ISIS

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Nightmare coming true, Al Qaeda (or at least originally Qaeda) now has an army and it seems this Shitstorm is still at the beginning.

http://www.dw.de/who-finances-isis/a-17720149

Oh wonderful. Global jihad and a re-establishment of an Islamic Caliphate were among Al Qaeda's original goals and now they have an army to carry it out. You do realise that this is bad news for the Middle East, right?

Americans didn't want to get involved in Syria and THIS is why.
As we provide aid to the rebels it turns out they are a bunch of terrorists that control a third of Syria's land area around it's significant reservoirs on the Euphrates while also using the opportunity of the vacuum created by our withdraw to takeover neighboring Iraq.
The leader was also in our hands as a prisoner until 09 when we turned him over to the Iraqis (he wasn't leader at the time) and has since been as elusive as Bin Laden (who should have received the Waldo achievement for successfully hiding for nearly 10 years while being on top of the worlds most wanted list) .

The US has no obligation to get involved.

But, it's its non-involvement that has probably led to this, as you see, Iran and Russia are involved to teeth in Syria and Iranian proxy-presence is getting strong. Add to this the newly reforming US-Iranian relations, add to this too the fails of the FSA and the fact that Iran being the worst archenemy of the Gulf countries, all this led them to counter its influence by creating (resurrecting?) ISIS, I bet this latter will most probably go rogue after becoming self-sufficient enough and even the Gulf countries will not be safe from the terror they made, ISIS has an agenda beyond fighting off the Iranian power.

There is nothing the US can do to stop this Sunni-Shiite war, we've already involved ourselves too much. It disgusts me seeing John McCain and his buttbuddy Lindsay Graham on TV so much talking about how we need to bomb this and invade that, I'm sure they miss their third amigo Joe Lieberman.

I feel sorry for the people who are just trying to exist,and this rolls thru their yard.

The US is very involved in the war in Syria, just because we don't overtly do things doesn't mean we aren't. The insurrection happened because the US funneled weapons from Libya to Turkey down to Syria. It got our "ambassador" killed, we supported Islamist militants in Libya who then in turn destabilized North Africa and the Middle East from Mali down to Nigeria and over to Syria and Iraq. Our biggest "allies" in the Muslim world are where all the Wahhabi filth flows out of. US interventionism is always bad and only results in more suffering and bloodshed.

During the Iraq occupation, it seemed like Shiites and Sunnies took turns at destabilizing the place and planting bombs. I don't think there is enough trust between the groups to back one without the other getting steamrolled.

This group has ruined the name of a cool ancient Egyptian god .

Do a thought experiment.

What if the USA stays out?

That would drive the Shiite Iraqi government even deeper into the embrace of Teheran.

If the Sunni terrorists keep gaining ground that would likely lead to Iran putting its own "boots on the ground" in Iraq. Since Iran is an actual nation ( and a rather powerful one of 70 million), and not just a gang of terrorist (like ISIS) it would likely drive ISIS out of Iraq. And likely Iran would see no reason to stop there- and would keep pushing west beyond the border to clean out the ISIS nest in Syria itsself- and to insure the victory of its friends: Assad, and Hezobllah in the Syrian civil war. Thus the ISIS dream of Sunni dominion over both Syria and Iraq would backfire. It would result Iran/Hezbollah hedgemony stretching from the Persian gulf to the Mediterranean shores of Syria, and Lebanon.

From the American POV thats actually not too bad an outcome- as such. The Iranians are no direct threat to the USA. so I would much prerfer Iran ruling the mideast than AL Queda.

Trouble is this new Persian Empire would cause Israel to shiite bricks, AND it would cause our other "friends"- Sunni Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf States to all Shiite bricks as well.

Though adversaries of each other both Israel (on one hand), and Saudi Arabia, and the Arab Gulf States (on the other) have clout in Washington, and have mortal fear of Iran, and their combined influence would likely pull the USA in to rescue them from this future Persian Empire ( we need 300 Spartans!).

On the other hand- what if the USA DID re enter Iraq? In effect it would just start the whole Iraq quagmire all over again!

So take your pick. Which bad option do you prefer?

This is pretty much the only down point.

I have no compassion for people who want to kill one another. Let them be.

NOTHING we do (USA) will fix this problem...short of nuking the whole region to glass.

You can't force change on people and expect it to work. The change has to come from within, and the people with the power DO NOT want our idea of "change."

I don't see Iran being able to push out ISIS, the Shiite regime will never be able pacify the Sunni minority. Iraq would descend into full on religious war with the Shiite government, Iran, Assad's Syria, and Hezbollah on one side and the Saudis, Qataris, and their bankrolled jihadists on the other.

There is nothing the US can do but stay out of it and hope for the best, even if the US intervened it would just be delaying inevitable.

I think the best solution would to support a partition of the country into one for the Sunnis, one for the Shiites, and one for the Kurds. The problem with that is that the Sunnis would be left with the short end of the stick since the oil is mostly in the Kurdish and Shia areas.

The Israelis love this btw, they'd much rather have these folks fighting and killing each other than focusing on them.

No, I think things happened differently.

The US is the least contributor in the birth of ISIS, the US gov have publicly supported the Free Syrian Army against the Assad regime at first, but it never really wanted to topple Assad from day 1 because this isn't best for Israel's interests (Israel feared that the Muslim brotherood would win the elections like they did in Egypt) - the ideal situation for Israel was to keep Syrian factions infighting, no one should win, making Assad weak, making Hezbollah weak, FSA weak..... it's all perfect for Israel!

So the US kept the military support as small as possible for the FSA to keep this status quo but on the other hand Russia and Iran were fully supporting Assad as much as they can, an infinite flux of weapons to Assad, this imbalance of support had put the FSA in big disadvantage. Notice how that the FSA was almost the strongest faction and had territory the most (when they had Homs) at some point in the war, now they are the weakest faction in the Syrian war. The US is no one's ally really, they are just orchestrating stuff, throwing some arms here, befriending Iran there..... while Russia and Iran are genuine allies sticking to Assad to the bones, this is why he was winning over FSA lately.
It is very possible that some of the US weapon fell in the the hands of ISIS but this can't possibly be enough to make them as strong as they are now.

This is where the Gulf Arabs stepped in to stop this Iranian expansion, they see the Maliki and Assad regimes as extension to the Iranian threat , and the lately US-Iran befriending had raised their fears ten fold and made them realize that the US doesn't really want to topple the Assad regime and it's no longer the dear old friend whom they always depended on to keep Iran at bay: So they have decided to take actions on their owns, by boosting ISIS - as a tool to stop Iran. The support of the Gulf countries for ISIS wasn't just only a mean to halt Iran but also a response against the new US' friendly policy toward Iran as well.

ISIS had quickly gained popularity among Sunnites in Syria and Iraq as a reaction to their regimes' oppression, this how small terrorist organizations turn into popular semi-nations, they get funds from a nation, they claim to support a righteous cause - a fertile ground - while applying their own agenda. Check the history of Hezbollah for instance - it was marketed as a resistance against Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon but its real goal was totally different, however Hezbollah is totally homogeneous and loyal to the Iranian regime while the creation of ISIS will backfire on the Gulf countries one day, it happened with Al Qaeda before and it will happen with ISIS again at a worse degree - these people never learn.

As war weary as we are of this endless conflict, I fear the verdict by future generations for our inaction for the sake of these poor people.

Bad news for everyone. It will be opposed in some way by the US, Iran, Saudis, Russia, Europe, etc. One thing we all agree is a s**t sandwich. I don't think this is really what the elite Sunnis want.

Maybe....maybe not, it's a bit more complicated than that. News may be portraying all these forces as only ISIS - but this is far from the truth.

ISIS has only about 6000 fighters in iraq, it is impossible to control that much of land of Iraq with such a small army. I am afraid that other Sunnite factions there, including the secular iraqi Ba'ath members, have humped into the ISIS bandwagon to fight the Maliki regime (who ruled in a sectarian and anti-sunnite way, It is a sectarian civil war more than anything else.
These Sunnite factions won't live in peace side by side afterward if they topple Maliki.

But there's no foretelling how strong and large ISIS may become - will they be the new Taliban?