Islamic State's Demise is Coming

ISIS' Imminent Demise - Daniel Pipes, PhD

U.N. Security Council Resolution 2249, passed unanimously on Nov. 20, sums up the consensus that the Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL Daesh), poses a mortal danger to civilization by calling it an "unprecedented threat to international peace and security." There's also a widespread sense that ISIS will be around for a long time; for example, Barack Obama has predicted that the fight against it will be "a long-term campaign." Permit me to disagree strenuously on both counts.

On the first: ISIS is not exactly the equivalent of Nazi Germany. It's a little bug that the powers could quash at will if they put their minds to it. It survives only because no one really takes it seriously enough to fight with ground troops, the only gauge of an intention to prevail.

On the second: Between its alienation of its subject population and its gratuitous and unrestrained violence toward foreign countries, ISIS has made enemies of nearly everyone. Recent days alone have seen attacks on three powerful states: Turkey (the bombing in Ankara), Russia (the airliner over Sinai), and France (the attacks in Paris). This is not a path for survival. Friendless and despised, its every success shortens its life.

Contrary to other analysts, I foresee that ISIS will disappear without warning and as abruptly as it arose. This could follow on some combination of internal revolt, internecine feuds, economic collapse, and external attack.

And when that happy day comes, we can all focus on the real "unprecedented threat to international peace and security," namely nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran's apocalyptic leadership.
[National Review Online]
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UPDATES:

U.S. Intelligence: ISIS Is Not Contained - Kimberly Dozier  

A new U.S. intelligence report on ISIS, commissioned by the White House, predicts that the Islamic State will spread worldwide and grow in numbers unless it suffers a significant loss of territory on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria, U.S. officials said.
(Daily Beast)
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A Global Strategy - Mary Habeck et al. 

If we fail to stop the extremists from taking territory and undermining states, al-Qaeda or ISIS will obtain weapons of mass destruction, and then it will be too late to act.
(American Enterprise Institute)
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The Origins of ISIS - Shlomo Ben-Ami 

The Arab fundamentalist monarchies played a role in reviving the seventh-century vision that ISIS (and others) seek to realize. ISIS' army of psychopaths and adventurers was launched as a "startup" by Sunni magnates in the Gulf who envied Iran's success with its Lebanese Shia proxy, Hizbullah.
  
The Arab Middle East is not susceptible to quick fixes. It requires profound indigenous change that might take the better part of this century to produce. For now, turning the caliphate into yet another failed state in the region seems to be the best possible outcome.
The writer, a former Israeli foreign minister, is vice president of the Toledo International Center for Peace in Spain.
(Project Syndicate)
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