Tsk, how dare anyone call ISIS "backwards", that's so racist and ethnocentric. Decapitations, crucifixions and ethnic cleansing are just a part of their culture, and only present there because of western imperialist oppression. /s
Seriously though, Dharma pretending ISIS are some sort of freedom fighters that are a culmination of an anti-capitalist, anti-western sentiment is just his own political wishful thinking. Yeah, they're real tired of dictatorships. I'm sure what they want in replacement will be an anarchist democratic wonderland, you naive f**k. It won't be an extremely oppresive feudal religious hierarchy at all.
The conflict is simple and boils down to identity politics, namely religion and ethnicity. Take those two factors into account and everything is crystal clear. It's a proxy war for regional supremacy between sunni and shia, with the kurdish wild card (no one involved, especially Turkey and Iran, want an independant kurdish state on their borders and conveniently right next to their sizeable separitist kurdish minorities). Ironically ethnocentric ignorants will try to somehow make it all about them and their evil, evil country, driven by their distorted white man's burden and gross narcissism, but the roots of this conflict predate the existence of the Great Shaytan by centuries.
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