(07-01-2016 07:56 AM)ECUGrad07 Wrote: It’s crazy to think that Obama and Hillary think that our current strategy to not “further radicalize” Muslims by being more tolerant and accepting is working, when ISIS is willing to send suicide bombers to attack a country that has a leader who is aimed at instituting Sharia Law. How more Muslim can you get than Sharia Law? Even THAT is not enough for them.
ISIS cares less about religion than they do about Sunni Arab independence. That's not to say they don't care about religion - they clearly do... it enables their ethnic cleansing by way of enslaving, converting, killing, or forcing people to leave. Turks are not Arabs, and they are assisting US attacks on ISIS. Turkey will likely respond by invading Syria (with Russian permission) and attacking the Kurds... that does three things that retaliating against ISIS would not necessarily do: - (1) works to achieve Turkey's goal of weakening the Kurds and preventing a viable Kurdish state, (2) appeases the Turkish electorate (do something!), (3) avoids angering ISIS into further attacks in response. Russia will be down with weakening the Kurds. The only three actors that are genuinely fighting ISIS are (1) the Kurds, (2) the Iraqi army (it's nothing new, it gives them a chance to kill Sunni Arabs, just this time under a black flag), and (3) the US... the most naive actor in the conflict.
Turkey's aim: repress the Kurds. target: Kurds
Syria's aim: chase the Sunni Arabs out of Syria. target: Rebel Groups not named ISIS, Sunni Arab civilians, Kurds
Iran's aim: prop up the Syrian govt and get their hooks into the Iraqis, weaken the US. target: Sunni Arabs
Hezbollah's aim: Iran's *****... no play, no pay. target: Sunni Arabs
Russia's aim: Prop up the Syrian govt., weaken the US. target: Sunni rebel groups not named ISIS (but claim to fight only ISIS)
Kurd's aim: Independence. target: ISIS
US aim: practically aimless. target: ISIS
Saudi, Gulf States aim: contain Iran. target: Assad, by way of funding ISIS and similar groups
ISIS exists at the pleasure of Syria, Iran, and Russia. Syria acted to radicalize its opposition and has focused its attention on moderates and civilians. I'm not sure if they could care less if there were an Islamic Caliphate in Raqaa and Western Iraq as long as they held on to the rest of Syria. Likewise, they may be ok with a Kurdish state as long as they didn't lose strategic or valuable territory.
However, it's a mistake to view ISIS as just a group of Islamist loons. Most of the important actors in the area are Islamist loons. Others like Assad could care less, except to the extent it helps or harms their control of their state.
