I have no idea what it means to “stake out” a nation state, but if the actually succeed in taking over, say, Syria, then their next target will most likely be Lebanon or maybe Jordan.
I’m sure you meant to imply it will be the US, but it won’t. If you meant Israel, then I’m confident Israel can take care of itself.
Your scenario is a lot scarier than mine. A successful ISIS adding more and more Arab nations to it? What you’re talking about is the leadup to WWIII.
I just figured they’d stake out part of Syria and Iraq as theirs and go hardcore on the training camps for attacks on the West like Al Qaeda did.
Iraq, but I’m not sure why you think that’s such a big deal.
You asked a hypothetical, but you didn’t ask the likelihood of it happening, which is very low.
Da-esh got created because we went into the area to prevent that sort of thing from happening. Your side isn’t being very persuasive when you trot out the same arguments for a 2nd invasion.
I think he’s trying to say that we can’t wait for a smoking gun because it might turn out to be a mushroom cloud. Or something like that.
I’ll wait for ISIL to buy aluminum tubes before I start messing my pants.
I haven’t seen statements that mirror AQ’s to determine their long goals. But since you bring up AQ the West was never their primary target. They wanted to overthrow the dictatorial regimes in the Middle East. The Al Saud monarchy was especially high on that list. UBL had a serious hard on for them after they rejected his plan to form an Afghan like mujahadeen to deal with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. The west, and especially the US, got targeted because they knew they had to cut off the outside support to accomplish their long term goals. Targeting the US was a means not the end. Unfortunately for them they miscalculated with 9/11. Instead of the US tucking tail and running we targeted them with a vengeance.
We’ve actually come close to leaving IS the conditions AQ was trying to create. We’re less engaged and have clearly shown the intention of continuing that. AQ likely would have moved on to doing what IS is trying to do now and try to seize power in the region. IS is not AQ though. Their agenda is what matters. Even AQ’s probably wouldn’t be what you assume it is. AQ certainly said it was something different.
Who are you? Sun Tzu?
IOW, let 'em kill each other, and let God sort 'em out.
Yeah, I still can’t take him Syriasly.
Bad,** Arty**, bad! Go lay down by your water dish!
WEll, the fact is, we are at war with ISIS, and now the President is starting to commit ground troops: 3000 in Iraq and for the first time, 50 in Syria. The special forces in Syria will be very useful for spotting for our air strikes, as well as for training local Kurdish forces and executing some raids.
As the military says, since they don’t have to spin for political reasons, “We are in combat.”