As of right now, ISIS looks fully defeated. They have Mosul, but that will inevitably fall, too; the re-capture of Mosul is but a formality. Oil prices are low, ruining their revenue; they cannot shake the perception that they are losing hopelessly, and they are heavily outnumbered by their foes.
Is there any plausible scenario under which ISIS is ***not ***completely vanquished by the end of the year?
What??? If it weren’t a rather sordid proposal, I’d be willing to bet you any amount of money that Da-esh will be operating just fine within Syria at the end of the year.
Please outline your “plausible scenario” that they are snuffed out in Syria.
Blowing up their money supply helped also.
How could they recover? Donald Trump. They are going to continue instigating terrorist acts - that is an indication of how badly they are losing on the ground. If Trump uses one of these as an excuse to say they are winning (he was pretty quiet about their convoy getting blown to pieces, wasn’t he) and does something like bombing civilians, he could build up support for them again.
ETA: I agree with John that they will not be completely eradicated by the end of the year - but they may well be no longer a serious force in Iraq and maybe not even in some parts of Syria. So let’s call it having lost, not lost completely.
The only plausible scenario where ISIS is defeated any time soon is if both the Iraqi army and the Syrian government forces of Bashar Assad become dramatically more competent than they have so far proven to be and defeats them on the ground. It’s somewhat plausible but unlikely for Iraq, and much less plausible for Syria.
Otherwise, ISIS is probably going to be around for a long time.
And let’s keep in mind that maxin that “terrorism is a weapon of the weak”. The weaker Da-esh gets in its region of influence due to Western military action, the more terror attacks in the West we can expect.
Been paying attention to Fallujah? That was mostly an Iraqi operation. This isn’t 2014 anymore. The Iraq army is still no supermachine, but they finally have some competent units.
IMHO it doesn’t matter if they lose or are vanquished because, given the right motivation, anybody, either alone or with a couple of friends, can claim inspiration from, or to be a franchisee of, ISIS, and then go and wreak havoc.
And now that its relative ease has been demonstrated enough times I expect that we in the west can expect to see more of it.
There is no shortage in history of American proxies who manage to not collapse immediately in the face of even minor resistance as long as they have a wand of magic missile in the form of American air power overhead. Where are they now?
The Iraqis are in a much better position than Assad simply because they are a Shia government in a majority Shia country that also shares a land border with Iran.
If that’s the expected result, I think I might start rooting for ISIS in Syria & Iraq
Iraq has a political problem, and that isn’t going to be solved by the military. As long a the Sunnis don’t feel like they are part of the government, there is going to be an insurgency in those areas where Sunni Arabs predominate. Eliminating Da-esh does not solve the bigger problem in Iraq. Drive them out, and another group emerges. Alternatively, a Saddam-like strongman emerges (only this time he’s a Shiite) and the whole democratic experiment goes out the window.
Yes, suicide bombings won’t end for a long time, but as far as the ‘Islamic State’ is concerned, once Raqqa and Mosul fall, the ‘caliphate’ pretty much officially ceases to exist.
You have given exactly zero evidence in this thread that Da-esh is in imminent danger of disappearing form Syria. Zero. You can say whatever you like, but saying it doesn’t make it so.
I ask again: “Please outline your “plausible scenario” that they are snuffed out in Syria.” Until you do that, your statements are meaningless.
:dubious: I don’t recommend it. The war with ISIS in Syria and Iraq has killed hundreds of thousands of people and made millions homeless by devastating whole countries. Whereas AFAICT ISIS-linked terror attacks elsewhere, even counting the most tenuously linked “copycat” attacks by disaffected loners as well as ones actually connected to active ISIS militant organizations, have killed fewer than three thousand people and have had basically zero impact on the fundamental stability and strength of the countries where they were committed.
Wishing for ISIS to win the war and continue inflicting certain misery and death on millions of people in Iraq and Syria in order to possibly spare people outside Iraq and Syria a very slightly increased but still statistically negligible terrorism risk is… not a well-balanced threat assessment.
Ehhhhhhh…Iran seems to have lobbied hard for the attack politically ( apparently against U.S. wishes, which would seemingly prefer more concentration on preparing for Mosul ) and it has involved a lot of Iranian participation especially in the clearing stages of the siege as the Shi’a militia involved seem to take their operational marching orders more from Iran than Iraq ( in particular this man, who at least has a pretty solid track record of success ). And of course there has been heavy coalition air support.
I wouldn’t say the Iraqi army hasn’t improved, but they performed like shit just a scant period of time ago when Daesh exploded and I doubt they have papered over all their inadequacies yet. The fact that they remain at least moderately dependent on militia support for major actions, whether Kurdish, Shi’a or Sunni Arab, not to mention Iran and coalition air support, underscores their continuing vulnerability.
Not exactly. Hundreds of thousands of people may have been killed and millions made homeless in the Syrian Civil War, but far more of those were killed and exiled by pro-Assad forces than by ISIS.
Perhaps I’m cynical, but I suspect that cause and effect runs the other way. The more terror attacks occur, the more we will hear about how ISIS is growing weaker.
Assad has a habit of confounding the expectations of his critics. He’ll be around until the defeat of ISIS and the coming together of the rival rebel factions. I wouldn’t hold my breath.
where are you getting any of this? They’re still bringing in millions of dollars off revenue.
Yes. Thank you.
IS/Daesh did not start this war, and defeating them–however that is reckoned–will not end it.
Plus, as long as Assad is in power, and the Syrian civil war continues, Assad needs Da-esh. You don’t get rid of Da-esh in Syria without an actual invasion as long as Assad is in power, and he hasn’t crushed the opposition-- only then is he going to go after Da-esh himself with any intent to crush them entirely, too.
