Posted on 03/20/2015 1:30:31 PM PDT by BeauBo
Though Islamic State is still spreading terror, its weaknesses are becoming apparent.
The caliphate has been pushed out of the Syrian town of Kobane by Kurdish fighters, backed by American air power. It is being squeezed in Tikrit (the tribal base of the former dictator, Saddam Hussein) by the Iraqi army and Shia militias co-ordinated by Iran. Compared with the peak, when it was at the gates of Baghdad, its territory has shrunk by about 25%.
IS’s funds are dwindling, too. America and its allies have bombed lucrative oil facilities. Most of the hostages have been sold or murdered in video-recorded beheadings. Now that IS’s forces are retreating, the loot of conquest has dried up. Some analysts reckon it may have lost up to 75% of its revenues. That makes it harder for IS to keep fighting and to provide services to the roughly 8m people living under its rule.
That may help explain signs of internal tension. The movement has started to kill its own followers, sometimes for fleeing before the enemy and on at least one occasion supposedly for zealously beheading too many people. Residents complain of extortion, violent repression and declining public services. There are reports of tensions between local and foreign members over disparities in pay.
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
Only Turkey could save them now. Come on in, and meet your new Iranian neighbors.
Anyone could see their approach was unsustainable.
“Anyone could see their approach was unsustainable.”
At some point you run out of convenient heads to chop off.
That sounds like the making a Thatcherite statement: The problem with islamism is that eventually you run out of other people’s heads to chop off.
Obama thinks that a nuclear Iran will be a peace keeping force in the Middle East, but he doesn’t want them to get the bomb before the caliphate is firmly in place.
The other countries in the Middle East are going to need a little persuasion to convince them to turn over control of their oil reserves to the caliphate. It will probably end up as some fascist type agreement, but Iran’s bomb will put pressure on them to agree.
You can help open the crack:
Note: I am in no way affiliated with the 1NAEF. I would go in a minute if they would have me. Don’t meet the age profile.
Even posthumously, Lady Thatcher’s wisdom is a force to be reckoned with.
Not only that, ISIS is the JV team. /s
Cool. The peaceniks in the “religion of peace” are asserting themselves against the “hijackers” of the “religion of peace”. What’s next? The Mohammedan Peace Prize?
…and it’s 1, 2, 3 what the hell are we fightin’ for…
/sarcasm
They will start by demanding a tax on anything going through the straits of Hormuz, plus special treatment in OPEC.
Why is Obama losing it?
Are his ME chickens coming home to roost?
How many corners can he painted into ..
And how many will the media allow him out of?
If you like your caliphate, you can keep it.
“Obama thinks”
Those fist two words gave me a good laugh, but your point that the Mid East is a mess of conflicting motivations is well taken.
Trying to make peace there is like trying to make a soup sandwich.
Arm the Kurds and recognize Kurdistan.
“Arm the Kurds and recognize Kurdistan.”
Apparently, the Kurds have established control over just about all of the historically Kurdish territory in Iraq, including Kirkuk. They are erecting hundreds of miles of berms and barriers, and are being effective at repelling any attempted incursion.
Outside Iraq, it seems that the Iranians now fear and independent Kurdistan even more than the Turks.
Inside Iraq, the Kurds are the only borkers and balacers of the Sunni/Shia divide, without them, write off Iraq.
I understand that you thought your comment about Obama thinking was clever, but the fact is that Obama does think. He thinks like a paranoid schizophrenic. They can be extremely clever, persuasive and manipulative.
I really think that Obama is becoming dangerous.
BECOMING. eh?
We agree, he’s dangerous. Just joking about him thinking. We are lucky that him and his closet commie co-conspirators are as incompetent as they are, or things would be even worse.
Turkey is not gonna help ISIS.
“Turkey is not gonna help ISIS.”
Do you mean beyond being their main source of supply, main source of medical evacuation, main entry point for replacements, and allowing ISIS to openly operate “consulates” and over a hundred offices in Turkey?
By saving them (helping them out of Mosul), I mean arrange a political situation that gets most of them out without being killed. Turkey can work out a covert deal with ISIS, because they could choke them off if they decided to.
Oh, they escaped! Unexpectedly! Oh, they fled! Oh, there were not as many as believed. Oh, they have blended into the population. Oh, the Turkish peacekeepers are stunningly effective!
The price of such Turkish help is maintaining Sunni domination in Mosul, and some degree of increased Turkish influence there.
The Turks have been providing extensive covert help to ISIS, and to other anti-Assad forces in Syria. They are the only state which could provide ISIS with material support - Jordan and Israel will not. Saudi Arabia, can not afford to stick its neck out, they are too small to get drawn into a fight themselves - they can covertly channel aid through Turkey.
The Turkish regime (Erdogan and his AKP Party) is ideologically aligned with the Islamic Brotherhood, which was founded on the basis of restoring the caliphate.
Qataris and other Arabs send money, Obama sends arms and ammo (for others, ISIS just ends up with it somehow), but all the other external state supports come from Turkey.
Despite the past Turkish support, I think it unlikely that Turkey will (effectively) bail ISIS out of Mosul. But they are regional rivals to Iran, and ISIS is the best proxy to bleed Iran (their deniable surrogate).
I think it likely that there will be a bloodbath in Mosul, resulting in a pile of gravel where the city once stood. Iran/Iraq War II. The Summer of Death.
How do you think it will play out?
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