Forty-five people burned alive in western Iraq.
Twenty-one Egyptian Coptic Christians beheaded by the sea in Libya. Five Western aid workers and journalists executed, one Jordanian pilot incinerated,
and two possibly related terrorist attacks in Western Cities. All in addition
to the tens of thousands of victims killed or forced into displacement by fighting in northern
Syria and Iraq. If Islamic State is seeking to bring about signs of End Times,
they are doing a pretty good job. Increasingly, policymakers are forced
to take seriously the Islamic State’s self-declared mission: to bring about the
Day of Judgment by sowing chaos in the world in the lead-up to the return of the Mahdi.
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| The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride Toyotas, who knew? |
The only thing more terrifying than a power-hungry Islamic
State that uses scripture as a pretext for brutality is one that actually
believes in it. While Al Qaeda’s stated goals were largely ones of retribution
against the West and its allies for perceived injuries to the Muslim-majority world, the Islamic State's doctrine has confounded policymakers due to its seemingly earnest belief that
the apocalypse – and thus paradise for true believers – is at hand, and indeed
can be pushed along by worldly deeds. Drawing upon Koranic texts that suggest
the End Times will be signified by a battle between the armies of “Islam” and
“Rome” in northern Syria (in the town Dabiq, which Islamic State already controls and
has named its journal after), the Islamic State strategy of directly goading the United
States into intervening in Syria and Iraq becomes much more rational. By
drawing the US into battle, Islamic State would have its “Army of Rome.” And defeat of
this army is just the first phase of the apocalypse.
