A full-fledged war spanning both Iraq and Syria destroyed the ISIS Caliphate, and by March of 2019 the organization had gone from having a substantial de facto state to being essentially landless. The group still has thousands of fighters to this day, but they’re mostly stuck in the desert.
Two years on, the war is still over, but hardly a day goes by that there isn’t a mention of ISIS returning. It’s not wild ungrounded fear: ISIS still has those thousands of fighters in the deserts. They’re still ready and willing to ambush government targets. Most of all, the secular and religious divides that ISIS flourished in in the first place are largely still there, waiting to be exploited.
We don’t see a lot of signs of ISIS making inroads in the battle for hearts and minds, but then this wasn’t ever hugely visible in the first place. In Syria in particular the group has shown itself a lot more aggressive in trying to establish footholds outside the deserts, which may indicate that they feel the time is ripe.
In Iraq there is less fighting, but the government is talking about the fear of ISIS more. That’s likely a narrative to justify keeping foreign troops in Iraq, after previous pushes for them to leave, because ISIS is gone, the call now is for the Americans to stay, because ISIS might not be gone.
With limited ISIS presence, especially in Iraq, that’s a tough case to make. The small engagements are hardly the type that need foreign troops to handle. If anything, the foreign presence tends to inflame tensions and make the situation less stable. Getting rid of the occupation could mean beating ISIS by never having to fight them.
ISIS had more fighters to start with in Syria, but many of the same factors are at play. Foreign troops, Russia, American, and Turkish, are all potential foes for ISIS, while a feeling of powerlessness in the Sunni Arab parts of the country give ISIS potential recruits and supporters.
Neither of these situations means ISIS is poised for a resurgence, or that another anti-ISIS war looms, but the remaining societal problems are enough to keep the fear of that going.
The existence of a “caliphate” was questionable in the first place. For those Sunni refugees in Syria and Iraq, a “caliphate” was the infrastructure used to support those refugees. The US destroyed that infrastructure beginning in 2017. Rubbled, the “caliphate” was deemed “defeated” by the marketing boys at Langley. Then, the US claimed to be drawing down troops in a classic example of mendacity. Nothing left to rubble, they went on their merry way, leaving refugees in an even worse condition. Yet, they persisted in survival.
It is entirely predictable that humans under these conditions will form militias, or some form of self security groups. So, the boys at Langley will always have targets to frighten US mass media bootlicker militants.
ISIS was a US construct, a Sunni-manned army with former Hussein soldiers to counter the new Iran-backed Shia control brought by Operation Iraqi Freedom. That need for instability favored by the US has not disappeared.