ISIS is on Twitter... lol.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

If we were looking for a real, regional threat to the entirety of the Middle East then I don't think it's too much of a stretch to cite ISIS as that threat. Let's thank our stars, ironically, that Iraq didn't have any WMDs otherwise ISIS is surely the group that would end up using them.

Er, I think that threat already exists. Just over the border is Iran with an increasing nuke program, a genocidal desire to wipe Israel off the map, and a belief that they can hasten the "end times" by fomenting apocalyptic war:

"For those unacquainted with the more obscure tenets of Islamic theology, the 12th Imam is held by devout Shi’ite Muslims to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed who went into “occlusion” in the ninth century at the age of five and hasn’t been seen since. The Hidden Imam, as he is also known by his followers, will only return after a period of cosmic chaos, war and bloodshed — what Christians call the Apocalypse — and then lead the world into an era of universal peace."
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2007/09/will-t...-with-iran

Perhaps you're right, however I think people overestimate the power of Iran, not to mention underestimate the power of the movement for modernity within it.

It was only a couple of years ago that there were countrywide demonstrations in Iran to give greater freedoms to its people. Sure the ayatollahs are dangerous lunatics, but I don't think they're as an immediate a threat as ISIS and it's ever increasing conscription are, at least for Europe and the surrounding area. Don't read this as me disregarding the threat of Iran, but I think the emergence of ISIS and it's frankly overwhelming success in the ME is a bigger concern at the moment. They are alien to modern statecraft and any sort of international policy and law. They don't subscribe to any of it, not even state boundaries. Conventional sanctions won't work against them like they sort of do against Iran.

I know a number of Iranians who live here in England and I can't remember one of them speaking fondly about the theocracy to which they live under, except maybe one guy who was related to someone in their puppet government I think.