The Rise of Isil

The rise of ISIL and its rapid expansion across Syria and Iraq is a great threat to the security of the Middle East, even to the U.S. Just focusing on Iraq, it is not a pleasant picture. Iraq is one of the world's top oil exporters, to the tune of 2.7 million barrels a day. If ISIL continues to march across Iraq, we could see most of Iraq's exports dry up. The result would be a spike in oil prices. More countries would want to buy oil, then, from Iran, threatening our sanctions regime. The U.S. economy would also be affected and Americans could lose their jobs. ISIL may be regionally focused for now, but it has said it has sights on the United States. Today ISIL controls more territory than core al-Qaeda did before 9/11. Planning attacks on the United States costs money, but ISIL has millions of dollars in the bank and seems to be getting more every day. An attack also takes fighters, and ISIL has thousands of highly trained fighters who are much more capable than those who were fighting in Iraq in 2007 and 2008. Some of these fighters have European passports. This means they can travel to the United States without a visa. Planning attacks takes willingness, and in July 2012 al-Baghdadi warned the U.S. leaders that "The war with you has just begun."