The Peloponnesian War (Athens vs. Sparta): 27 years.

Punic Wars (Rome vs. Carthage): 118 years.

Wars of the Roses (House of Lancaster vs. House of York): 32 years.

Hundred Years War (England vs. France): 1337 to 1453.

Thirty Years War (most of Europe): 1618 to 1648.

Conflicts around the planet that claimed at least 1,000 lives in 2016: 14.

The War on Terror: World without end.

One may not agree with the war on terror, its claims and its objectives, but there’s no doubt that such a global waging exists, with civilians, as always, caught in the crossfire.

And we won’t see the end of it in our lifetime, probably our children’s lifetime.

It’s certainly not possible to strike ISIS off the list following this past week’s recapture of Raqqa — de facto capital of the Islamic State caliphate — by U.S.-backed forces.

Indeed, even as ISIS (Daesh, ISIL) sank to its knees as a territorial power in northeast Syria, radiating into Iraq, a sideways dilemma erupted with Iraqi troops driving Kurdish forces out of the contested city of Kirkuk — crucially, the disputed oilfields — which Kurdish separatists had held for three years. Took it back after Iraqi forces fled the region in the face of a lightning strike onslaught by ISIS jihadists.

Twenty-four hours earlier they’d been allies, Kurds and Iraqis. Without the Kurds, there would have been no Operation Inherent Resolve, the coalition of 69 countries which has smashed ISIS to smithereens, at least as a self-declared pseudo-state.

But Kurds are the sadsacks of history, endlessly betrayed, their aspirations for independence — the ethnic Kurd population estimated as about 35 million spanning four countries — repeatedly and violently suppressed.

The U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led forces battling Daesh in Syria say they have captured the city hospital in Raqqa, which served as a headquarters for Daesh. (The Associated Press)

So, Baghdad wasn’t having any of it, especially following another referendum last week by the Kurdistan Regional Government, with 93 per cent casting votes for independence. Turkey, which is petrified of its own Kurdish population, wasn’t having any of it. Iran, with nearly 7 million restive Kurds, wasn’t having any of it.

Change coalition partners and dance, although for now most of the peshmerga troops, outgunned and outmanned by the Iraqi military, evacuated peacefully, along with tens of thousands of fleeing civilians jamming the road from Kirkuk to Erbil.

Kirkuk, in the past decade, has been claimed both by the central government in Baghdad and the Kurdish regional authority in Erbil.

It’s the oil of course: the region had been earning about $8 billion (U.S.) a year from oil exports since 2014.

Oil is power. Geopolitics is stomach-turning.

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The ambiguous fate of Kurds is but one reason — not even the main one — why the liberation of Raqqa and the purported death throes of ISIS does not merit a victory lap. There were lessons learned by president George W. Bush’s premature “Mission Accomplished” speech in 2003 from the flight deck of the USS Lincoln, in which he declared an end to major combat in Iraq. In November, 2015, president Barack Obama similarly declared that the pushback campaign against vast territorial gains by ISIS had “contained” the terrorist organization. Next day, gunmen who pledged fealty to ISIS killed 120 people in Paris.

Having transformed terrorism as a global entity, there’s no reason to think ISIS will turtle, regardless of triumphalist proclamations.

The four-month Raqqa offensive, with the multi-ethnic Syrian Democratic Forces at its pointy end, supported by heavy air coverage, tactically advised by U.S. special forces on the ground, has left the city in ruins. We are encouraged to believe that ISIS is ruined also.

“Overall, ISIS is losing in every way,” Army Col. Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said at a press conference on Tuesday. “We’ve devastated their network, targeted and eliminated their leaders at all levels. We’ve degraded their ability to finance their operations, cutting oil revenues by 90 per cent. Their flow of foreign recruits has gone from about 1,500 fighters a month down to near zero today. ISIS in Iraq and Syria are all but isolated in their quickly shrinking territory.”

Al Qaeda, from which death cult ISIS emerged in Iraq and later became a rival, had warned the Islamic State about the perils of declaring a territorial caliphate. A geographic target could be kinetically attacked and defeated. Ideology can’t. And ideology is the oxygen for terrorism. Which is why the world needs to brace itself for the next reminder from ISIS that it’s still here, can still deploy acolytes, can still unleash horrors. It may no longer command a quasi emirate, enforcing its austere version of Islamic law upon a subjugated populace — beheadings, stoning, crucifixion, sexual slavery and genocide against religious minorities. But it hasn’t sheathed its sword. It retains active franchises operating from Libya to Yemen to Afghanistan.

Thus the wisely subdued reaction internationally, almost anticlimactic, to a coalition war which has gone widely undocumented by media.

Drone video from Raqqa, Syria shows neighbourhoods reduced to rubble and few signs of civilian life. Kurdish-led forces announced on Thursday that they had driven Daesh militants out after weeks of fighting. (The Associated Press)

What remains to be seen is whether the blow ISIS has absorbed has blackened its propaganda lure among recruits. On the surface it certainly looks like they backed a loser. The epic battle between good and evil which ISIS avowed — supposedly foretold by seventh century Islamic prophecies — never happened. But even amidst the rubble of thwarted glory, the Islamic State has emerged as a transnational organization, with battle-hardened leaders who arrived from various jihadist battlefields across the globe, joined now by enthralled naïfs who made their fighter stones in the last three years. Zealotry is remarkably enduring.

With no co-ordinated political strategy to blunt Daesh’s fundamental ideology — the Americans will doubtless lose interest now, just as they did in Afghanistan with appalling consequences — the remnants of ISIS, like the remnants of Al Qaeda, the remnants of the Taliban — can regroup, recalibrate and re-envision with deadly impact. The animosities that animated ISIS haven’t been uprooted. Unlike the Islamic State, the cycle is unbroken.

Meanwhile Al Qaeda, left largely ignored as the counter-insurgency efforts focused on ISIS, appears well situated for a comeback, expert analysts fear. On the eve of Sept. 11, there were only about 400 Al Qaeda members in Iraq. Now their numbers are estimated at 20,000 in Syria alone. And the quagmire that is Syria will continue to inspire rebel-rousers from around the globe.

Just what the world needs: Retro Al Qaeda.

“Al Qaeda will try to unify the global jihadi movement under its command,” Ali Soufan, the former FBI special agent who led the investigation of the bombing of the USS Cole and supervised counterterrorism investigations surrounding Sept. 11, told National Public Radio a few days ago. “And I believe they have a strategy to do so.”

And they’ve got a charismatic millennial leader to coalesce around for Al Qaeda 2.0: Hamza bin Laden. Son of.

Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

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