ISIS—The Game is Over, You Lose

ISIS You Lose. What should the Punishment be?

This will soon be hitting the news media. I have made it quite plain for the last months, more stridently in the last few weeks, that ISIS is doomed—that they will be meeting their maker a bit faster than even I have been predicting. My most recent absolute prediction and explanation was posted just the other day here. If you are an ISIS fighter in Syria, it is time to shave off your beard and play dumber. Tough I know, but no one will be shedding any tears.

Putin has clearly planned for this event meticulously and he has a morally free hand (by not being moral or answerable for his lack of morality) but he is also in financial hand cuffs. So Putin will win initially, but he will lose the slightly longer game vis-a-vis his imperialistic ambitions. Obama has him cornered.

The Background:

So this is the game: ISIS is hated by everyone, they have conquered mainly desert and some desperate communities, using resources and skills handed to them by the Bush regime, having not only disenfranchised the Iraqi Sunni Military leaders, but exposing them to the determinedly anti Sunni Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki. Since this Bush era miscalculation (leaving a side that the Iraqi War was illegal, based upon deception), Obama was finally able to use the meltdown in Iraq to oust Maliki. If you want the best explanation of how we arrived at this point—well as it happens I have it—I would like to thank Khalid Nurredin, Las Vegas singer/songwriter and political blogger, for this brilliantly poignant, concise, and educational explanation:

OK, people, Here’s the big thing most people miss about ISIS; prior to the invasion, they were just a bunch of goat herders with AK47s, preaching the Wahabist gospel. Then Bush/Cheney had the bright idea of disbanding the Iraq army, firing all the Sunni officers, denying them their pensions, banning the Sunni Baath party from the elections, and telling them they couldn’t even vote. Then Bush/Cheney hand-picked idiot Maliki, who kicked all the Jews, Sunnis, Kurds, Agnostics, and Atheists out of the government, hiring only Shiites. Then he tells Obama that any remaining American troops will have to operate under Sharia, and Obama says no. Meanwhile, the Iran/Iraq/Syria oil pipeline is announced, with financial backing from Russia, China, and South Korea.

The Sunni monarchies hire ISIS, the Taliban, and Al-Qaeda to topple Assad, whom they consider the weakest link in the Shiite pipeline. The Qataris purchase Khadafy’s weaponry and ship it to ISIS. ISIS starts killing Christians, Jews, Sunnis, and religious minorities in Syria, Assad breaks out the WMDs, and the Taliban and Al-Qaeda quit the fight, saying ISIS is NUTS. ISIS flees to Iraq, where all those unemployed Sunni officers and government employees take the monarchies’ money and train ISIS into a real fighting force: 800 ISIS fighters defeat 5,000 Shiite Iraqi troops and take all the equipment we gave them when the Shiites run in terror . . . which brings us back to where we are today. You can’t blame this mess on anyone but Bush/Cheney.

The Battleground Today:

So as we speak Iranian and Hezbollah troops are on the ground and will soon take Aleppo. This, Syria’s largest city and its commercial center is presently held by the rebels. From Russia and Iran’s perspective you can not expect to get progress in the region until Assad’s regime has first been strengthened. The West should quietly accept that efforts to remove Assad have not only failed but helped create not only the quagmire, but also the refugee crisis.  Assad however remains a war criminal and efforts to remove him will not have to cease, but should be postponed. For three reasons, the Russians can probably be persuaded to deal with Assad later.  1) the West accepting that Syria will remain a Russian ally and 2) with the application of future sanctions on Syria combined with 3) a lessening of sanctions on Russia, as Russia also starts backing down on Ukraine. The reasons for Russia’s acquiescence were discussed in my prior blog. Thus the Russian bombings have not only cleared the path, by weakening the rebel positions—but will allow the Assad forces to advance in sync with the Iranians and with Hezbollah (who are based in Lebanon and allied with the Iranians.)  Meanwhile about sixty other countries are assisting American, UN and now Russian coordinated efforts including virtually all the Arab Counties, whether they be Sunni or Shiite, including the Turks and the Kurds. When has there ever been such a overwhelming loathing for such a truly loath-able group.

Victory Ground:

Personally I feel that fighters returning to their home countries should have their citizenship revoked and returned a new ISIS homeland—a few thousand acres in the middle of the Sahara, with water and basics and certain textbooks flown in, depending on exam results. This to last until they realize that prayer will not set them free—only critical thinking can. So until they can get a degree in one of the sciences they will be stuck at their desks basking in the desert. If this strategy works we can bring the same concept into the Red States, the Stupidparty States, as a pre-condition to receiving further  federal government subsidies to state governments that wantonly torpedo their economies to make childish and incorrect assertions. Government does not have to be bad, trickle down is far less effective than trickle up. Ignorance and bigotry harm the economy and blue states should stop subsidizing this madness.

But sadly we have a chicken and egg situation, for unless Stupidparty disciples can be encouraged to realize that they are also devoid of critical thinking, it makes it that much harder to impose such remedies. Since we in the US accept mythical thinking, we can not really lecture others—therefore many of these fleeing ISIS fighters will find themselves thrust back into modern society, but remain un-remorseful, because modern society is far from rational itself—because evidently every one is allowed to have an opinion, even when such opinion can be proved wrong, can be shown to lead to massive unnecessary poverty, disease, misery and death. Stupidity, myopic myth based cultures begets terrorism.