Turkey For Thanksgiving

I find ISIS fascinating. Fascinating in the way one find a freight train hitting an eighteen wheeler at a railroad crossing fascinating. It is loud. It is messy. It is bloody. And it is dangerous.

What makes them particularly dangerous is that they accept no humanitarian bounds to their efforts. They have a goal. They are smart and savvy. They have a program of leadership and training. They are situationally adaptable. They are also despicable.

In my little world they are ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The President, for some inexplicable reason, honors them by calling them ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. By doing this, the President is ceding to them control of Jordan and Israel. Our two strong allies.

They seem to think of themselves as the new Islamic Caliphate, destined to control the Middle East today and the world tomorrow. So let's look at where they are. They started grouping up on the road to Baghdad where they could have been destroyed with a minimum of effort. Since they were only the "JV team", why bother. 

So now they have split Iraq. They threaten Baghdad. They own the Syria Turkey border area. And their ranks are growing daily. So the varsity, Al Qaeda, is almost off the court and the "JV" increases in strength continuously.

So where will they go from here? They cannot go east. Iran is in the way and they are not yet ready to take on a true military power. But the old Caliphate, the one they wish to emulate, went west toward Europe. They actually ruled part of Gaul.

To accomplish this, the next step must be Turkey. Right now, Turkey should be gearing up to battle ISIS. Their country is full of ISIS sympathizers. Their southern border is weak and already subject to incursions. President Erdogan seems to be tone deaf to the danger.

Unless things change radically, ISIS will have Turkey for Thanksgiving. Probably not this year or next. When they are prepared. You can bet it is on their to-do list.