(December 19, 2015 at 5:36 pm)Strider Wrote: Refusing to refer to them as a state simply denies them legitimacy, as if it really matters in their 9th century brains.

Actually, conferring upon them the status of a state would tremendously elevate their status amongst Muslims in general, and make it much easier for them to establish a less disfunctional civil administration. So it would matter a lot to them.

(December 19, 2015 at 8:29 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: Actually, conferring upon them the status of a state would tremendously elevate their status amongst Muslims in general, and make it much easier for them to establish a less disfunctional civil administration.   So it would matter a lot to them.

What I mean by what I said is that I doubt they care if the western world now refers to them as something other than ISIS. They still refer to themselves as such even if we call them something else. I doubt that our choice of words in describing them is chief among their concerns.

They certainly do claim to be a state and has since the beginning. I don't believe they would ever have expected to be recognized as a state by any others at this stage of their growth. So it probably doesn't bother them to not be recognized as such. But it would still be a tremendous boon to them if they were to be implicitly recognized as a state at this stage. So it is wise to emphasize at all opportunities that they are not recognized as a state.