Beyond the frontline: watching ISIS

[davidbfpo]

A long article from The Atlantic by Graeme Wood, entitled 'What ISIS Really Wants' and the sub-title is the shortest read:

The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it.

Link:http://www.theatlantic.com/features/...-wants/384980/

Author's mini-bio:http://gcaw.net/about-2/

The author has some choice, direct passages, here is one:

Some observers have called for escalation, including several predictable voices from the interventionist right (Max Boot, Frederick Kagan), who have urged the deployment of tens of thousands of American soldiers. These calls should not be dismissed too quickly: an avowedly genocidal organization is on its potential victims’ front lawn, and it is committing daily atrocities in the territory it already controls.
One way to un-cast the Islamic State’s spell over its adherents would be to overpower it militarily and occupy the parts of Syria and Iraq now under caliphate rule. Al‑Qaeda is ineradicable because it can survive, cockroach-like, by going underground. The Islamic State cannot. If it loses its grip on its territory in Syria and Iraq, it will cease to be a caliphate.

Malcolm Nance (SWC member) just Tweeted:

This is a good analysis but thinks #ISIS is new Twitter to AQs old Facebook.They're OBL's great caliphate army