“All of these factors have put ISIS on the path to major losses, but that doesn't make the group's complete destruction inevitable, much less quick or painless. And there's no reason to believe that ISIS's defeat would solve the underlying problems that led to its rise, and will continue to plague Iraq and Syria for some time.
Even if Iraqi troops manage to topple ISIS in their country — which isn't guaranteed, and would take months or years of difficult fighting — the group's individual fighters could reform as yet another Sunni insurgency. ISIS, after all, is in many ways just one chapter in the Iraqi sectarian war that began in 2003, and it might not be the last one.
Syria is in even worse shape. Though ISIS is stalled there, it will likely have a safe haven for as long the Syrian civil war remains divided between several competing factions. Decisively addressing the factors that allowed ISIS's rise in Syria means ending both the civil war and the sectarianism that Bashar al-Assad cultivated since it began; those problems could be with us for generations.”
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