Dear ISIS:
Congratulations. In a period of about three days
you’ve completely screwed yourself in every strategic
and ideological way imaginable. You’ve motivated
frenemies like Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin to
huddle together with no pretense and figure out how
to end you. You’ve forced Belgium to admit it has a
problem. You’ve motivated the Iraqis to start driving
you out of its borders. You’ve even made everyone
start liking France again. And your historically bad
week is just getting started.
The United States is now taking out your oil tankers
without regard for collateral damage; there goes
your only revenue. France is using its air force to
blow up your stronghold as the world cheers it on;
no one even knew France had an air force. Putin has
given up the identity of your funding sources, and
he’s now willing to give up his longstanding
protection of Assad in the process. But more than
merely motivating the militaries of the world to take
out every last trace of you, you’ve done something far
worse to yourself: you’ve lost your identity.
World leaders are no longer referring to you as “ISIS”
or the “Islamic State” because they’re not willing to let
you pretend that your terrorist agenda is in any way
connected to Islam. You don’t even get to keep your
acronym anymore. Now you’re being referred to as
Daesh, a name you hate. We even let the French pick
out the name, because they’ve more than earned it
this week. Muslim leaders and Muslim rank-and-file
around the world despise you, and you’re completely
out of allies.
You seem to want World War III. The trouble is, you
don’t have the muscle. You don’t even fully control a
single nation, and the world has taken out half your
assets in a matter of a few days. It’ll take far longer
than that to gradually wipe every trace of your
existence from the earth, but that’s now inevitable. So
thanks, ISIS or Daesh or whatever name we might
choose to call you against your will. In these divisive
times you’ve somehow managed to unite the entire
world. Congratulations on that.
