ISIS, Germany and The Provocation Tactic

Interesting WashPo article re Germany truck attack:

Islamic State officials have explicitly sought to link such attacks to the larger goal of making Europe intolerable for faithful Muslims. A 2015 article in the group’s English-language magazine, Dabiq, warned that the terrorists would soon begin targeting the West with the aim of deliberately provoking a backlash against Muslims living there.

“Muslims in the West,” the article said, “will quickly find themselves between one of two choices: they either apostatize and adopt the [Western] religion . . . or they emigrate to the Islamic State and thereby escape persecution.”

Somewhat consistent with our paper but generates some new questions – unlike Al Qaeda, ISIS is a near state not a terrorist group. The main threat to its survival is Western tacit support to a Putin-Assad (and Trump?) coalition against ISIS. If these terrorists attacks lead to such a  coalition, provocation will backfire.