The Sunnis have the numbers.

But there is also rivalry between Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey (and others) on that side so that complicates things.

And then if more American and western troops turn up...

First one goes off in Tikrit.

This whole thing will end when the Saudi's and the other folks who have more money than sense,come to the reality that it is going to be a three state solution and the killing has to stop. It's seems the Wahabee faction is wagging the dog here. This is a regional situation that can only be settled by the players and we here in the U.S. and U.K.got to get the hell out. Remember what Collin Powell said,it's the Pottery Barn syndrome and,we sure as hell paid how many Trillion's and we still left the store in a total mess. Can you say clean up in aisle mid east. As long as the Neo Cons have control of our State Department,going to be awhile.

to major gorund troops, then a Sunni State would become de facto reality even if it was a pariah like North Korea.

But just like North Korea has a powerful sugar daddy in the shape of China, then so does IS with the nearby sunni countries.

until strongmen emerge who put the various factions under their iron boot, while loading up their Swiss bank accounts. Isn't that the norm for the Mideast?

Hopefully, we will stop wasting American lives on this eternal meat grinder.

and not have the time to invade Iran

Published on
Sunday, November 16, 2014
by
The Independent
War with Isis: Islamic Militants Have Army of 200,000, Claims Senior Kurdish Leader

Exclusive: CIA has hugely underestimated the number of jihadis, who now rule an area the size of Britain
by
Patrick Cockburn
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/11/16/war-isis-islamic-militants-have-army-200000-claims-senior-kurdish-leader

The Islamic State (Isis) has recruited an army hundreds of thousands strong, far larger than previous estimates by the CIA, according to a senior Kurdish leader. He said the ability of Isis to attack on many widely separated fronts in Iraq and Syria at the same time shows that the number of militant fighters is at least 200,000, seven or eight times bigger than foreign in intelligence estimates of up to 31,500 men.

Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of the Kurdish President Massoud Barzani said in an exclusive interview with The Independent on Sunday that "I am talking about hundreds of thousands of fighters because they are able to mobilise Arab young men in the territory they have taken."

He estimates that Isis rules a third of Iraq and a third of Syria with a population of between 10 and 12 million living in an area of 250,000 square kilometres, the same size as Great Britain. This gives the jihadis a large pool of potential recruits.

Proof that Isis has created a large field army at great speed is that it has been launching attacks against the Kurds in northern Iraq and the Iraqi army close to Baghdad at the same time as it is fighting in Syria. "They are fighting in Kobani," said Mr Hussein. "In Kurdistan last month they were attacking in seven different places as well as in Ramadi [capital of Anbar province west of Baghdad] and Jalawla [an Arab-Kurdish town close to Iranian border]. It is impossible to talk of 20,000 men or so."

The high figure for Isis's combat strength is important because it underlines how difficult it will be eliminate Isis even with US air strikes. In September, the CIA produced an estimate of Isis numbers which calculated that the movement had between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters. The underestimate of the size of the force that Isis can deploy may explain why the US and other foreign governments have been repeatedly caught by surprise over the past five months as IS inflicted successive defeats on the Iraqi army, Syrian army, Syrian rebels and Kurdish peshmerga.

Continued at....

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/11/16/war-isis-islamic-militants-have-army-200000-claims-senior-kurdish-leader

or we're going to need a humongous occupation force.

I say fend them off from further gains and let them crumble from the inside.

(If we can cut off their oil income that is. Someone must be profiting off that).

cautious...or USA Intelligence has really underestimated the numbers.

imho....Patrick got the interview...but is skeptical but knows this will go to Obama, Cameron, Abbot and others to get more money from all their taxpayers for more Arms & Equipment to support Kurds. IOWD's Kurdish leader is working in his OWN interests and Patrick put this out there straight.....to let his readers make up their own minds about whether the numbers are real or inflated.

I've not seen that any of the Cockburns are in favor of War in their writing....so I'm thinking this is put out there as "cautionary?" Will the Kurdish Leader get the ear of Obama, Cameron, Abbot and Nato by "inflating" the figures? (Any War Leader for their Self Interest would do this....I think)...so who knows.

I'm glad to read his reporting...and we can go to CNN to see how this plays out listening to Blitzer and the rest of the Think Tank Talking Heads along with the "MIC" paid for Generals who inform CNN/MSNBC of our "Strategic Global Interests."

Sigh.....

Because absent that, it's going to be part of the new Sunni state there.

Iran? Uncle Sugar? All are recipes for perpetual war and resistance.

That's like fubar squared.

And there is not, as near as I can see, anybody who can fix it, without sinking into the tarpit themselves, just as we already did.

Waste. Of. Lives.

It's a no-win situation everywhere in the Middle East.

That is how it is going to turn out. Just like Afghanistan. The last actual war we won was WW II. And that may be the last we ever win.

Has had a horrible foreign policy when it comes to the middle east. Hypocritical is the at-best description.

The idea that we will get things right this time around is like cleaning up a spill with a dirty mop.

Assad is one of the top 20 worst human rights violators of all-time but since ISIS is more of a direct threat it raises up the questions of who are you helping and whose help do you need. Then a reason why these direct threats appear is because we aid & ally horrible human rights violators that keep the country's wealth to themselves. Meanwhile during all this, they've shown a we have Isreal's back no matter what they do approach.

Things exploded when US started pouring weapons into the region. They want Egypt's help so they sent them some weapons & helicopters to sweeten the offer.