Rallying cry will continue
Chicago Tribune,
editorial: “The once-fearsome ISIS army now staggers through its last days. U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters declared Tuesday that they had recaptured Raqqa, Syria. ... the self-proclaimed capital of the fast-crumbling caliphate. That is a swift and remarkable achievement for an improbable coalition of global friends, enemies and frenemies who looked past other conflicts to focus on crushing the barbarous Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. (ISIS) the army is in shambles. But Islamic State, the jihadist rallying cry, will likely continue to inspire terror attacks. ... around the globe. That calls for a stronger global strategy to quash the group’s online recruitment and radicalizing of young people.”
Noah Feldman,
Bloomberg View: “The collapse of the caliphate’s capital — the last remaining symbol of ISIS’ claim to control sovereign territory — marks the end of what made the entity unique. Future historians will study how the capture of territory enabled what had been a ragtag group of Iraqi and a few Syrian jihadis to gain the attention and the imagination of supporters and opponents worldwide. In its claim to be a state and a caliphate, ISIS became a revolutionary utopia to some sympathetic Muslims. It became a corresponding dystopia in the eyes of those people, Muslims and non-Muslims, who condemned its beheadings, stonings and rapes in the name of religion.”
The Wall Street Journal,
editorial, “If the Trump administration has a post-ISIS strategy, it isn’t obvious. And other forces are quickly filling the vacuum. The Iraqi Army is trading fire with the Kurds on the edge of Kirkuk and the Kurdish Regional Government. If the U.S. had a long-term arrangement for keeping some troops in Iraq, it would retain more influence against Iran and play a brokering role between the Kurds and Baghdad. We certainly owe some support for the Kurds who have been our best antiISIS allies.”
Juan Cole,
Truthdig: “ISIS was defeated by local Muslims, with air support and strategic advice from the United States and from Iran. But literally thousands of local Muslim troops died for this victory, and it is theirs. ... You can bomb a guerrilla group like ISIS from the air forever and make almost no impact. You need troops on the ground to take territory. ... Extremism was defeated by the Muslims. That should be the headlines.”