The Anti-Climactic Defeat of ISIS

The defeat of ISIS in Raqqa, Mosul, and other places, has been oddly anti-climactic for several reasons:

1. We in the West are not the ones who received the majority of suffering in the hands of these vicious brutes.

2. Media coverage had largely focused on the graphic coverage of the atrocities, much less on the battles that forced ISIS to cede territory inch by inch.

3. Domestic afffairs and trepidation over the Iran deal next steps takes up the majority of time and space in the US in particular.

4. The Defeat of ISIS in Syria and Iraq frees its prisoners, but does not affect matters in Libya and other parts of the world where iSIS still has a foothold or is actually growing; Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are making a comeback; evil state actors are taking advantage of the chaos to assert themselves in the region. Russia's and Iran's growing control of Syria is at least as troubling as ISIS presence there. Destroying ISIS was a matter of political will. Getting rid of state actors, which are building naval basis and gaining control and even fealty of entire populations would be much harder.

Furthermore, ISIS was much better at bad-boy PR. Practically everyone in the West perceived that group as an extreme threat and a top priority to destroy; large swaths of Westerners do not care about Syria at all, as long as Syria doesn't come to the US in the form of ISIS or refugees; and most people don't seem to care all that much that Russia is in control in Syria, even when people perceive it as antithetical to our own goals in the region. Furthermore, Turkey's encroachment into that space bothers very few people, because that whole region seems far away, and largely irrelevant except to the extent that it gives us more opportunity to waste money on inept operations.

5. I doubt much will change when Iran builds a base in Syria and completes the land corridor to Lebanon. Unless people perceive an immediate threat to their personal interests or unless the visuals are gruesome and shocking, most people will care a lot more about what's going on at home than in a country that is barely even a country anymore.

I find all of this disheartening because so many people sacrificed so much standing up to ISIS, while barely receiving any aid from the United States. Now that they've cleared up the mess that US has allowed to take root through incompetent policies and dithering by the Obama administration, they once again will be abandoned, because the US has been focused so single-mindedly on the defeat of ISIS, even though it was clear from the start that the state actors operating in the region are more powerful, more dangerous, better trained & equipped, and will be around for far longer. I think our problems are actually just getting started.