As is the case with most modern white-collar offices, my workspace has taken advantage of the latest advances in display technology, and has placed relatively unobtrusive LCD monitors in high traffic areas; ideally, as a means of providing useful information to the workforce when they aren’t shackled to their cubicles and email accounts. When these monitors aren’t displaying workplace announcements, they’re tuned to one of the major 24 hour cable news networks; in my office’s case, it’s usually CNN.

I’m not going to get into the relative politics of the various news networks; while most of you know where I line up ideologically, I’m largely fed up with all three of them, regardless of their political flavor; I get most of my “broadcast” news from NPR and a couple of news aggregator web sites; it gives me a balance of viewpoints, and I’m not contantly subject to bloviating talking heads shouting at each other very much.

The headlines across the gamut this week, though, have been mostly about the latest cross-border Middle Eastern bogeyman, IS/ISIS/ISIL (or whatver they’re calling themselves this week), and the imminent threat they allegedly pose to US security.

In my scant mentions of this topic in the past, I’ve kind of ridiculed them as wannabe Bond villains, and I still kind of stand by that; they’ve done many awful things, surely, though I continue to get the feeling that they talk a much bigger game than they’re actually capable of.

It seems that I’m in the minority in this opinion, since the unnerving trend in Washington (so unnerving that both Democratic and Republican politicians agree on the idea, in principle if not in degree) is toward launching another round of military misadventures in Mesopotamia, just as we were maybe starting to finally disentangle ourselves from a period of involvement that’s older than most of my children.

I’m not, however, the only person holding this opinion. On my Tuesday commute home, I heard this piece on NPR, an interview with Ramzy Mardini, author of “The Islamic State threat is overstated”, an opinion piece in the Washington Post detailing the idea that the group’s increased influence thus far has far more to do with regional factors beyond it’s control, rather than any inherent ability, and that “In short, we’re giving it too much credit.”

According to Mardini, the Islamic State has managed to expand it’s sphere of influence as it has because of local instability and a relatively welcoming populace in the regions where it’s moved in. Those factors, however, don’t really apply any further out. IS** is now spread too thinly to really sustain its gains, let alone expand further, and is now surrounded by hostile forces on all its borders. Despite the appearance of success and short-term prestige, it is unlikely to be able to maintain itself long-term.

This is a realistic position that I truly hope gets wider distribution; I don’t like where the conventional wisdom is heading. One of these decades, we’re going to figure out that this sort of thing is largely a waste of time (going back to, gee, I dunno…1096 AD), and never really ends well. I honestly hope that this time works out in such a way that we’re not “a nation at war” for another decade.

Also, this stuff (plus various NFL domestic violence and child abuse scandals) has managed to keep some really neat and optimisitic headlines off the front pages. I’d rather we have a national conversation about cool stuff like NASA’s support of commercial space launches and the neat discoveries of The Curiosity rover, or, perhaps more importantly in the short term, continue to talk about making heath care available for everyone, in particular, all the veterans who are the result of our constant war footing.

Oh, and somewhat related: Happy Constitution Day!