Perhaps that's as bad as it gets for weak governments in the region, but he's criticizing the comparison to Al-Quaeda in the context of domestic American politics. ISIS has no intentions of carrying out attacks in the continental US, they're a religious nationalist movement focused on creating a Sunni state. If anything, erasing colonial borders should stabilize the region and reduce anticolonial resentment of America in the long run. Hollowing out weak states is good for that purpose, and nonthreatening to America outside of the potential loss of puppet dictators, which decent people don't give a fuck about anyway.I like this article a lot, but I'm not sure I understand the basic premise- "ISIS isn't as bad as everybody is saying, they're just really good at de-legitimizing weak governments through show of force!" That's, like, exactly as bad as it gets for all intents and purposes.