‘ISLAMIC STATE’ – Seven Impressions Of A Difficult Journey
THE WEST IS DRAMATICALLY UNDERESTIMATING THE THREAT EMANATING FROM ISIS, and ISIS’ fighters are much more intelligent and dangerous than our politicians realize. The Islamic State is drenched in almost infectious enthusiasm and confident of victory – something I have never before experienced in a warzone. More importantly, the ISIS fighters are convinced that their totalitarian faith and demonstrative brutality will help them move mountains. In Mosul, less than 400 ISIS fighters routed many as 25,000 Iraqi soldiers and militias despite their ultra-modern equipment. Within months, the ISIS has conquered a territory larger than Great Britain and dwarfed Al Qaeda.
.. ISIS ISN’T JUST AIMING AT CONQUERING THE MIDDLE EAST AND, EVENTUALLY, THE REST OF THE WORLD. RATHER, THEY WANT THE LARGEST “RELIGOUS CLEANSING” IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND. With the exception of the so-called “religions of the book” – that is, ISIS’ version of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity – ISIS wants to kill non-believers and apostates and enslave their women and children. This means that all of the Shiites, Yazidis, Hindus, Atheists and Polytheists are supposed to die, and that hundreds of millions of people would be eliminated in the course of this “ethnic cleansing”.
.. THE MODERATE SUNNI ARABS ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN STOP ISIS, NOT THE WEST. That’s exactly what the Sunnis did 2007. Back then, they chased away the “Islamic State in Iraq” (ISI) – the predecessor of ISIS, which was much weaker than today’s ISIS.
However, the moderate Iraqi Sunni would only oppose ISIS if they were allowed to completely re-integrate into Iraqi society, from which the Americans and the Iraqi Shiites had excluded them after the US’ 2003 invasion of Iraq. It doesn’t currently look like things are going to change anytime soon. Yet, this is the only conceivable solution to stop ISIS.
THE MODERATE SUNNI ARABS ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN STOP ISIS, NOT THE WEST. That’s exactly what the Sunnis did 2007. Back then, they chased away the “Islamic State in Iraq” (ISI) – the predecessor of ISIS, which was much weaker than today’s ISIS.
However, the moderate Iraqi Sunni would only oppose ISIS if they were allowed to completely re-integrate into Iraqi society, from which the Americans and the Iraqi Shiites had excluded them after the US’ 2003 invasion of Iraq. It doesn’t currently look like things are going to change anytime soon. Yet, this is the only conceivable solution to stop ISIS.