Pat Lang is wargaming the situation with the “Islamic State”, Syria, Iraq, the U. S., etc. going on now and you might want to follow along or even participate.
The first move, “IS/Coalition War Game – Move 1, The Situation as of 7 October 2014”, is here.
The second move, “IS/Coalition War Game – Move 1b – Forecast of events until 5 November 2014”, is here. It closes tomorrow.
My guess as to what will happen between now and November 5 in the conflict is that we’ll continue bombing, IS will expand its territory a bit but mostly continue to consolidate its present holdings, the Arab states who’ve been participating in the bombing will begin to pull back, having reached the limits of their resources, and the Syrian government will continue to very, very slowly push back the rebels.
On the Move 1 post, there is a comment by alba etie at the bottom. It is something I have been thinking about as well.
The former Sunni Bathists could begin to retake whatever part of Iraq they can during this chaos, and they could make some agreement with Assad. If they are trying to regain power, they will make deals and stab anybody in the back for power.
I saw somewhere today (CNN?) that the Pentagon is predicting that ISIL (as they call it) will continue to gain ground, so that part of the prediction meshes with the official US military appraisal, although it runs counter to the US political appraisal.