As long as the political, social, and economic environments in the Middle East and other regions remain fragile, and as long as the world contains "failed states," ISIS will remain hidden in the shadows—nurturing its ideology, awaiting favorable conditions, and standing ready to thrust itself back into the global spotlight whenever the right opportunity arises. Introduction: Although the "Islamic State" (ISIS), which once occupied massive territories in the Middle East, has collapsed, the group has not vanished along with its geographical borders. Instead, it is adapting from being a "city-seizing army" into a "covert underground network and a global franchise system." Meanwhile, the counter-terrorism operations led by the US and its allies are facing a critical strategic turning point, as shifting global politics and troop drawdowns fundamentally alter the equation of the war on terror. 1. The Mutation of ISIS: From Syria and Iraq to a Glo...

Latest update 22 September 2026 The future of Iraq hinges not on the question of whether the Kurds will secede, but rather on how Baghdad will adapt to coexist with a highly leveraged, semi-sovereign Kurdish region. The cascading security crises in Iraq—from the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime to the brutal rise of the Islamic State (ISIS)—are rarely just military failures. Rather, they are the glaring symptoms of a profound state-building illusion : a flawed, decades-long attempt to weld fiercely distinct ethnic and sectarian groups into a unified nation-state under artificial borders. Amidst this perpetual power vacuum, the "Kurdish variable" has emerged as the ultimate kingmaker. No longer relegated to the marginalized periphery, the Kurds are now the epicenter of Iraq's balance of power. When Sunni militant groups deliberately bypassed Kurdish territories during their blitzkrieg, and Kurdish leaders adopted a stance of strategic neutrality to extrac...

When ISIL swept across northern and western Iraq in mid-2014, global headlines framed it as a sudden, terrifying spike in transnational jihadism. In reality, it was the violent eruption of a deeply entrenched sectarian conflict—one sharing striking structural DNA with the Syrian tragedy. Revisiting this strategic landscape connects past turning points to Iraq’s present reality across four core dimensions: 1. Reframing the Narrative: From "Terror Threat" to Sunni Uprising Early coverage fixated almost exclusively on ISIL’s brutality. Yet the real catalyst behind the collapse of Iraq’s 100,000-strong military against a few thousand militants was the profound alienation of the Sunni population. Years of systemic marginalization under then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had pushed Sunni communities to the brink. In this light, ISIL was not the primary driver of the 2014 crisis, but rather a minority vanguard—roughly 7–10% of the anti-government forces—embedded within a ...