Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
It still leaves open the question in my pea brain on how they're so successful in exploiting these existing conflicts and rapidly gaining a dominant position, even if it is ephemeral.
I wonder if is mostly an effective PR campaign that allows them to scratch the itches of three groups of people, the rich Gulf Arabs who feel guilty about not being pious enough, the frustrated young men who want some action but also need to feel pious when they get it and the wild eyed true believers who again need to feel pious. AQ it seems to me relies very heavily on the idea that supporting them make one more Muslim than thou. That self-conferred religious imprimatur is vital to their success. It underlies everything. If they didn't have it, they would just be another group of soreheads trying to gain power.

When they do get power for a time in a local place, that image they rely on falls away quickly. Beheading people for eating the wrong kind of salad tends to sour the locals on their rule. The reality quickly overshadows the promise and they get kicked out, or have been and hopefully will be again. But even if that happens, that image of piety is still there and so the money and the men keep coming.

I hope they will get kicked out again. But is it certain they will be? That is really a rhetorical question but there have been some regimes whose rule is as bad as that of AQ would probably be that have lasted a long time, the Kim dynasty in North Korea being a good example.