Dayuahn---now I understand why you tend to tear apart individual sentences and yet you fail to understand from a social science perspective what we refer to as complex adaptive systems or what Kilcullen meant when he used the term ecosystem which is easier to use and understand if one is not a trained social scientist.
In order to effectively discuss policy effects on a population as this thread is trying to do then one must stand back and look at the whole and actually Robert is right when he uses the questions WHAT and WHY.
Back to complex adaptive systems---the paragraph is clear and concise:
Navigating on the edge of chaos - describes how humans adapt to their environmental conditions within some 'rules' that can be defined and understood by social scientists.
You keep asking about what I would do--it is being done already on the ground through Islamist/Syria nationalist groups supported by the Saudis---the only problem is now the efforts being thrown at controlling AQ is distracting from Assad which is the focus of the fight in effect lengthening the overall population tragedy. AQ/ISIS has again decided to be stupid--meaning they "forked" the insurgency creating a counter wind against them based on their brutality against the population exactly a replay of Iraq 2005.
If you took the time to glance through the link on the foreign fighters coming into Syria---there is a topic for discussion by itself in SWJ---just what is motivating the FFs in numbers far higher than seen during the Soviet/AFG period.
What I have also been alluding to is the drive by Iranians being THE regional hegemon---the core reason is that Khomeini during his days actually moved Shiaism closer to the style of historical Sunni governance drive all in the name of creating a Shia Green Crescent regional hegemony from Pakistan to Lebanon--this drive is then translated into action by the RGs and Qud Forces.
The Green Crescent in turn alarmed the KSA who went into full counter mode again from the Sunni perspective and the entire action/counteraction has been going on since 1979.
In some ways the solution is rather simple but actually the hardest piece---how does one convince the leadership of a country that has been on an expansion trip to throttle back and remain inside one's territory.
In some ways the current general Iranian population is OK with that, but when you have for 35 years been on an expansionist trip and your security/military/intelligence apparatus have been supporting this trip then it is hard to throttle back. Once the genie is out of bottle recapping it is extremely hard especially if the current leadership in Iran is driving the expansionism from their religious perspective.
So the fighting goes on in Syria and Lebanon because there is no one is willing to stop this expansionist trip and we cannot because we were badly burned by Iraq and now AFG and I would also say because we failed to understand Islam and understand the current drivers behind the Arab Springs ie ME populations.
The KSA uses religion and money in order to gain influence---using their religious seminaries/charities--exactly as does Iran in Qom.
Iran takes it a step further through using actual military/paramilitary personnel hidden as "volunteers" which is exactly what the KSA sees occurring and has been "pointing it out" repeatedly to the US---we have seen it but refused to address it. You will notice that by the way there are no "KSA volunteers" from inside the KSA physically on the ground--the FFs are in fact the KSA foot soldiers.
That is why I mentioned it would be extremely interesting to this time to analyze the WHY they are answering the Sunni calls for help as that will give us a view for the future on what has to be addressed on this front with the KSA.
There are a number of Syrian solutions now floating around at there--which if one looks at them requires in the final end Iran returning to it's territorial borders.
That will not happen with the current Iranian theocracy power apparatus in place.
So now you see two points of focus---armed resistance on the ground coupled with a slow but steady push to return Iran to it's natural territorial borders pulling it's "volunteers" (military/security/intelligence) back as well. What is the US response in the coming months if Iraq cannot get ISIS under control if Iranian "volunteers" enter Iraq? That will be an interesting moment.
After the dust settles the next step would be to understand the drive behind the FFs in answering the KSA calls for help-via discussions on the topic with the KSA. By the way this was not done after 9/11 and is the camel standing in the corner between the US and KSA.
What you might not know is that when we in the US said that the madrassas supported by the KSA should throttle back their jihadi rhetoric which is buried in Sunni Wahhabism---the KSA did in fact quietly change the focus of the courses/classes and the rhetoric is now nowhere to be seen in KSA supported madrassas. But just as there are different Shia streams there are different Salafist streams other than Wahhabism that are pushing the "jihadi" rhetoric.
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