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[XXSockXX]

Yeah, the Kurds seems about the only nice people left in the area. Do you know which Kurdish faction is being funded? Iraqi Kurdistan I guess?

Yes, Iraqi Kurdistan. Germany obviously won't fund PKK, which is considered an illegal terrorist organisation here, or their Syrian allies YPG. There was/is some controversy over that, because Yezidi refugees from the Sinjar region claim that the Peshmerga left them alone while PKK/YPG fighters cleared a corridor for them to flee through Syria. Seems that the Peshmerga are mostly interested in defending their own lands, so this shipment isn't going to do much to stop ISIS elsewhere. It's unclear if they can even handle the equipment properly. And since the US could have easily done it themselves, I think it is mostly a symbolic contribution on the German part, just like the German contingent in Afghanistan as part of the NATO troops there.

Even more reason to stop fucking with ISIS then, wouldn't you say?

With the genocidal rampage ISIS is on currently we won't have much choice but to fuck with them. I guess currently everyone else is somewhat of a lesser evil. That might change if ISIS should get defeated, but that is how these clusterfucks always go...

[RedKing]

The other option is to let it form and then watch as it engages Iran in a fight to the death. Either way, we wind up with one threat neutralized and the other severely weakened. (yay realpolitik)

Iran wasn't a threat in the first place until we fucked around with them.

Even more reason to stop fucking with ISIS then, wouldn't you say?

What if they somehow manage to form a temporarily alliance "against the US" as their common enemy?

Divide and conquer with diplomacy and espionage. Turn them against each other. Shit, we used to be REAL good at that.

[Sergarr]

Meanwhile

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/02/world/meast/isis-american-journalist-sotloff/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Another US journalist has been executed. I critically failed at reading comprehension.

[RedKing]

Meanwhile

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/02/world/meast/isis-american-journalist-sotloff/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Another US journalist has been executed.

Umm...

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/02/world/meast/isis-american-journalist-sotloff/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

They just beheaded the second journalist and are still trying to intimidate the US. The only thing it'll do is make people want to eradicate ISIS even harder.

[Sergarr]

god dammit

[Leafsnail]

As a group whose primary goal is to kill all Shias everywhere I don't see how IS could ever work with Iran, a Shia theocracy.  It seems far more likely for Iran and the US to co-operate against IS.

[Sheb]

Maybe not work together, but kinda ignoring each other while focusing on the US could be done, similar to relations between Bashar El-Assad and ISIS. Although I'm not sure why ISIS would strike at the US while their goal is to set up a Islamic caliphate. We're not in team america:world police guys.

[Leafsnail]

Why would Iran want to "focus on the US" at this point though?  The US currently is not presenting any immediate threat to Iran's interests, while ISIS is (that is, they're threatening to topple a friendly Shia government and replace it with a deranged extremist Sunni state that wants them dead).

[smjjames]

Maybe not work together, but kinda ignoring each other while focusing on the US could be done, similar to relations between Bashar El-Assad and ISIS. Although I'm not sure why ISIS would strike at the US while their goal is to set up a Islamic caliphate. We're not in team america:world police guys.

Probably because we've meddled all over the place and it's really easy for them to paint the US as the bad guys?

Still though, we're talking about extreme religious extremists, not all of their actions are going to be fully rational and logical.

[Mr. Strange]

Hasn't Iran tried to ease the tensions for a while now? Any tolerance to "shia-killer" fanatics murdering westerners publicly isn't doing any good there, not to mention domestic issues it could cause if it went public...

[smjjames]

And now they're threatening to kill a british captive. Not sure if they actually think that it'll make Britain back off.

[nenjin]

It'd be nice if Muslims would lead during a crisis like this, instead of everyone turning to us where we inevitably please no one, foreign or domestic.

But the informed side of me knows that it's more complicated than that and any real involvement by Muslim  nations runs the risk of it becoming another holy war within Islam on a mass scale.

Still. Iraq is surrounded by how many Muslim countries? that should be even more horrified than we are at what's happening.

[smjjames]

Yeah, it would be nice if someone led the whole thing instead of the US having to each time, and we don't have a great record of success in the region.

I agree on the part about it would be nice if a muslim (and no, Obama is NOT muslim) led the whole thing against ISIS, but the problem is that the entire region is a stragetic power struggle, as it has been for millenia. Saudi Arabia could take up the lead, but they hate Iran and would rather let ISIS weaken Iran, Syria has it's own problems, Lebanon also has it's own problems and doesn't have the military to deal with ISIS, don't know much about Jordan, Egypt kind of has Lybia and Gaza to handle, Yemen, Oman and the UAE, don't know about those three. Quatar seems to have a good deal of diplomatic influence, however, from what I've heard, they have friendly relationships with many terror groups, so they might not be such a great one from a moral standpoint. Turkey could be a good choice. Iran of course, has it's own powerplays in the region.

Where's that comparison of the relationships between countries in the Mideast, some groups in the MidEast, and the US, and Israel? There really isn't a whole lot of unity to go around.

Also, isn't ISIS targeting all groups? Even Saudi Arabia is scared of them, so I don't see how having a muslim lead the whole thing would spark some kind of holy war if it's done right.

For outside the MidEast and North Africa region, perhaps Indonesia, but they're way too far removed from the politics of the region. Actually, that might be a good thing. OR.... maybe not, if they don't understand the, um, tiny details of how diplomacy flows in the whole region.

[smjjames]

I'm wondering if IS is TRYING to provoke the US at this point.

Possibly. Since having boots on the ground and directly fighting them would actually benefit them better.

When Election 2016 comes around, we'd better make DAMN SURE we don't elect some idiot/fool like Bush, be they democrat or republican.

Also, in 2004, I actually voted for Bush because I thought that since we were in a war, we should keep the same one atm, plus I wasn't as well informed as I am now. Of course though, the alternative then was Kerry, don't remember whether I liked him better over Bush or not, which would have been a factor.

[RedKing]

It'd be nice if Muslims would lead during a crisis like this, instead of everyone turning to us where we inevitably please no one, foreign or domestic.

But the informed side of me knows that it's more complicated than that and any real involvement by Muslim  nations runs the risk of it becoming another holy war within Islam on a mass scale.

Still. Iraq is surrounded by how many Muslim countries? that should be even more horrified than we are at what's happening.

Yeah, but that's sort of like saying "Well, this whole Protestant vs. Catholic thing is getting ugly, so we'd better let somebody else help settle it. Maybe the Ottomans. Otherwise things could messy on a large scale."

If Islam needs to have an internal holy war to settle this (and hopefully move beyond into a Muslim Enlightenment, where newer, younger theologians synthesize Quranic verse and hadiths with modern thinking) then it might be best to just get it over with it. And it needs to be an internal thing, for legitimacy of the winning side when the dust settles.