{"id":4064,"date":"2015-02-24T09:59:17","date_gmt":"2015-02-24T14:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4064"},"modified":"2015-03-10T07:06:26","modified_gmt":"2015-03-10T11:06:26","slug":"what-isis-really-wants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4064","title":{"rendered":"What ISIS Really Wants"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"world

(photo: pixabay)<\/p><\/div>\n

Graeme Wood\u2019s penetrating article<\/a>, \u201cWhat ISIS Really Wants\u201d in the March 2015 Atlantic<\/em> tries to answer deceptively simple, yet strategically essential questions related to the intentions of ISIS\u2019s self-declared caliphate and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Although the organization\u2019s motives and aims apparently have eluded many Westerners, Wood says its propaganda machine, much of which operates online, makes those answers knowable.<\/p>\n

According to Wood, analysis of these resources reveals that ISIS \u201crejects peace as a matter of principle,\u201d hungers for genocide, is prevented by its religious views from adopting certain practices (even if they are key to its survival), and \u201cconsiders itself a harbinger of\u2014and headline player in\u2014the imminent end of the world.\u201d Understanding ISIS\u2019s beliefs about the path to the Day of Judgment\u2014its \u201cdystopian alternate reality\u201d\u2014can help the West predict its actions and develop more effective countermeasures, Wood says.<\/p>\n

Osama bin Laden operated a geographically diffuse network of relatively autonomous cells that had political aims, such as getting Westerners out of the Saudi Arabian peninsula. These cells operated more-or-less independently, in countries and territory they didn\u2019t control, and attempting to exercise central authority over these scattered cells would have created a high security risk for al-Qaeda leaders.<\/p>\n

In total contrast, ISIS has been able to seize and hold territory, thanks to the vacuum of authority in Syria and Iraq, and can therefore effectively implement a top-down, highly controlled structure. In fact, ISIS must continue to hang onto this territory in order to maintain the caliphate. But the key distinction between ISIS and al-Qaeda is that ISIS\u2019s aims are religious, not political, and underpin \u201cthe group\u2019s commitment to returning civilization to a seventh-century legal environment, and ultimately to bringing about the apocalypse,\u201d Wood says.<\/p>\n

We have diluted the meaning of this word with the snowpocalypse, the zombie apocalypse, and so on, but to ISIS, what they foresee is the original meaning: that is, the complete and final destruction of the world. With total annihilation looming, why not court death? What difference does one life–or a dozen, or a hundred–make?<\/p>\n

Westerners have a difficult time accepting a theological basis for the mass executions, beheadings, stonings, crucifixions, and immolations taking place in the Middle East. Yet, secular societies should not dismiss ISIS followers as merely a congregation of disaffected Muslims from around the world (and some few from the United States). It is a mistake, Wood believes, to see ISIS as anything other than a religious, end-of-days group, built on a coherent (if controversial) interpretation of Islam, whose members follow the exact letter of the law, as they understand it.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the politically correct \u201cIslam is a religion of peace\u201d mantra does not fit the brutal laws of war as laid out in the Koran, and which were developed during a violent era. Wood quotes Princeton scholar Bernard Haykel as saying that Islamic fighters \u201care smack in the middle of the medieval tradition and are bringing it wholesale into the present day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wood says that the rest of the world must recognize ISIS\u2019s \u201cintellectual genealogy\u201d if it is to react in ways \u201cthat will not strengthen it, but instead help it self-immolate in its own excessive zeal.\u201d<\/p>\n

This summary is based primarily on the introduction to this thought-provoking essay. Here is the link to the entirety.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Graeme Wood\u2019s penetrating article, \u201cWhat ISIS Really Wants\u201d in the March 2015 Atlantic tries to answer deceptively simple, yet strategically essential questions related to the intentions of ISIS\u2019s self-declared caliphate and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Although the organization\u2019s motives … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"What ISIS Really Wants - excellent essay from The Atlantic reviewed","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[261,268,35,104],"tags":[128,416,129],"class_list":["post-4064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-politics","category-real-life","category-the-morgue","tag-history","tag-real-life","tag-wars-and-conflicts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-13y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4074,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4064\/revisions\/4074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}