re: ISIS has claimed to have killed American Peter Kassig

Wow man. Your map represents areas where "ISIS has control or claims to have a presence," whereas my map shows places where ISIS actually has control. Are you really this dense? Or did you not even look at your map?

Nice try.

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So you do or do not know the grammatical rules governing commas? Maybe you're as stupid concerning grammar as you are about ISIS?

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Grammar error slap fight!

Step away from your laptops.

Riddle me this. What are the negatives of us just withdrawing all military from that region? Muslim on Muslim crime? Wildly fluctuating gas prices?

You've made not one point of substance this entire time. And now you're calling me an idiot / retard while you actually fail at defending your ignorance of grammar.

Let me break it down for you, very simply and slowly:

This is an independent clause:

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I probably know more about ISIS and the Kurds you could hope to learn in a lifetime

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This is also an independent clause:

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if we didn't have a bumbling idiot Kenyan president it would have never been a problem

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In order to connect two independent clauses, you need a semicolon or a conjunction.

Is this you bayou Sam?

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ISIS can't ultimately win. Their strength is almost all in foreign / mercenary fighters. All we need to do is kill a number of these and disrupt finances.

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Well, unfortunately the broader Middle Eastern opinion doesn't matter much with ISIS. The only thing that matters is the opinion of the Arab Sunnis that are living in the areas under their control, and I have seen little evidence that they are turning. You see no Sahwa, no internal revolt, no movement.

They do have a large foreign contingent, especially from other Arab countries and Chechnya, but it is still a predominantly Iraqi/Syrian enterprise. There is no way they'd have gotten as far as they have with a mostly foreign force - Iraqis are pretty xenophobic (one of the reasons they turned on Zarqawi's outfit). ISI was almost solely Iraqi, and they form the core of ISIS.

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The Sunni locals (esp. in Iraq) are for the most part putting up with ISIS as the lesser of two evils (the greater being the Shi'ite government / Iran). This is an alliance of convenience that can't last.

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I'm not sure this is the case - it varies by province, town, and tribe. The western tribes are much more amenable to the kind of extremism that is compatible with ISIS' ideology than are the some of the northern tribes.

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At the end of the day, ISIS has the same problem as the Assad regime--they just don't have the manpower for the long haul. This poll, for instance, shows their great unpopularity across Middle-eastern populations:

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Considering allied Sunni tribal militias and ideological confederates, they actually do have the numbers to keep control of their areas. They also have superior operational and strategic leadership and are much better equipped and motivated than almost all of their current foes.

They won't get much beyond their current expansion, but it's going to take one hell of an effort to dislodge them from their current area of influence. I thought there were some signs that the tide had turned a few months ago and then ISIS pushed damn near to BIAP; it seems they understand the value of refit, re-supply, and replenish. The current situation won't work - you'll either need an internal Sunni revolt (similar to the Sahwa in 2006 and 2007) or a serious and large sweep from a major military power (the United States, Turkey, etc). Nothing else will get the job done.