AHC: ISIS captures Damascus or Baghdad

Capturing either trigger a collapse of the middle Eastern status quo and would permanently change the political landscape of the middle east.

How difficult is this? They got quite close to both capitals in 2015, which would have been easier to capture or at least temporarily take control over? How could this occur? What would be its effects?
 
I think Taking it might be possible in Stalingrad sense but they arent going to hold it for more than few weeks before its again contested.
 
I think Taking it might be possible in Stalingrad sense but they arent going to hold it for more than few weeks before its again contested.

If it's Damascus, I am not sure. The Syrian regime had basically no secure base to launch a (quick) reconquest if Damascus falls in 2015 and might collapse. Not that a fall of Damascus to ISIS was ever particularly likely (though probably marginally more so than Baghdad).
The results woul be... messy. Obama would be reluctant to go "boots on the ground" again, but it may be his least bad option. Detente with Tehran would become a big priority. I think not a "fine if you have nukes" sort of priority, but still. The US would probably be OK with propping up all sorts of Syrian opposition groups, likely the same groups that Turkey and Qatar (on one side) and Saudi Arabia and the Emirates (on the other) tend to like, with some partiality to the former.
Regional alignments going full circle, but a non-Euclidean circle (that is, vaguely US-aligned Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Qatar vs. Egypt-Saudis-Israel leaning Russia) is theoretically the way this goes if allowed to go on long enough (not going to be fully happening 2019 anyway) but I am sure that there would be plenty other factors preventing this engame.
 
Baghdad: Iraqi Government either collapses or gets taken over by pro-Iranian Shia clergy. More support for ISIS thab in OTL. But the Shia militias swarm ISIS as the Soviets did with the Germans.

Damascus: Assad government collapses. New Governments created as rivals. ISIS swarms up on the rest of the opposition and the pro-Ba'ath forces. A likely chance Israel occupies Quneitra. Possible intervention on the land. Libanon in risk of war.
 
Last edited:
Short term - blood in the streets as ISIS slaughters those it considers enemies/un-Islamic, male children of those sent for re-education use as suicide bombers etc, female children and adult women sold as slaves (what they did elsewhere on a larger scale). Christian churches, Shi'a mosques destroyed. Longer term - humanitarian disaster. ISIS has neither the numbers nor the administrative skills to keep a large city going, and a large number of folks with those skills have fled, been killed etc. I doubt they could hold such places against regional opposition, if foreign troops get involved expect IEDs every few meters and extensive use of women and children as human shields for a very bloody and ugly fight. Nobody in their right mind would want to get in to an urban battle with ISIS in a big city because of the cost and the optics.
 
Top