Originally ISIS was welcomed with open arms into the Sunni areas in Iraq and Syria, but they have left a legacy of brutality and misery, and are unlikely to see the welcome mat rolled out for them again.

Since Kobane the alliance and Russian air power has destroyed the financial base of ISIS, killed thousands of its fighters, and destroyed its heavy weapons, leaving it weakened and easily beaten by their ragtag opponents. ISIS in Mosul and Fallujah are encircled and retreating to an ever smaller domain in the centre, and Raqqa the capital is being isolated and softened up, losing its leaders every couple of weeks to drones. And even in Libya ISIS is on the run. The original flood of overseas fighters has dried up, and the ones left are killing each other in fits of paranoia. The jig is up and they know it, and can expect no mercy from their captors, or from those they previously brutalised.

So where to now? We can only hope that the populations in the Middle East has learnt the horrific lessons of Islamic extremism and sectarianism and will move towards integration and democracy.

pure Islam will continue to grow whether by Hamas, Isis or in America.

Shadow, I think you misunderstand the problem in the first place. Militant Islam really came to rise and spread due to the Saudis pumping billions of petrodollars into their promotion around the world of the Wahabi version, even under our very noses, in their religious text books. This due to the deal that the Saud princes did with the Wahabs, the Sauds would be in charge of oil and business, the Wababs in charge of religion. That is how Saudi Arabia came to be in the first place.

So the Taliban, Al Queda, ISIS, and other militant forms of Islam, are all about the militant form of the ideology, as preached by Sayd Qutb and similar. That will not just go away and turn into democracy. It will simply go quiet and then spring up somewhere else. The Saudis should be held to account for the textbooks which they are still promoting around the world. Wahabi Islam and Sunni Islam are not the same.

Yabby,

I don't disagree with you on the origins of Islamic fundamentalism. However, Wahhabism is an offshoot of the Sunni sect (Saudi is about 85% Sunni), and I also agree that the defeat of ISIS is not the end.

However, the two lessons that Sunnis should have learnt are:

1) There is no fundamentalist paradise,
2) Jihadis are easily beaten.

Shadow, Wahabism is a much more hate preaching, militant version of Sunni intrepretations. Their fundamental belief is not so far off what ISIS believe, which is the problem. The Sauds are happy to bankroll all this, from building of mosques around the world, to financing teachers and reading material to promote the Wahab teachings, as it keeps them in charge of the Saudi oil wells, which is their piggy bank. Tribal thinking still dominates in places like Saudi Arabia.

This ideology does indeed keep spreading, even if the West puts out a few fires here and there. Think Yemen, Libya, Taliban controlled areas of both Afghanistan and Pakistan, various countries in Africa, it is a long list. Ideology is in peoples minds, not in country borders. Saudi petrodollars continue to fund that and we in the West refuse to challenge them because of oil. So defeat ISIS, your problem is not going to go away, simply surface else where under new leaders.

End of the Islamic State? Pshaw! Where did that nonsense come from? It should have been wiped out long ago, but the West has been too yellow to do the job. It will be around for many more years, if the West doesn't get back to its values and fight for what it used to believe.

For goodness sake address the real problem. I arrived in Australia in 1974 and the ABC was virulently anti-religious, who can forget the millionth "Stop it or you will go blind" pope sketch? Now Islam, the religion of peace, is flavour of the month. I still cannot fathom it out.
Whilst we stand for the vile ABC and the many politicians being monstered by the cry of Islamaphobia we have no chance.
Were those one hundred plus in the Gay nightclub islamaphobic? If they were not they should be now.
We should stop all further immigration by muslims and advise the ones here they need to re-adjust their religion or find somewhere else to live.

ttbn,

Personally I believe that the west calibrated its attacks against ISIS close to ideally. Its attacks from the air have killed nearly all of ISIS's 30 000 extremists leaving the Iraqi and Syrian forces to mop up the last of humanity's detritus without feeling beholden to the west.

I wish it were as simple as just wiping out ISIS.
They have started the invasion of Europe and elsewhere and this time
they know it cannot be done with conventional armies.
Hence the use of their women's wombs as stated by Gaddafi & others.
Hopefully the budgetary problems of Saudi Arabia will slow down their
financing of terrorism. Unfortunately the rising price may fix that.
There have been some 800 battles by Islam against "Rome" as they call it since 700 AD.
What makes anyone think it will stop now ?

Many people arn't aware of just how powerful the Muslim armies once were. There was a time when Europeans could not live too close to the coast along the Mediterranean Sea, for fear of being taken as a slave to power their boats. It was really only Western technology which turned things around.

Islam is not just a religion, but a complete political system. The first thing that goes is free speech. Now I am sure that there are many people in Islamic countries who don't believe a word of their religion, but they are not at liberty to say so, for fear of being arrested for blasphemy. So no real free speech and questioning of their religion can take place in any country where Muslims dominate.

Just watched apologist for Islam on the Drum. Makes you vomit and wonder how we could ever be so dumb as to fund such propaganda. The ABC is a disgrace. It would not surprised me if they blamed Abbott for the slaughter. I will leave that the likes of Poirot to twist the warped narrative.

the muslims aleady hold the balance of power to some extent in the parliament because
they are a big part of the voter base that keep the Greens in power in Melbourne

Unless that muslim religion modernizes in European countries Europe is in for a Rocky
future

They say if we dont learn from history we are doomed to repeat it.
The muslims (The Once Ottomon Empire) at one point nearly wiped out every
European and Christian across the Middle East and Europe.

only as far back as the1850's they attacked and killed Christian populations in Aleppo and Damascus, it really isnt about religion, it is the old ethnic cleansing thing,done by Arabs, to wipe out European populations.

These terrorist attacks on British,European,American and Australian soil are really motivated by racial hatred, pure and simple. There's never anything holy about human behaviour, the religion allows them to excuse murder whilst killing for all too human reasons
They dont teach us much about the Ottomon Empire in Western schools, so how
can we learn from that history.
We hear about the holacaust ,ad nauseum, but never a historical lesson on the dangers of the Fascist, muslim Ottomon Empire ,Western schools really need to pick up their game.

Cherful, Muslims make up only 2.2% of the Australian population.
How, exactly, could they be in any position of power for any party at all, with such few numbers?
You are being hysterical....

http://www.smh.com.au/world/hillary-clinton-links-saudi-arabia-to-terrorism-and-the-world-suddenly-changes-20160614-gpikum.html

Finally somebody in power is coming clean about the Saudi problem and their promotion of radical Islam around the world.

Silly Suzie said;
Cherful, Muslims make up only 2.2% of the Australian population.
How, exactly, could they be in any position of power for any party at
all, with such few numbers?
You are being hysterical....

Well a few years back France only had 2.2% moslems in their population.
Now France is on the brink of civil uprisings if not outright civil war.

I surprised some younger (16 to 30) people when I told them that the
moslem army was defeated at the gates of Vienna with the help of
the Polish army.

They just do not know history, to say nothing of the occupation of Spain.

The soviet Union became Communist with 5% of the population. It is the political activist that control power, not a percentage of the population.

Well it now appears that Al Baghdadi, leader of ISIS has been taken out by a drone, along with the past 6 leaders of Raqqa this year.

It is only a matter of time before Mosul, Fallujah, and Raqqa fall and the term Islamic state will be redundant.

Have the Americans confirmed that ? Last I heard they were doubtful.

It is always difficult to confirm, but it appears that ISIS has announced his death.

ISIS will be defeated, probably in the next two or three years. The notion of an Islamic State will eventually be defeated in Libya, Somalia, Nigeria and - perhaps over a longer time period - in Afghanistan. And Islamo-fascism will be danger to the rest of the world throughout this century.

Islamo-fascism isn't just the outcome of the machinations of small groups of people independent of Islam - it is an inevitable and constant outgrowth of major fundamentalist branches of Islam, the most well-known being Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia. Islamo-fascism springs from Islam, and will keep doing so until Islam has been thoroughly reformed.

Religions throw up ideologies to cope with the actual world that followers have to live in. Those ideologies don't just go away if a particular sect is defeated in battles, or even in debate. The believers will still believe, and may even increase their fervour, tighten their rules and paranoia about the machinations of the wicked outside world. They will, some day, try again. And again.

Fundamentalist Christians work that way. The extreme Right works that way (some believe that Hitler is still alive, after all). And for sure, many of the various philosophies on the Left, Trotskyism and Gramscianism for example, work that way. Whether the extreme Right or the Left are effectively practising religions, is not for me to say. The point is that 'true-believers' don't give up after a few battles. Their minds haven't been changed - they may have become more paranoid, but they will stick with their fundamentalist beliefs until death.

So it is with many in Islam, that body of 1.4 billion people. As with nominal Christians or Hindus, many Muslims (I hope) wear their beliefs fairly casually, perhaps not praying five times each day, perhaps not beating their wives, perhaps not having four wives on the side, perhaps not ever contemplating selling off their twelve-year-old daughters or having them mutilated. But who knows, perhaps 0.1-1.0 % do. 1.4-14 million. 1.4 to 14 million, constantly passing their twisted beliefs onto their children.

It's going to be a long century.

Joe

LM,

I don't believe Islamic State will survive 2016.

When ISIS took Raqqa, Fallujah and Mosul they captured oil fields thousands of vehicles, along with many $m, tanks armoured cars artillery etc, and were getting 1000s of volunteers. Given the state of the Iraqi army, there was no way to retake these cities. The allied strategy was to use air power to wipe out their heavy weapons, any military installations, their soldiers and their cash flow.

As it stands, ISIS has lost nearly all its heavy weapons, tanks and armoured cars, its cash flow has all but stopped, its soldiers pay has evaporated, most of its experienced leaders and fighters have been killed, and shortly its vital link to Turkey for supplies will be cut off.

Every time it tries to fight back, its soldiers are drawn into the open where the drones and aircraft pick them off. Being surrounded there will be no escape, and hopefully ISIS will shortly be a bad memory.

HI SM,

Yes, very likely, although I think the recapture of Mosul will take much longer and be dreadfully costly in human lives.

But until Islam is reformed, fascist groups like ISIS will keep springing up. How on earth Islam can be reformed in countries where there is no strong impulse for reform, is hardly going to happen in the near future. Other groups will rise up, chucking gays off tall buildings, beating wives, mutilating children, stoning women for looking sideways, and imams will prattle in their half-witted way about a 'religion of peace' while they advocate all manner of vile practices.

Islamo-fascism, perhaps in worse and worse forms (if possible), will outlive both of us, SM, and probably our grandchildren as well.

Cheers,

Joe

ISIS may die but the death of militant Islam will be much exaggerated.
They have been making a bloody nuisance of themselves for 1400 years
and are not likely to stop any time soon.
Allah via Mohammed has forbidden any changes to the Koran.
That is punishable by death.
There are a couple of organisations that are trying to update Islam
but I think they are pretty small movements.

Mosul will almost certainly be a blood bath as it will be their last
and biggest holding.
My prediction is that there will be a civil war in France spilling
over into Belgium, Holland and Germany. It will get to the stage where
the only way to remove them from a city like Marseilles will be with
tactical nuclear weapons.
That will be the solution once a city like that becomes 100% muslim.
I just do not see the Germans submitting to Islam. It would probably
escalate into nuclear attacks on the middle eastern countries that
would be supporting the moslem insurrection.

Australia needs to take note of what is happening in Europe.
There have been attacks on British citizens in their cars at Calais
as they are making their way back to the UK. "F;'; the UK" they shout
as they besiege the cars and trucks throwing rocks at them.
The port has been closed although the cars & trucks are trapped.

I see no solution to this problem even if they ban cousin marriages
in the next 500 years.