ISIS would attack the West even if Western troops and all its civilians left the Middle East entirely

[Roma_Victrix]

We all know that ISIS is an offshoot of al-Qaeda, yet I think despite their overwhelming similarities, they have become quite different in their approach and ultimate goals. First, I'd like to provide some backstory about al-Qaeda before diving into why I think it is that the apocalyptic death cult of ISIS has no intention of seeing Western forces leave the Middle East. Even though it would seem irrational or counterintuitive to one's normal enemies, ISIS actually welcomes such ideas with open arms. In our inescapable ethnocentric viewpoint, we think their attacks on us are all about us, that if we just left the region alone then groups like this wouldn't exist (although there's an argument to be made that the insurgency in Iraq allowed them to gain strength in the first place, even though it was the neighboring Syrian Civil War sparked by the Arab Spring movement that was the real boon for ISIS). Some have argued the Paris attacks were caused purely because France had joined the US-led NATO coalition in bombing ISIS. Yet look at ISIS's official statement supporting the Paris attacks, steeped in religious language and denouncing France as a den of debauchery and sin, the main upholders of the Christian Crusader Cross in Europe, as they have said. With this and other things in mind, I have become more and more convinced that we Western "Crusaders" are merely just the vessel and vehicle for ISIS to achieve its ultimate goal: the Apocalypse.

Sounds kooky, doesn't it? Surely Roma_Victrix has lost his mind and is about to tell you all about how you should join the Heaven's Gate's cult and drink the special Kool-Aid to become part of the "away team" that will join outerspace aliens as Earth explodes. No. What you're about to read has to deal with a particular Sunni brand of millenarianism that is largely divorced from the Christian doomsday claims and traditions spurred by the Bible's Book of Revelations (bust out your Old Testament for that one). However, just as George W. Bush cited them to a very confused French President Jacques Chirac preceding the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, Islamic eschatology also includes the mythological and destructive beings of Gog and Magog. Yet, before we dive into those fun specifics...

FIRSTLY, SOME STUFF ABOUT AL-QAEDA AND ISIS (SKIP THIS PART IF YOU ALREADY KNOW THIS STUFF)

Al-Qaeda, we also know from their own communiques roughly a decade ago, wanted the United States and Western powers to invade the Middle East after 9/11 in order to get bogged down, drain their resources, incite Arab hatred against the West, etc. flocking of Sunni militants from around the world would provide al-Qaeda a greater opportunity to build their non-existent caliphate from the ground up, like we have seen ISIS achieve in eastern Syria and northern Iraq. Back in 2013, when ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced the formation of the terrorist group and that Syria's al-Nusra Front headed by Abu Mohammad al-Julani would then be merged with his, al-Julani appealed to al-Qaeda's leading emir Ayman al-Zawahiri (taking up that mantle after Osama bin Laden) to intermediate. Al-Zawahiri instructed al-Baghdadi to contain his operations within Iraq and stay out of al-Nusra's territory in Syria, yet al-Baghdadi defied this order and conquered al-Nusra's territories, finally snatching ar-Raqqah (the so-called capital of ISIS now) in eastern Syria by January 2014. By February 2014 al-Qaeda broke all ties of allegiance with ISIS, with al-Zawahiri putting out a bounty for the capture or the head of al-Baghdadi (at $25 million, it still stands larger than that put forth by the US government at $10 million). Several months after taking ar-Raqqah, ISIS managed to conquer most of northern Iraq in a collosal failure for the Shia-dominated secular Iraqi state.

Yet as some may have noticed, it's not just this tribal, political infighting that marks al-Qaeda as being different from ISIS now. As some might recall, al-Qaeda's failure to win over the Sunnis in northern Iraq during the US-led occupation led to the Sunni Awakening (Sons of Iraq), which forced al-Qaeda to tone down its deliberate killing of civilians and Iraqi natives as the tide of public opinion turned against them. Al-Qaeda, in organizing the Charlie Hebdo attacks, has shown that even when it assaults the West it now cares more about targeting specific perceived offenders rather than targeting civilian populations as a whole. That's a rather marked shift from their 9/11 strategy of causing as much damage and death as possible. On the other hand, ISIS's attack on Paris chose radically different targets of random civilians enjoying a music concern, a football match, dinner at cafes, etc. and attempted to kill as many people as possible, just like their bombing of the Russian Metrojet over the Sinai (which killed even more people than in Paris). The cell that was taken down by French authorities just the other day was also plotting to attack a Parisian financial district and Charles de Gaulle Airport.

NOW, ONTO MY CENTRAL ARGUMENT

In addition to attacking Westerners on Western soil, ISIS also executes any Western civilian they can get their hands on (after demanding a ransom that they know won't be paid by governments that do not negotiate with listed terrorist organizations). Just recently, they also beheaded a Chinese national, which was strongly condemned by the PRC. They have thus managed to kill and indiscriminately slaughter citizens belonging to each of the five permanent UN Security Council members: the USA, the UK, France, the Russian Federation, and the People's Republic of China. Surely no one in their right mind would try to provoke so many great powers at once and goad them into action. Not even Hitler was this imprudent, and he decided to fight the Allies on two opposite fronts in Europe.

Well, as you might have guessed, ISIS is in fact not in their right mind. In fact, they're just as insane and fundamentally religious as you may have imagined.

Some of you here might know of ISIS's sleek magazine publication entitled Dabiq. Aside from their regular theatrics and grabbing hold of media attention in the West, this is one of their chief recruiting tools and it presents their core ideology, brutality, and aims in unabashed form (and in many languages too, including impeccable English and full in-depth geopolitical and economic articles written by their hostage/journalist/pitiful British slave John Cantlie). ISIS doesn't just use this magazine to desperately call for militants and those with technical expertise like doctors and engineers to flock to their caliphate as a "Hijrah" duty (even while showing gruesome aftermaths of martyrs killed for their cause), and appeal to their radical leanings by denouncing apostate Muslims (especially those "safiwa" and "rafida" Shia heretics in Iran and Lebanon, who they put into the same infidel camp as Russia and the US). It also occasionally reminds the readers about the reason why the magazine is entitled Dabiq in the first place. It has everything to do with traditional Islamic eschatology, as mined from the Hadith (the collection of alleged sayings of Muhammad outside of the Quran), and how Armageddon and Judgment Day will play out in the future.

In Arabic this is Yawm ad-Dīn (the Day of Judgment), and it is taken very seriously by ISIS, judging not only by their words but also by their (logic-defying) deeds. To make a long story short, ISIS (perhaps excluding the more secular-minded ex-Baathist party and military top-brass of Iraq who joined their cause in the summer of 2014) wants the West and NATO to invade Syria, because it will fulfill a prophecy outlined by Abu Hurayrah, companion to Muhammad, who alleged that Muhammad revealed that the Eastern Romans (update that to NATO for modern times) will march on Dabiq, Syria with all the greatest soldiers of the age and engage in battle with the true, non-Apostate Musims of the caliphate from Medina, right before the Final Hour of mankind. Many Muslims will die, yet in the end they will reign victorious, or so the prophecy goes. This is actually part of a set of signs of the impending Apocalypse, according to the prophecy, including the return of Jesus Christ (or "Isa" in Arabic) to Earth as a Muslim who will lead the Islamic world for a time against the unbelievers. Eventually the mythological villains of Gog and Magog (sometimes embodied by full nations, other times as creatures and devils) will appear and devastate the Earth, which will be countered by Allah's use of nature. Gog and Magog feature quite prominantly in Christian prophecies regarding the end times, which state that they will gather all the four corners of the Earth to do battle against Jesus Christ, his Saints, and faithful followers just before the Final Hour. In the Sunni Islamic version, of course, all the Muslims will be eventually carried to heaven and enter paradise while all the apostates and infidels will suffer and burn for eternity.

So, with all of this in mind, ISIS, controlling a territory merely the size of an average European country or state in the US, is poking Russian bears, threatening to attack the White House in Washington D.C., and doing what appears to be entirely suicidal moves by anyone's standards. Yet, if viewed through the lens of faith alone and its most devout and pious members who give full credence to Islamic eschatology and doomsday prophecies, such irrational behavior suddenly becomes understandable. Was it not the Reformation Protestant leader Martin Luther who said that faith must trample under foot all reason, sense and understanding? Well, that appears to be what ISIS is doing in their own Sunni Salafi fashion. Their greatest claim to legitimacy and most frequently stated selling point to radical Wahhabist Sunnis in the Levant and indeed around the world who might be sitting on the fence in regards to supporting them or joining them is perhaps their death struggle with Shiite Iran and Hezbollah of Lebanon (plus, of course, Shiite-dominated Baghdad). Yet ranking just second to that is their deliberately chosen rivalry with the West. I hate to prophesize here, but allow me to make my own prophecy: if the Western powers evacuated every soldier and civilian from Arab lands, especially Saudi Arabia, ISIS would still attack the West. Attacking the West is not only their greatest recruitment tool aside from attacking Iran, it's also a strategy to pull Western powers back into the Middle East following America's withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq, plus its tepid response to Syria. Just like al-Qaeda, ISIS wants us to drain our treasure and resources, but they want more than that; they desire as faithful Muslims of the caliphate to bring about the doomsday prophecy in the alleged sayings of Muhammad. These are people willing not only to blow themselves up as suicide bombers to acheive that cosmological goal, but also to convince every major power on Earth to attack them out of vengeance.

I say we give them what they want. Well, not entirely. My suggestion would be for NATO to occupy the otherwise strategically invaluable and inconsequential town of Dabiq, Syria and stay there a good long while before returning it to the jurisdiction of the secular Syrian government. And while we're occupied there, hoist high the flags of all the members of NATO plus the UN just for the giggles. And sit there for ages as the ISIS fanboys view the Islamic State's inability to meet the "Crusaders" in the battle they so desperately want. Then watch as the militants stop pouring in to ISIS-held territories, as their men begin to abandon their posts, as their ranks start to thin and everyone begins to wonder if ISIS is the true Caliphate, and if the end times are perhaps much further off than they had guessed.

What do you guys think we should do?