ISIS is collapsing, war will end in 2017?

[numberwang]

VGPolyglot said:

fory77 said:

Not quite collapsing, rather slowly but surely losing for the last year. They have been fighting on 6-7 fronts with way less manpower and equipment. If Raqqa falls this year they will be demoted from a quasi-state to a normal terrorist group hiding in the desert mountains. But even then there's Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham and friends (the white on the map) who were literally Al-Qaeda in Syria and the FSA to deal with. I don't see peace in Syria for the next minimum 3 years and if Assad can't deal with the Kurds with diplomacy - another 3-5. 

 a better map:

The conflict could last for decades. Afghanistan has been in conflict since 1978.

Most of the dark grey area is empty desert though, nobody really controls nothingness, in particular without an airforce.

I don't think the Kurds are interested in territorial expansion but want some local autonomy instead - so this conflicts can be balanced as long as they don't declare their own state (Turkey don't like this).

The Al-Qaeda (the white on the map) is smaller than I thought, how long can they endure?

Key aspect for the West is to stop giving weapons to "rebels" like candy which turned local terror groups into military forces.