World Wide Web of Jihad

Here's a quick-and-dirty diagram I sketched up, to show roughly the present state of the interconnections of the worldwide jihad movement.

Click on it for an enlarged view.

Arrows show the directional flow of products or control; key inputs and outputs of each entity.

Solid Lines are existing; Dashed Lines show connections that are strengthening or in progress.

Red Lines are connections that existed but have been broken so far in the counterstruggle.

Blue Lines show connections that are weakening, either due to diplomacy, law enforcement, ongoing military action, technological advances, or simply the march of time.

Most of those important Red Lines are actually a result of the Iraq invasion.

Note the Green Circle that marks the Nexus that must not be allowed to occur: the joining of A-Bombs to Jihadists, as that will lead directly to The End of Life As We Know It.

Note how much trouble Iran is making, but see also that its supports are weakening. All that is propping it up is money from oil exports and energy from gasoline imports (Iran is too backward to refine its own gasoline).

Cut the gasoline in or the oil out -- which is rather simple to do with a naval blockade, military interdiction, and sanctions -- and the entity withers quickly.

That Iranian Dotted Line to the A-Bombs must turn red very soon!

Note also that Saudi Arabia is a key instigator, that also depends on people paying it for the oil extracted from territory nominally under its control, which is an Achilles' heel if I ever saw one.

This diagram indicates that neutering both Iran and Saudi Arabia by cutting their cashflow from oil will significantly reduce the resources going to Jihadists, and remove a new and volatile source of A-bombs.

See too the solid lines from North Korea and Pakistan to the A-bombs -- that is extremely troubling. The first regime is deterrable but desperate for cash; the second is inherently unstable and one bullet away from delivering a small atomic arsenal directly to the jihadists.

The gut says, one way or another, North Korea, Pakistan, and possibly Iraq are not going to survive as distinct countries for very much longer: NK will be absorbed and the other two will dissolve. Parts of Turkey and/or Iran will merge with a new independent Kurdistan.