ISIS is done. Their last stronghold crumbled yesterday, say the reports.
Arthur Chrenkoff gets it right:
Any celebrations will be bittersweet – and premature.
Bittersweet, because as the ISIS jihadis raged up and down two countries for the past five years they have spilled a sea of blood and inflicted untold suffering on those unlucky to have fallen within their shifting borders, in particular the Yazidis, the Kurds, and any Sunnis who might have disagreed with the Caliphate’s totalitarian and barbarian religo-political vision. The victory arrives finally, but at a huge cost.
Premature, because while this particular emanation of Islamism and jihadism is dead, the ideology will live on and keep reviving in other troubled areas of the world amidst civil strife and failed states. It is like a virus, which attacks the host bodies. When the immune system of a particular country is strong, the damage done is relatively light, but when it is compromised in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia and others, the virus thrives. The Caliphate is dead, long live the Caliphate somewhere else. Where exactly, your guess is as good as mine. It could be in Afghanistan again, in areas under Taliban control, it could be in Somalia, which for all practical purposes is not a unitary state anymore, or it could be somewhere else in Saharan Africa.
Or, the Philippines for that matter.
The thing is this:
Discredited ideologies seldom die off altogether, even with a string of millions of bodies behind it such as Islam, or Socialism for example.
Vigilance will always be needed against such things because they will never ever go away.
