Like Niagara Falls, except with more death:
The honeymoon was a brief moment for love, away from the front lines of Syria's war. In the capital of the Islamic State group's self-proclaimed "caliphate," Syrian fighter Abu Bilal al-Homsi was united with his Tunisian bride for the first time after months chatting online. They married, then passed the days dining on grilled meats in Raqqa's restaurants, strolling along the Euphrates River and eating ice cream.
It was all made possible by the marriage bonus he received from the Islamic State group: $1,500 for him and his wife to get started on a new home, a family — and a honeymoon.
While you can go a long way with ideology, even an extremely evil one, the incentives of money and sex go much further. They act as the practical enticement that keeps movements going long after their energetic revolutionary phase has passed. Historically it hasn't been unusual for political movements to mix abstract ideals, in this case Islamic Fundamentalism, with more immediate self-interest. Surprisingly few people are willing to risk their necks only for an ideal.
More than the incredible creep factor of this story is its truly frightening aspect: These are monsters who think long range. While many Western elites question the value of the family, the leaders of ISIL understand perfectly well that for a society to last the strength of the family unit must be paramount. Barely established as a state they are already encouraging their "soldiers" to begin setting down roots.
These are not hit and run terrorists. Their intention is not to turn an enclave here and there into strongholds for their ideology. Their intention is to create a state that will encompass huge swaths of territory, large numbers of people and that will last for generations. A permanent platform to menace the State of Israel and the more moderate Arab countries that might, just possibly, continue to align themselves with the United States in the years ahead.
A parallel is often drawn between ISIL today and the Iranian Revolution more than three decades ago. Both regimes are fanatical, both dream of exporting their ideas globally and both pose a grave strategic threat to the region. There is, however, one very important difference. Whereas the Ayatollah Khomeini ruled over an ancient country with a deep and sophisticated culture, a culture which acted as a partial counterweight to his plans for social transformation, those who lead ISIL are not so impinged.
The founders of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have, at least to a much greater degree, a blank slate on which to act upon. They are creating a country, a society and a particular way of life that, if not destroyed now, might become so entrenched as to become an accepted fact of life for decades to come. Perhaps a better comparison, not in terms of ideology but in terms of political dynamics, is the early Soviet Union. In the years immediately following World War One the Western Allies missed their chance to smother communism in its cradle. They spent the next seventy years paying the price for their laxity.
Communists, however, are atheists. Death matters to them in a way it doesn't to religious fundamentalists, even ones who met their future spouses on social media and collect marriage bonuses from the government. The elements of deterrence and containment, so essential to winning the Cold War, may not apply in the same way to a regime intent on permanent global revolution and less bothered by the possibility of mere physical destruction. History, observed Marx, repeats itself first as tragedy and then as a farce. I doubt, however, that Barack Obama's successors will be laughing at ISIL.
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