ISIS deployed group was supporting the Hamas and Islamic Jihad efforts providing training, expertise and fighters as well as munitions. There was no overt proof beyond their announcements but how would anyone see any difference between a rocket from Hamas from a rocket fired by Islamic Jihad or determine which three rockets were the ones Fatah fighters claimed to fire and finally how would an ISIS launched rocket? Even if ISIS had more accurate rockets and did fire them, with the accuracy and efficiency of Iron Dome backed by the hand of G0d as was witnessed near Tel Aviv, even if ISIS had papered their entire rocket with their logo, how would one know or even ever see it before the Iron Dome destroyed it mid-flight. And for the instance where the Iron Dome proved inaccurate so that the IDF soldiers manning the anti-missile battery would witness the Hand of G0d direct the rocket seconds away from striking central Tel Aviv harmlessly shoved out into the empty Mediterranean Sea, the story is towards the end of the article titled How to Fight Terrorist Fanatics Unless You’re Israel with the quotes in bolded italics; please read of this absolute miracle and thank you. I still get a chill reading about the diverting of a rocket on a path to kill hundreds if not thousands depending on where it struck being blown out to sea by a strong wind which was local to overhead of the Iron Dome which had become suddenly inaccurate and unable to hit its target.

The final locations in which one might find small groups aligned with ISIS are across Europe and North America with a slightly higher concentration in Europe followed by the United States. These would be a loosely coordinated rings where no one person would know all of the others in country. This is the usual manner in which infiltrations and subversive groups which will eventually be activated to carry out terror attacks, sabotage and other subversions but otherwise will attempt to blend into the society and not draw attention to themselves. These loosely organized rings may prove the most destructive elements of ISIS by the time all is said and done. The Western nations had best hope that ISIS can be contained sufficiently until strong and determined leadership takes the seats of power in Washington DC, particularly at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Until then the problem the world will face is IS.

Beyond the Cusp

Revulsion or Revolution, The ISIS Conundrum

First perhaps we need clarify that we here at BTC refuse to recognize the terrorist bands which makeup ISIS and have declared themselves a new name of IS claiming that they are now an actual nation state and the home to the new Caliphate. Due to this decision not to honor the declarations of an overgrown terrorist group on the order of Hezballah, al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Muslim Brotherhood and their delusions of statehood, we will continue to use their initial name ISIS, the name of a terrorist group which terrorizes through such horrific actions as beheadings leaving the heads on poles as a display of their hold and threat on an area, crucifixions, mass graves, rapes and slavery including sexual slavery among other depraved actions in order to terrify, cower and intimidate those it holds the power of the sword and a legitimacy spelled in the spilling of blood. Should our doing so be perceived as an insult then all the better as we could not be more proud than to be detested by such as ISIS.

 

The beheading of American photojournalist James Wright Foley provided the Western world the unavoidable definition of the barbarity which is ISIS, or as they now refer to themselves, merely IS. This is not to minimize the horrors which included the mass murders of Christians, some by a torturous crucifixion, the attempted genocide of the Yazidi Peoples, rapes and enslavement of numbers of women and children, forced conversions, mass killings, burial of victims alive and other horrors, all of which had been reported in many newscasts since ISIS initially broke out of Syria sweeping across western and central Iraq. The sickening and repugnant video which was released this past week which included the threat to further behead other American and Western hostages being held by ISIS such as Steven Joel Sotloff, also an American journalist captured in Syria covering that civil war, should the United States continue their campaign assisting those resisting further ISIS advances. The United States limited bombing efforts have been described as being an assist enabling the Kurdish forces to turn back the advances of ISIS and even gaining back some ground which provided the Kurds with access to a route to rescue a number of Yazidi families and individuals as well as retake the Mosul dam which had ISIS carried out their threat to destroy the dam would have caused massive casualties and damage on the cities and villages downstream potentially past Baghdad all the way to the Persian Gulf.

 

The brutalities and threats to life, civility and modernity posed by ISIS through its ideals and definitions of Islam as practiced and brutally applied by their leadership is now unavoidable by the leadership of the Western nations. This new clarity of threat that is ISIS screams out for unified action to prevent the further spread and genocidal purification of the population threatened by the advance of ISIS. Somehow, such an effort appears to be quite slow in developing and consists mostly of sporadic bombing by the United States and the early return to Washington by President Obama and similarly British Prime Minister David Cameron will also curtail his vacation plans and return to London. Any announcement of a change in tactics and applying force on the ground with the application of troops has been noticeably silent thus far making any such reaction at best slow in materializing. The purported American war weariness appears to have not been broken by the acts from ISIS including the beheading of James Wright Foley and threats to behead Steven Joel Sotloff along with other American and Western hostages. Whether these emotions will show signs of weakening is verily a contestable premise with many claiming that there appears to be no limit to the ability of the people, or at least the media portrayal of the people, to ignore current events and remain cocooned in their isolationist tranquility. This political inertia also readily ignores the presence of American military advisors who are stationed in the Kurdish capital of Irbil in support to the Peshmerga Militias who are currently confronting the Islamic State forces.

 

The future horizon holds its hopes on the new leadership in Baghdad as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is set to step down offering a glimmer of hope for a more stable Iraq in the face of the challenges ahead due to ISIS threats and a situation which President Obama on Monday called “a promising step forward.” Still, this remains something which, if it will actually signal any improvement, is a distant solution in a situation demanding immediate responses. The main available and viable presence which can and has already made advances in not only stopping the advances by ISIS but has actually tuned the tides and retaken lands formerly consumed by ISIS as they swarmed out of Syria and across Iraq, has been the Kurds from their semiautonomous lands in northern Iraq. It has been those Kurdish Peshmerga Militias who relieved much of the siege of the Yazidis and retook the critical infrastructure of the Mosul Dam both with limited but sufficient assists from United States airstrikes. This would be the perfect time to fully assist the Kurdish forces while simultaneously recognizing their independence and rewarding them with the statehood they had been promised at the resolution of World War I but were later denied this promise when oil was discovered in their promised areas and the British already had an advantageous contract with the leadership they had approved for Iraq. Kurdistan could become the first best weapon which could possibly circumvent the necessity for Western troops to place boots on the ground limiting the Western support to mostly a bombing campaign with some need for close air support in those cases where such would prove critically necessary, something not all that different than what President Obama has already committed to perform and perhaps a doubling of efforts.

 

The real challenge the ISIS threat might pose would be an attempted invasion beyond Iraq. The probability of ISIS turning their forces towards Turkey is almost completely out of the question as Turkey is either a current ally or a future ally of ISIS and stands for much the same application of extreme Islamist Sharia. Their turning to the east and into Iran would also be unlikely as ISIS lacks the manpower and military abilities to take on Iran as they are equipped with elite forces, airpower, heavy battle tanks and huge numbers of troops. Turning west into Jordan poses a similar problem even if on a lesser scale as far as numbers of troops capable of being fielded. Jordan does possess an air force but might turn to their western neighbor, unofficially of course, and request that Israel aid the Jordanian efforts through timely air support as necessitated. That pretty much leaves southward as ISIS’s most likely and viable choice. This would narrow their choices to Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. This choice is also dictated by geography and the self-imposed imperative whereby ISIS desires to avoid any direct confrontation with Iran. This forces ISIS into taking a western approach around Baghdad and also leaving room between themselves and Jordan which brings them to the northern border of central Saudi Arabia. This would place the ISIS penetration points somewhere west of the main Saudi Arabian oil fields and east of the main Saudi Arabian main military airfield which houses their squadrons providing the initial line of attack or defense from Israel. This airfield is home to a large contingency of United States provided F-15s and F-16s, some of which are very probably the latest and most modern variety available for export.

 

Such an attack would be in line with the ISIS announced agenda of facing and defeating the Islamic leadership which they view as impure. They have previously listed the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia as the pin-up leaders representing impure and non-Islamist governance which is in need of being destroyed and replaced with the pure Islamic governance which only ISIS is capable of providing. Additionally, should ISIS gain a sufficient foothold in the Saudi Peninsula, they could conceivably gain control over major parts of the Saudi Arabian oilfields, and an area heavily populated with Saudi Arabia’s minority Shiites. This would add additional impetus for ISIS fighters as they would not only be working to place their extremist purified Islamism over what they view as an unholy governance, they would also be able to force these Shiite, more accurately non Sunni, apostates in the eyes of ISIS to convert before the cleansing sword of the ISIS elite leadership. This could serve ISIS as a further recruitment piece of propaganda similar in scope but potentially far more significant in the numbers of new recruits under their control. This is what ISIS defines themselves by, areas and numbers under their control, a measure which they will only accept as sufficient by their control and rule over the entire world. As absurd as such a claim may sound, to the fighters and leadership of ISIS this is exactly what their entire purpose by which success is defined. Many also believe that they cannot be defeated and that their quest to rule over all of mankind is a blessed undertaking in Jihad and their success is guaranteed for as long as their actions receive the approval and support of Allah. Perhaps this would be a good place to define the difference between the Judeo-Christian G0d and Allah; the two are not simply separate manners for naming the same entity. The most readily and easiest way of showing this is actually cut and dry. Where G0d of the Jews and Christians is defined as the G0d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Allah is the god of Abraham, Ishmael, and Mohammad. They are as different as composed tranquility and chaotic ferocity. The reported actions, proclivities and self-definitions all prove the violence and explosive animosities which lie at the root of ISIS and from where its adherents derive their power and strength.

 

The hope is that the burning vehemence with which their new recruits are empowered with will consume them so completely that soon only the smoldering husk of ISIS will remain; a fragile structure that the slightest breeze is capable of destroying. The fear is that the only two results which will result from the efforts of ISIS, either their dream of an Islamist Sharia governed world will remain and will resemble a charred husk of uniformity enforced by the swords what molded it or the destruction of ISIS and the breaking of their swords before they carve up any more of the globe. The former will be the inevitable should the Western world refuse to engage and defeat ISIS militarily while at this juncture the later would be readily achieved with the timely application of overwhelming force of a full deployment of the entirety of the ready response forces which are available to NATO in case of any emergency, and if this does not so qualify then those forces are as useless as a chaperone on ones’ wedding night.

 

We are facing a challenge to civilization similar to the buildup to World War II when Germany could have been defeated as a response to their aggressive claims on northern Czechoslovakia or their poisonous interference in the Austrian elections and subsequent near bloodless invasion. Should ISIS remain uncontested and thus gain a foothold in the Saudi Arabian oilfields, then they will have gained a source of power, influence and financial riches beyond anything any previous Islamists have been capable of attaining. Sure the Taliban and al-Qaeda had control of Afghanistan and parts of the tribal regions of Pakistan and the financial largess of Osama bin Laden’s fortune and Hezballah influences the every move by the Lebanese government and the benefit of Iran providing them with weapons and their other necessities, ISIS would be gaining size and an endless cash flowing in that they could take their time and build a modern, well equipped and sizeable military force which would provide them with sufficient force that they could likely intimidate major Sunni Arab nations and potentially beyond to bend before their threat and surrender to ISIS approved governance. Add their increased ability would make Iran vulnerable to an ISIS attack which is currently out of the question today and such an accomplishment by ISIS would provide them with the arms to threaten Europe, North America and the remainder of the globe with their gained possession of Iranian nuclear and missile capabilities and power. The best thing would be for ISIS to be confronted now and not be left to Saudi Arabia, the GCC member nations and Israel to ally solely for the end of ISIS. Threats to the balance of power and the injection of a radical and extremist group be they anarchists, religious or Islamist like ISIS can produce alliances between some of the most divergent and even antagonist powers. Right now the plans and thoughts should be centered on how to and with what forces ISIS can be utterly and completely defeated in such a manner that no other groups will dare push that challenge point again. Let us hope that the leadership of the world awakens and deals with this challenge which thus far they have ignored pretending it is not there. Unfortunately, pretending that ISIS does not exist will do little to actually realize ISIS not existing but will more likely set up the scenario where many lives will be senseless sacrificed and far too much property and infrastructure will be destroyed making the worldwide repairs and recuperations unnecessarily long and arduous. Will the world awaken or are we doomed to once again repeat history by not answering the threat of the screaming barbarians at our gates.

 

Beyond the Cusp