A Different Take On ISIS and Iraq

Retired General Thomas McInerney is a frequent guest on Fox News shows these days. The Fox team likes to hear his opinions on the conflict in Iraq with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and its ongoing conquest of Iraq and parts of Syria.

General McInerney has said from the beginning that we should stay out of it. I wasn't sure I agreed with him until last night. I was in favor of the US maybe targeting ISIS with air strikes because of the atrocities they are committing daily against anyone who isn't on their side. 

I'm not alone in those feelings. There are many who feel the same way. But General McInerney changed my mind last night when he spoke of what ISIS is currently doing.

ISIS has begun destroying Shia mosques, churches and shrines - anything that does not apply to their radical Sunni beliefs. 

According to Yvonne Haddad, a professor at Georgetown University who specializes in the history of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations, “They (ISIS) see themselves as the last defenders of Islamic civilization and want to eradicate anything that they see as the enemy of Islam, and any Muslim they perceive as compromising with the West.”

ISIS is now in the process of eradicating Shias, Christians and any other people who do not hold their radical beliefs. They have shot and/or beheaded thousands in the last few weeks. And it seems now they have set their sights on taking over Mecca, the most holy Islamic site in the world.

"By Allah's leave our sheikh al-Baghdadi led Mecca stone for those who worship (pilgrims) will kill you and God ' I will tear down the Ka'ba, the place of worship,” an alleged ISIS militant said on the social media site Twitter.

Mecca is a city in the Hejaz and the capital of Makkah Province in Saudi Arabia and the birthplace of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It is home to Islam's most sacred mosque, Al-Masjid al-Haram, and its famed Kaaba, a cube-shaped, granite and marble building adorned with Koranic inscriptions and priceless relics like the golden rain spout, a purported footprint of Abraham and the black cornerstone believed to have been placed by Muhammad.

General McInerney said last night that he believes if ISIS continues to destroy Shia mosques, shrines and relics and attempts to make good on their threat against Mecca the Islamic community as a whole will rise up against the approximately 15,000 ISIS members. And I personally don't believe Saudi Arabia will allow ISIS to march into their country and take anything, particularly Mecca.

“Even in the region they don’t have support, despite their alleged thousands of fighters,” said Muhamad Ali, a religious studies professor at the University of California Riverside. "Other Sunni and Shia Muslim leaders do not voice any slight support for their anti-nationalist ideology and destructive techniques. A caliph has to be proclaimed by the entire Muslim world -- an impossibility today when the Muslim world is divided into nations and political orientations.”

The problem is that they are basically unopposed at the present time. These two Islamic factions have been fighting each other for 1400 years so given all information, waiting it out is definitely worthwhile right now. I do believe if ISIS continues to gain strength they will eventually be a threat to the entire region and to the rest of the world. They have intimidated the Iraqi army to the point that they (the Iraqis) have turned tail and run. Barbaric ruthlessness does have the power to intimidate. They are definitely a force to be reckoned with and must be watched carefully by all.