ISIS havoc continues

Written 14 November 2015

I meant to write this earlier, but now that attacks have taken place in Beirut and Paris, this is more relevant. I wanted to reiterate a point I made in a previous article, where I forecasted increased “havoc” from ISIS. Unfortunately, many of my predictions came to be true, with ISIS attacking central Syria and launching terrorist attacks throughout the region, including in Baghdad, Ankara, and the Sinai (with the plane bombing). I would have liked to be wrong, but now it is getting worse.

What the leaders of the countries fighting ISIS need to understand is a concept called “blowback”. Organizations like ISIS and al-Qaeda do not engage in a method similar to land armies (although they have been adopting such doctrines). They do not follow the Geneva Conventions and they resort to cowardly attacks against innocent civilians. When they can afford to fight a land battle, they will. However, once they start losing, they are willing to resort to measures which few fighting powers resort: terrorism.

When ISIS (and even more so the Sunni opposition in Syria) was all of a sudden facing the brunt of Russian attacks, there was little the former could do in which it would have an advantage, except for terrorism. And so they tragically brought down a Russian aircraft full of innocent civilians and increased operations in Russia. The most recent attacks come as ISIS has begun losing the strategic territory of Sinjar in Iraq (and also Ramadi and Baiji), a lesson for anyone wanting to fight ISIS in the future.

The lesson is this: as ISIS weakens and as it starts losing strategic areas, expect more attempts at terrorism. If you decide to continue fighting ISIS, you must be prepared for this scenario and work to prevent it. You might also want to have a clear policy with the refugees coming into Europe, as right now the policy is disunited and ineffective.

This attack is horrifying and I pray for the victims’ families and for France. Although I normally take a neutral stance in this blog, I ask for all the French people to stay strong in the days ahead.

This is so horrific. France needs to do something about the migrants coming in.