ISIS on the March, Turkey on its Knees

So, in the last year, we've seen ISIS go from running military bases and oil refineries, controlling major cities and large swaths of territory, to carrying out random suicide bombings wherever they can get away with it, and now trying to take credit for what was clearly the act of a deranged petty criminal with no apparent political connections at all.

This is not the path of a successful movement.  It seems like I should hardly need to say this, but a large part of the Republican party is still hiding under their beds and crying in fear about them.  A very limited military campaign on the part of a few countries has succeeded in damaging them, probably beyond recovery.

I remind you that, from 1935 to 1945, the German military had 35 million members, and was backed up by the greatest industrial base and the greatest military technology the world had ever seen.  ISIS had a few tens of thousands of fighters at their peak, no industrial base and no technology; nothing but a few stolen oil fields.  And yet, Obama was savaged by the right for describing them as "the JV team."  As usual, he was right, but they screamed ten times louder.

And now, Turkey.  Look at what we have there:  A near-dictator running the country, a military only marginally under his control, a long-standing (and rather justified) insurgency on the part of an abused minority...to me, this sounds pretty similar to the condition of Turkey's neighbor Syria, just a few years ago.  Could Turkey be the next Syria, the next Islamic country to dissolve into chaos and violence, sucked into the vacuum that still swirls around the century old wreck of the Ottoman Empire?

At this point I wouldn't bet on this, at least because Europe has so much interest in preventing it from happening, but I'm not sure I would bet against it either.  Fun times ahead, huh?

Comments

Capt. Fogg said…
Turkey as a secular republic sort of isn't. It does seem that only a dictator can keep them from becoming an Islamic state, but Islamic states are always run by dictators. Maybe you can't win.
Green Eagle said…
Maybe, Captain. Based on the history of the Middle East, you certainly would not be unreasonable to think so. As I documented a while ago, Syria has a five thousand year long history of this sort of thing, almost unbroken by periods of peace. What makes people think it will change now, particularly under the hands of one of the most pathetic dictators the world has ever seen?

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