VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris attacks

Re:VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris ... by sangnoir on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @08:53AM (#10580978)

I think the west needs to think long and hard about nation-building, not just fighting wars. They also need to have frank discussions with their nominal 'allies' in the ME who are driving a lot of the instability.

I have no doubts France has the capability to "seriously damage" Daesh, but what about Daesh's successor - which is likely to be just as bad (or worse)? Unfortunately, it seems like democracy (with it's 4-/5-year election cycles) is incompatible with long term planning. It's a mirror-image of the modern-day corporate world, with CxOs who damage the organisations they lead in the pursuit of short-term gains (and the resulting bonuses), except that election stakes are higher (keep/lose the job).

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Re:VLC contributor living in Aleppo writing about the Paris ... by cmdkeen on Tuesday November 17, 2015 @10:30AM (#10581642)

IS' successor would not be a territory holding aspirant state, it would have to be more like AQ - which we have already significantly degraded.

Now there is the interesting concept of the rise of the "lone wolf" or individual cells that don't really have central co-ordination. Would Western intervention in Syria cause more of them? Would their rise be countered by reducing or removing the ability of IS to generate attacks? There's a debate to be had.

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