With ISIS recently gaining key cities within Iraq, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has asked for support from the 25 countries in the coalition. According to the Washington Post, he said they “are not getting it.”
Despite the apparent cries from Iraq, the United States has decided to stick with it’s current strategy, only increasing the intensity. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken was confident that the Islamic State would fall. As Blinken said to the Washington Post on Tuesday:
“We will redouble our efforts,” said Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken, who was leading the delegation after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry broke his leg in a cycling accident in eastern France over the weekend. IS, Blinken said, “stands for nothing and depends on people who will fall for anything.”
Redoubling efforts sounds all right, especially with Iraqi government practically begging for support. It was the second part of the quote that had me reeling.
Last time I checked Islamic terrorist groups aren’t taking over the Middle East for kicks and giggles. So what is the Islamic State’s intent, and what makes them so dangerous?
The Atlantic published an article in March about the intent of ISIS — a lengthy thing, but very interesting and slightly intimidating. Within it, this particular paragraph caught my eye:
We can gather that their state [ISIS] rejects peace as a matter of principle; that it hungers for genocide; that its religious views make it constitutionally incapable of certain types of change, even if that change might ensure its survival; and that it considers itself a harbinger of—and headline player in—the imminent end of the world.
In summary, ISIS is an Islamic religious group, with extremist beliefs, that is willing — and ready — to use radical means to make those beliefs a reality.
I would love for the Islamic State to fall as easily as Blinken predicts, but I doubt it’s their lack of conviction that will bring about their demise. Something tells me only the “imminent end of the world” will do that.
