Reports are that American airstrikes are taking their toll. To be fair, a German journalist reports otherwise. But I suspect that the wheels are coming off the Islamic State bus.
Which raises a question. Why did they choose to antagonize the United States? They could have pushed against Baghdad while avoiding the Kurds; they could have released the American hostages. Sure, at some point their expansion would have come up against an American red line, but why start early? I can think of three hypotheses:
- Backwards induction. You will have to fight the United States at some point. It’s inevitable. And there is no guarantee that you will be stronger then.
- Overconfidence. If the U.S. invades, it will be bad, but you can suck them into a losing counterinsurgency. So they won’t invade. But if they do not invade, then they will not be able to disrupt your expansion. You can gain a great propaganda victory at little cost.
- Inevitability. The Islamic State needs to do crazy things in order to maintain its internal cohesion. It had no choice but to behead hostages and attack Kurdish villages.
I do not really buy (3). After all, victory builds morale. And European hostages were released for ransoms. It just seems inconsistent.
But there is a big difference between (1) and (2). Thoughts?
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