It's not every week that there is good news in the War on Terror, which continues, and continues, and continues. But last week the good guys took a major step. ISIS isn't dead, but it's on the gurney. As a man named Churchill once said in another war, this might not be the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Last week the U.S.-backed forces took Raqqa, the northern Syrian city that the Islamic State has been using as the capital of its "caliphate." In the downtown part of the city--where ISIS used to behead infidels, or even those of the same religion who might not have seen things exactly the way ISIS did--the Syrian Democratic Forces were waving flags.
Still, there is fighting in pockets of the city. Much like the dead-enders once upon a time in Berlin, some ISIS fighters still refuse to surrender and will fight until they're killed. They will allow themselves no other way out.
As the shooting comes to a (slow) end, another sort of work begins. First, the world will have to feed, clothe and shelter all the refugees who fled Raqqa over the years. Many are living in tents and camps, and they were the lucky ones. Toward the end, ISIS was using civilians in Raqqa as shields.
Then engineers--likely from western nations--will have to clear out the booby traps and IEDs. If holding civilians hostage didn't prove what kinds of people ISIS recruited, let the record reflect that they wanted to blow up anybody moving around in their capital, if they couldn't have it.
After it's safe, then there will be the rebuilding of . . . everything. The fight to remove this cancer turned most of the city to rubble. It will take years to make things normal again.
But rebuilding will be much easier with ISIS out of the way and on the run. The War on Terror might go on for years as the West fights multiple terrorist groups. But let's hope, for ISIS, this is indeed the beginning of the end.
Editorial on 10/22/2017