So true.

The situation in the arab world 15 years ago was far from perfect - but in comparison with today, it was heaven.

Then "the west" came, justifying its actions with humanitarian bullshit reasons, claiming to improve the situation of the people - but whatever they did, the situation for the people living there just got much, much worse. Whatever solution the west came up with that would improve the situation - effectively the solution would only cause at least two more and even bigger problems.

So the west's behaviour seems like an idiot fighting the Hydra, always only causing more and worse problems.

And to a lesser extent, it's been like this ever since the world realized the importance of oil and how much of it the arab world has. A handful of people became incredibly rich, for most others, it became a huge burden.

Allah must have really hated the muslims when he decided to bury the oil belonging to the western world under arab sand...

Let's start in the Hague?

Well if you buy some ISIS shirts you can sponser them,  teens with ISIS shirts walking on the street is not abnormal in some EU countries especially cities...Wearing them is not illegal and some see it the same like wearing a USA shirt...Question is where the money goes from those shirts?

Let them gain more power and invade Saudi Arabia and the gulf eventually.
Let them invade all of Arabia so that they bring out all the hypocrites and shitheads from there and become an easier target for nuclear assault.

They have support in the occupied areas only inasmuch as the local Sunni authorities (tribal chieftains and the like) believe that they are a better alternative than the very-sectarian Nuri al-Maliki and quasi-genocidal Bashar al-Assad. They sort of did the same thing with Al-Qaeda In Iraq during the big post-Saddam peacekeeping conflict. It wasn't like the locals were all terrorist-lovers, but the terrorists were the people who were going to defend their position against people they didn't like (namely the incoming democratic Shiite government in Iraq). Eventually the Sunni locals got fed up with AQI, and teamed up with American and Iraqi forces to beat them out (the Anbar Awakening that was key to bringing Iraq to the shaky peace it enjoyed until this year)

Likely that's what will happen again. ISIS will wear out its welcome in time.

Depends what you mean by 'hit.' Lots of us died when the Malaysian Airlines jet was shot down in the Ukraine.

A lot more a decade ago in Bali. But I agree we've done a pretty good job of keeping home-grown terrorism down.

As to the last point. I really haven't fully formed an opinion. I don't think we should have gone to Iraq in the first place. But we did...there is an argument that its partly our mess to clean up. On the other hand, I am not convinced we can help any more now than we could a decade ago.

If ISIS isn't dealt with quickly, they will force the rest of us into World War III. They're playing chicken with us, assuming that the rest of the world isn't actually willing to commit to war.

I think they're half right. The best solution I can think of is to fake a fissible material theft and blame ISIS, then to drop a low yield nuke on one of their facilities and claim it was a research facility. They made an experiment which went wrong. You could probably make that cover story very convincing by throwing in some broken centrifuge bits and partially enriched Uranium Hexafluride.

The more they claim innocence and ignorance the guiltier and more incompetent they will look. The rest of the Arab world will suddenly hate and distrust them.

Probability of that happening? ZERO.


Realistic solution? I'm still working on that.

I would be all for that.  I used to work for a Kurdish family, they were great people and the boss was almost like a second Dad to me -- he always called me Pasha, Peshmerga, and John Walker (as a joke, though probably not a politically correct one).  I have a high opinion of the Kurds and I think Kurdistan would make a great country.