"A Decade of Chaos"

Shmuel Bar, PhD

Chaos Could Last For At Least A Decade - Ariel Ben Solomon    

"The ideology of Islamic State and the caliphate are a watershed event," said Shmuel Bar, a senior research fellow at the Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy Research at the Technion.
     
"No previous Islamic regime - no matter how radical, dared declare itself a caliphate."

"The very paradigm of the caliphate implies that there is only one form of Islam and the caliphate must purge the 'Abode of Islam' from all others - Shi'ites, Alawites - and subjugate all other religious communities - Christians and Jews - or eliminate them."
    
"This chaos is now irreversible....Therefore, Israel and the West must be prepared to live through the age of chaos in the Middle East for at least a decade." 
(Jerusalem Post)
*

UPDATE:

Middle East Map Carved up - Owen Bennet-Jones 

The Middle East's longstanding borders created by foreign powers are slowly breaking down. The rise of ethnic sectarianism and of the Islamic State have led ethnic groups, such as the Kurds in Iraq and Syria, and religious-based terrorist organizations, such as the Islamic State, to gain autonomy over patches of land throughout the Middle East.
  
With the central governments in countries such as Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Libya gradually losing power to non-state actors within their borders, many Western diplomats are worried whether this trend will spread to more stable countries such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Oil, a key Middle Eastern export, is a major concern for Western governments, so the increase in smuggling by non-government actors is a troubling trend.
  
Middle Eastern governments' loss of land and control to autonomous groups will most likely lead to turmoil throughout the region for years to come.
(BBC)
*