Read the The scariest thing about Islamic State? Its kinder, gentler side article by Jacqueline Lopour, a former CIA analytic, currently an analytic at NGO named CIGI (honestly, I don't know what's the big difference), to get an idea of the topic in question.
One might think that's merely her opinion since it has been published at blogs section of Reuters website. Well, yes and no. For the major media outlet like Reuters affilated with higher cicrles of the political establishement it's impossible to approve the author whose opinion boldly contradict its editorial policy. So if the public will react favourably, why not sell this side of the story? Besides it's not like the idea is fresh.
Quite often "pique vests" here and there are dicsussing a lot of topics in regards to ISIS and Near East in general, supporting "good" sides and condeming "bad" sides based solely on their skewed opinions. But I do sense a lot of superficiality in the entire premise of this, so emotions aside and regardless of author's intentions this article got me thinking.
Let's see some exisiting examples.
Exhibit A, the worst. Control of territory and resources, redistribution of said resources (like oil trade) are the bare bones of a functioning society and state that could exist, ISIS is a step backward to previous forms of society evolution for the region, but it does create some functioning institutes, of course, minus pensions, heathcare, education and pretty much every bit of social infrastructure in more or less comparable volumes to the pre-war Syria -- if there were resources to support the latter, there'll be no reasons for war and eventually ISIS in the first place.
Of course, one could mention that major intervention into internal affairs (Iraq war, Arab spring et al.) took place, and would be absolutely right. But consider certain prerequisites: a) Syrian oil production has peaked in the mid 1990s before it fell from the cliff at the beginning of the war; b) quite to the contrary the consumption was only getting higher due to rampant population growth; c) which resulted in the a lot of unsettled, jobless youth that's part of the fuel this war is running on; d) problems with melioration has struck Syria over a decade ago due to costs running sky high for an average farm enterprise, and as you should know food is a function of energy availability especially in water dependant territories like Syria. So in the end you see a society that has been struck by gradualy declining returns on ivestment into one of its major activities coupled by the rising costs to support the same life-style for majority.
One might say that conflict could be described as Sunni vs. AlawitesShia, and again yes an no. Every given society could be divided into at least two major conflicting groups for a number of reasons. The real question is when and how equilibrium of co-existance could be toppled as easily as it was with Syria just by funding some islamist radicals by Saudis, the US or whoever, that doesn't really matter.
Adjusted for a local traditions and beliefes said "regimes" might look very different to the observer, but core definitions of ISIS and alike will be the same -- control of territory and redistribution of resources in the situation of declining returns, energy flow per capita, state's structural and society infrastructual degradation instead of chaos. Say, in the Near East this will take the form of islamism, while in Europe it'll look very much like fascism etc., but the core process stays the same everywhere.
Exhibit B, not quite really bad but "improving" fast. In relation to what's been just said, let's go to another example, Ukraine. In smth like 20+ years of it's relatively independent history Ukraine's ruling class very much like in the majority of post-Soviet countries has closely affilated itself with the globalist leaders of the planet, and experienced the same ups and downs of the global model of "developement", i.e: a) deindustrialization; b) decline of state's institutions coupled with infrastructural degradation; c) real income decline (a parity or even tad higher than the RSFSR's median prior to dissolution of the USSR has turned to 2-3 times lower prior to the latest Maidan if compared to its neighbour); d) nevertheless said decline was covered by the credit-based economy rising debt from 0 to sky high in mere 20 years, which never was a problem until very recent times when said economy has started to chuckle globally. This's very reminesecnt of the US that run the same course since the 70s, but without one major disadvantage Ukraine had -- no colonial taxation from abroad thanks to the status of reserve currency, hence Ukraine bite the dust among the first.
One must say that the Ukraine's situation is nowhere near to the one in Syria, plus Maidan was as much of a hoax like Arab spring was, so people were manipulated etc. True that, but for the latter see few paragraphs above about intervention into Syrian affairs, same deal and if not entirely irrelevant, not a game changer. As for the situation not being so bad, well consider this: a) currently EU is paying for the purchase of the energy resources for Ukraine through IMF institutions; b) three former Ukaine's major regions expenditures, namely Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk are belong to the balance sheets paid by Russia; c) Ukraine regardless of its political rhetorics imports electricity and coal from Russia to cover disbalances -- all in all this immensely adds to the stability of the region, which otherwise would have gone out of control. But it won't be too long before the situation detiorates and Kiev's authority falls into oblivion, so "private armies" of the oligarchs very much like ISIS will have to deal with the reality of growing chaos.
Exhibit C, still in the making. When we talk about major crises like the one we're currently experiencing (whatever the deniers might say on that), the topic of the US or EU economies arise quite often. True that the more this version of financial globalization bites the dust, nearing its unfortunate end due to underfinancing real sector of economy, like supporting exisiting infrastructure and creating new one instead of end-use consumption, the more money flows into speculative activity in the financial markets instead of productive work, the more depletion of the resources (oil et al.) going further, the more energy flow per capita drops in any given region of the planet or globally, the more these kind of half-arsed "regimes" like ISIS might see the light of day and be somewhat successful in at least avoiding the chaos.
