The New Normal in the Middle East
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By Marina Ottaway
July 20, 2016
AP Photo/Hadi Mizban
This piece was created in collaboration with the Woodrow Wilson Center, where Marina Ottaway is currently a Middle East Fellow. The views expressed are solely those of the author.
The war against ISIS as a proto-state controlling and governing territory is showing signs of progress, although the appeal of the Islamic State ideology and its capacity to inspire acts of terror appear undiminished.
In Iraq and Syria, ISIS has been losing territory, although slowly and with much resistance. According to the U.S. government, the jihadi organization has lost 40 percent of the territory it once controlled in Iraq and 20 percent of what it controlled in Syria. Operations against the organization’s two major strongholds, Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, have started, although their progress is slow and fitful.
http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2016/07/20/the_new_normal_in_the_middle_east.html
