Are Islamic State Going To Start Another World War?

[Colmc54]

When Hitler took over the Nazi Party the world did nothing. When he took over Germany and started invading his neighbours it was already too late to avoid another global conflagration that cost millions of lives and led to the genesis of nuclear weapons.

To all intents and purposes the rest of the world is standing by and watching this cancer of the Human intellect gain ever more momentum.

At what point, assuming our leaders may have learned a thing or two about how History endlessly repeats itself, are the rest of the world going to wake up and go to war against them? The earlier they do the less lives will be lost. IMHO it needs to be really soon.

[mikey4444]

No.

[naomi24]

How far they will get before the rest of the world takes decisive action is anyone's guess, but they're not going to stop so ultimately the rest of the world will have to take decisive action.

[mushroom25]

how could decisive action be taken against islamic state, without implying support for the assad regime?

[naomi24]

Eventually we are going to have to decide which is the lesser of the two evils.

[Old_Geezer]

You ask if IS is going to start another world war, yet seem to be encouraging starting it. History tells us many different things from different times. One can always find an example to support what we wish to persuade folk of. For sure IS is a concern, but it is never easy to know when the best response to something is intervention, let alone military action. One has to watch how a situation progresses in order to get the best chance of picking the best course of action.

[Zacs-Master]

You can't go to war against such factions. They're not an army as such and don't have all their strength concentrated in one area which can be attacked. Chop off one head and another appears in a different place. You might want to read this:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9287832/defeat-isis-yes-we-can/

[Svejk]

^There's the rub. There is no united political will. Various factions/countries are giving them tacit support. We (UK) are still training/arming the 'good' Syrian rebels. Apart from diverting Assad's forces from dealing with IS, he knows, and his allies know, that all guns will be pointing his way if/when IS are dealt with.

[naomi24]

OG, I don’t think the OP is suggesting starting another world war, but that action be taken before IS spreads its tentacles further and worldwide conflict becomes inevitable.

[Zacs-Master]

Naomi, how do you come to that conclusion when the OP has written;
At what point, [ ] are the rest of the world going to wake up and go to war against them?

[naomi24]

Zacs, point taken.

[Zacs-Master]

It is early N. Have another coffee ;-)

[retrocop]

Only last year when IS dominated this site someone suggested we "nuke them back to the stoneage" and it wasn't me guv honest.
That would have created a lot of innocent collateral damage and partly done the job for them. Not a smart suggestion
Some are worried now about IS buying a nuclear weapon from Pakistan and I have no doubt they have the money to purchase said weapon from said corrupt regime.
I doubt if IS have a suitable delivery system YET to deliver it. One must be concerned ,though,about the possibility of a suitcase size device entering via Lampedusa .

[naomi24]

True, Zacs. I read it that the OP wants action taken before the problem spreads even further. Off to pour another cup.

[sandyRoe]

After WW1 state borders in the Middle East were arbitrarily drawn up by the victorious powers. What we're seeing now is an attempt to redraw those boundaries.
That process must be agonising for people living in the region but is really of little concern to us.

[mushroom25]

//I doubt if IS have a suitable delivery system YET to deliver it.//

what's wrong with the "taliban tank", the toyota hilux, helpfully left to many organisations with delusions of power by a fleeing UN?

[Zacs-Master]

Sandy, just like the border drawn up between N &S Ireland then? That is of little consequence to is too, isn't it? Your statement is patently ignorant of the implications for the rest of the world.

[retrocop]

mushroom
I was referring to ICBM's. I doubt if a scud has the range to hit us from Syria or Iraq.Could easily reach us though if launched from Paris for instance. :-)

[HRESPANA]

If (or perhaps "when") they start on Israel or a western country, we will finally declare war on radical Islam just as we declared war on the Nazis. Not all Germans were Nazis and I doubt that all Muslims are radicals but this would mean stringent measures to restrict all. I do not believe ISIS will go away.

[mikey4444]

The difficulty with fighting an idea or a movement is that it normally doesn't have a nice identifiable centre, that we can drop bombs on. We should stop trying to fight like we did in 1939-1945.

How are we going to defeat an idea ? Militant Islam is highly popular in certain circles. Its not going to go away.

I argued that we should have one into Syria and helped the rebels, but it looks as if that would have back-fired if we had done so. Even then, we might have been left with the so-called legitimate ruler on Syria in place, the truly awful and bloodthirsty tyrant Assad...would he really be better than the rebels ?

I don't have any nice simple answers on how to proceed and we should be beware of people that say they have...it just isn't that simple.

[Kromovaracun]

When Hitler took over his party, it was a ragtag tiny collection of people who virtually nobody was paying any attention to (one of many in Germany at the time).

History is not repeating itself. We really need to stop looking at the 1930s as our guiding star for international relations. 2015 is not 1939, nor does it resemble 1939 in anything other than the most crude and superficial ways.

Now, if we were to intervene against IS, what would happen?

It would be defeated. Probably quite easily. Then, eventually, we would go home. And then what?

After we left, everyone would know that its former territory in Iraq was protected by a military force which fled from a group which at the time did not number more than a few thousand.

I know that intervening would make some of us feel a bit better in the short run, but in my opinion it would achieve absolutely nothing and we would be back to square one within a couple of years. "The world" (by which you effectively mean us and the USA) cannot solve this problem. At least not by simply invading.

The other alternative, of course, would be to occupy the area again and develop it in a positive direction. This is what we tried to do after 2003, and the public quickly disowned it within a few years. I think it's pretty likely that the same thing would happen if we tried it again now.

I know this won't be popular, but there isn't much we can do. The situation in the middle east is going to get a lot worse over the next decade or so, and we blew our chance to do anything about it years ago. We're in for a less secure, less stable world for a few years at least.