in India and Pakistan things could get very dicey very quickly.

and domestic hate group activity is on the rise in India after Modi's election. Like they need any excuse. Right wing groups are gaining popularity on an anti-Islam platform in Europe.

Some of them think the world is long overdue for some "cleansing". ISIS/terrorism makes for a very convenient excuse

and he had limited reach even within his borders. He was contained.

ISIS has no borders or limits to their reach. This problem is way more difficult.

a massive problem.

BTW this is from Thom Hartman

# of suicide car bombings in Iraq prior to 2003 = 0

I have heard people call Assad a "moderate" "secular" dictator. Seriously, I have. The sad thing is, when compared to ISIS one can start to see why some people say those things.

It protected ethnic and religious minorities.

Here is a paragraph from Charles Glass in the New York Review of Books that sums it up:

"The only forces fighting with success against the Assad regime are Sunni Moslem holy warriors who are destroying all that was best in Syria: its mosaic of different sects and ethnic communities--including Druze, Christians, Turkmen, Yazidis, and Kurds, along with Alawites and Sunni Arabs--its heritage of ancient monuments, its ancient manuscripts and Sumerian tablets, its industrial and social infrastructure, and its tolerance of different social customs. 'The worst thing is not the violence,' the Armenian Orthodox primate of Syria told me. 'It is this new hatred.'"

But this has been developing for the last 1400 years ago, and really ramped up in March 1928 with the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Saddam and sons were dead men walking. Even if we had completely stayed away, they would have been deposed, with an inevitable civil war, within a few years. You are giving the neocons way too much credit if you think they created this problem all by themselves.

Yes, it would have been nice if we could be sitting back, preserving our national treasure, reputation, and lives, watching in peace while the Middle East devolved into the hell it has been headed towards for the last 14 centuries.

The house of Saud. Leading financiers of terror in the world.

If ever there was someone to drone.

Not sure what to make of this. Would there be a reason for ISIS to claim responsibility even if they weren't involved? Bangladesh is a long way from Iraq!

They're claiming responsibility to make themselves look like their "power" reaches that far. More than likely, it was a lone wolf (or wolves) who bought ISIS' hardline Islamic bullcrap and ran with it and blew shit up.