Frank's Musings

How do you defeat an enemy whose power does not rely on physical assets—land, enterprises, hardware, armies? They build their dominion by wielding propaganda and causing fear.   Their only weapon is terror.  However, their ideas cannot exist without living brains to hold them. Terrorism is self-defeating for an intellectual movement like the Islamic State.  It must also be for the Taliban

Is a state conceived and run by religious principals anything but a theocracy like iran or the Vatican?  Is that what Afghanistan has become?  The Taliban and ISIS are both Sunni Moslems, and both apparently have territorial ambitions.  Apparently, they are at odds in Afghanistan.  Their main difference seems to be that one is in control of the country and the other isn’t.  They are similar in their distrust of free elections as the arbiter of their political fortunes; each of them relies on terrorism to oppose an adversary’s incumbency. 

Question is: Will ISIS use terror against the Taliban in Afghanistan?   The suicide bomb attack on 26 August 2021 may not have had any objective beyond self assertion.  Its primary result is to emphasize the weakness of any defense against terrorism, whether by the Taliban or by its ersatz ally, the U.S.  The sooner America exits Afghanistan and leaves these two spiritual enemies to fight it out among themselves, the better.