Murder, kidnappings, genocide, executions, rape, terrorism, beheadings, intolerance. These actions are seen everyday on the news because of the Islamic State. ISIS has grown immensely since it originated around 2006 as a small insurgent group fighting U.S. forces in Iraq. It did not gain much power until 2009 when the civil war in Syria broke out. While the Syrian government and rebels fought, ISIS also began to fill the power vacuum created by the war in Syria and was able to expand without much interference from U.S. forces. Fast forward to the last couple of years and you can see that the Islamic State has gained a great amount of territory in Syria and even a great portion of northern and western Iraq. They have pushed the Iraqi military to the edge of collapse and have even armed themselves with millions of dollars in U.S. equipment given to the Iraqi army. With a military force that is estimated to be between 30,000 and 100,000, they are no small problem. In addition to these factors, ISIS is the most well-funded terrorist organization in the world, bringing in $3 million to $4 million a day from wealthy donors, human trafficking, kidnappings, looting, taxes, and selling stolen oil.

Fortunately for everyone else, ISIS does not have many friends. In addition to the U.S. and its European Allies, ISIS is on the naughty list of many other groups and nations such as Qatar, Iran, the Syrian government and rebels, Kurdistan, Saudi Arabia, as well as many others. Even Al Qaeda doesn't like them. If they are hated by everyone, why are they still such a big problem? Most of the problem pertains to the ground war. While the U.S. and other countries are bombing ISIS from the air, the only people who are fighting them on the ground are the Kurds, the fragile Iraqi military, and whatever is left of the government and rebels in Syria. These forces are fairly unimpressive and usually lose more ground than they gain. ISIS is gaining more followers every day where these other groups are not, so their numbers are not being replenished. The U.S. and other countries are mostly refusing to send in ground troops to combat ISIS as they do not want to lose any men. This is a very big problem for the U.S., which has just recently left Iraq with a large body count. One other country that has the manpower and position to make a difference is Turkey. While ISIS has already established Turkey as one of its enemies, Turkey is trying its hardest not to get involved with fighting ISIS. They are only keeping their borders secure, not committing to stopping the problem.

So what is in store for ISIS in the future? Most likely, they will not achieve their long term goals of a large scale Islamic Caliphate that encompasses the entirety of the Middle East. They have too much opposition to achieve that. In addition to this, ISIS is a Sunni-only group and Muslims are too divided between Shias and Sunnis to come together under one government. For the next few years or so the Islamic State will continue to run and gain some more ground in Iraq and Syria. The war will continue against them but only with ground forces that are currently in the area, such as the Kurds and the Iraqi government. Airstrikes alone from the U.S. will not push back the group from Iraq, and we are not willing to commit a sizable ground force to do so either. Essentially, the bloody war being fought currently will continue on for several years, and Iraq and Syria will not see peace in the foreseeable future. In the long term, ISIS will fall. It has too many enemies to succeed. Eventually ISIS will provoke more action from European nations through local terrorist attacks. Additional ground troops will eventually be sent to the area but only as a last resort. No country at the moment is going to willingly send troops to the fight ISIS, so their domain of terror still has a few years left in it. The killings and atrocities will continue until stronger nations put their collective foot down. More importantly, some of these nations need to be Middle Eastern because the area is tired of Western intervention. Hopefully, nations who have the power to stop ISIS will do so and bring peace to an area that desperately needs it.

If you do not know much about ISIS please feel free to google "ISIS" and click the Images tab. This will thoroughly demonstrate the need to remove ISIS. Please note that most pictures are too graphic to include in this article.