It is a good thing that ISIL's caliphate is being defeated and that the jihadis lost 60,000 or more killed in action defending that turf.
This doesn't mean the fight is over. As I've repeatedly written, battlefield victory is the shield that can allow the Islamic world to define Islam in a way that coexists with the modern world rather than a violent Islam that attacks the world.
And if Salman is serious and if the Islamists don't murder him, this is a good sign:
Powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pledged a "moderate, open" Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, breaking with ultra-conservative clerics in favour of an image catering to foreign investors and Saudi youth.
The Saudi strongman, 32, did not mince words in declaring a new reality for the kingdom, hours after announcing the launch of an independent $500 billion megacity -- with "separate regulation" -- along the Red Sea coastline.
"We want to live a normal life. A life in which our religion translates to tolerance, to our traditions of kindness," he told international investors gathered at an economic forum in Riyadh.
This is a goal based not on doing a favor to the West, but for government survival.
While the oil flowed and prices were high, having surplus young Saudi men direct their energies abroad where they were killed before they could threaten the Saudi government was a dangerous if workable survival strategy.
But if Saudi Arabia has to adapt to energy surpluses and build an economy that requires people to make goods and services, then turning bored proto-jihadis into productive people is necessary for the survival of the government.
And yes, back to the main point, defeating ISIL in Iraq and Syria will scatter survivors back to their home countries*:
A new report, to be released Tuesday by the Soufan Group and the Global Strategy Network, details some of the answers: At least fifty-six hundred people from thirty-three countries have already gone home—and most countries don’t yet have a head count. On average, twenty to thirty per cent of the foreign fighters from Europe have already returned there—though it’s fifty per cent in Britain, Denmark, and Sweden. Thousands more who fought for ISIS are stuck near the borders of Turkey, Jordan, or Iraq, and are believed to be trying to get back to their home countries.
The argument is almost made that scattering the jihadis is counter-productive. I only assume this article is part of that long line of thinking because I have seen it made in the past about Afghanistan and Iraq War 1.0, and even the Syria multi-war.
Yet even in this article it is noted that jihadis from the caliphate or inspired by the caliphate attacked Western Europe while the caliphate stood. So the choice is having a caliphate that in victory trains and sends jihadis to the West to kill or a defeated caliphate that sends defeated jihadis back to their home countries where they lack the support of a proto-state to kill.
I choose the latter.
And remember as I've said before, that scattering jihadis adds to the assets in the West that fight jihadis.
When the jihadis are concentrated in one spot in the Moslem world, the world seems to rely on America to fight and kill them. Sure, local allies help a lot. And Western allies add some help. And I thank them for it. But without America there would be little of this kind of effort.
But when jihadis scatter back home, a broad range of countries that would not or could not support the military campaign abroad will be compelled to use domestic security services to arrest or kill jihadis in their own countries.
A coalition of the willing is tough to gather. A coalition of the besieged is easier to form, as Europe and Saudi Arabia demonstrate in different ways.
*And note that contrary to the author's aside, we did defeat the Viet Cong in South Vietnam, losing the war only when we abandoned the country when it was invaded and conquered by the North Vietnamese conventional army.
