Yesterday Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posted an article about the battle in Dabiq, Syria.

The article reports:

Dabiq is the Syrian village that ISIS promised would be the scene of an apocalyptic showdown, an Armageddon, in which Muslims would win a great battle against the infidels, consisting of 80 nations each ten thousand strong. But recently, as I noted here, ISIS had to abandon Dabiq under pressure from Free Syrian rebels backed by Turkish and U.S. air power.

ISIS’s occupation ended not with an apocalypse, but a whimper.

ISIS has an explanation, though. Will McCants of Jihadica reports that ISIS says the conditions for its apocalyptic prophesy were not present in Dabiq just now. For one thing, the “Mahdi,” a messiah figure, did not appear to lead the battle (the reason for his no-show is unclear). Not only that, the expected 80 infidel armies did not turn up to be defeated.

Prophesy is a difficult racket.

It is good to know that some progress is being made against ISIS. However, we need to remember why ISIS exists. ISIS is the result of the failure of the American State Department under the Obama Administration to secure a reasonable status of forces agreement with Iraq after President Obama took office. President Obama was so obsessed with being the President who ended the war in Iraq that he did not take the necessary steps to secure the victory. A war is not over until both sides have stopped fighting. Somewhere along the way, President Obama decided he had the power to unilaterally end the war in Iraq. Obviously, he didn’t, and our military is currently paying the price for that decision. Unfortunately, the Secretary of State at the time, Hillary Clinton, is no smarter now than she was then. A vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for further chaos in the Middle East. However, it is good to know that at least in this case, ISIS was routed and their plans altered.