Leon Panetta & other high ranking brass in the US military have predicted that it will take about 30 years to achieve victory over Muslim radical groups. Daesh may well suffer periodic severe setbacks but it will likely persist at lower levels of malfeasance, switching from battlegrounds to guerilla in the Middle-East &/or more likely to the easier "spectacular" massacres in foreign countries to maintain its image of an invincible force in the eyes of the Arabs. Given the kind of general hostility towards the West in the Muslim world of uneducated & sectarian masses, the terrorist group religious & political propaganda will be able for a long time to recruit new candidates for "martyrdom". A few opinion surveys in 2014 or 2015 have shown that a large percentage of Muslims believe in Daesh , Al Qaeda, etc. The support Shia Iran, Syria & Hezbollah are receiving from Russia with the condoning of the US is an other factor favoring the persistence of Sunni radicals intent on fighting against the hegemonic ambitions of the "heretic" ayatollahs as well as against the "crusaders".

The problem is, that's all temporary. What after? Syrian army is weak now, but will surely start rearming itself after the war. Hezbollah have gained a lot of combat experience. World will lift sanctions to Iran starting from today... So it's seems that there's a good times ahead for shia axis Iran-Assad-Hezbollah. An axis sworn to destroy jewish state. My opinion is that Israel have made a huge mistake in syrian civil war by standing aside. Toppling Assad would mean an end for Hezbollah as well. Between a crazy enemy (rebels) and smart enemy (Hezbollah, Assad, Iran) Israel should always chooze the crazy one.

ISIS have lost a few battles and have retreated from some areas but that doesn't mean they can't bounce back. How many times did the coalition forces have the Taliban on the retreat in Afghanistan and they just kept coming back so they should not be written off. Assad is the unknown quantity, his army is wearing down but every year is predicted as his last one but he still survives, he also has Putin now rearming him. What we should worry about is what happens after Assad all those rebel groups will turn their guns on each other and there will be a fight for power not aa nice easy transition of power or the democracy Obama fantasises about. The knife intifada is slowing but its far from over and all it takes is more incitement from Abbas & others tossup things up again so lets not think this is not an extensional threat so its ok. In some ways its worse because its random killing of people inside Israel and there is not much the police can do because they cant be everywhere at once, at least if Iran gets a nuke they are not going to use it on day 1 and we have defenses this knife intifada is not easy to handle. All we can do is hope 2016 is a good one.

There is no evidence for ISIS' existence as a group or any evil deeds or acts performed by the supposed group.

Lean & on the money. Good writing, Friedman.

Oh yeah, peace.