The Heritage Foundation on Why the Islamic State is so Dangerous

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In "11 Reasons Why ISIS Might Be More Dangerous Than al-Qaeda" (The Daily Signal, Heritage Foundation, August 28, 2014), five commentators - Steven Bucci, James Phillips, Charlotte Florance, Helle Dale, and Peter Brookes - join together to warn that the Islamic State (IS aka ISIS aka ISIL) "must be forcefully addressed and stopped." I've condensed their eleven reasons:

[The Islamic State] is . . . . a hugely successful movement with an apocalyptic, nihilistic philosophy . . . . [that threatens] the world . . . . [It] excels in using social media as a tool of terrorism . . . . [and] the West is often . . . [the] target audience . . . . [Its] territorial control allows for consistent stream of funding, [and b]ecause of . . . [its] rise to prominence, many al-Qaeda-linked groups are now pledging allegiance[,] . . . . giving [the Islamic State] . . . access to a global network of terrorists . . . . [It] controls territory the size of Maryland in the heart of the Arab world, which is important for a predominantly Arab revolutionary terrorist group[, and it] . . . . has evolved into a proto-state, with its own army, civil administration, judiciary and a sophisticated propaganda operation . . . . [It] is the most heavily-armed Islamist extremist group in history, . . . . [and] 80 percent of the foreign militants that flock to Syria join [the Islamic State] . . . . The leader[,] . . . Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi, is a charismatic leader who claims descent from the Prophet Mohammed . . . . [The Islamic State] is . . . [geographically] placed to not only attract recruits from the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and the United States, but [also to] get them into the fight . . . . [It] has declared the rebirth of the Caliphate[,] and the leader of [the Islamic State] . . . has proclaimed himself to be Caliph Ibrahim[, who happens to lead] . . . . the richest terrorist group in history.

These are all valid points except for the expression "nihilistic philosophy." The Islamic State has an ideology, not a philosophy - a religious ideology, in fact - and this ideology is not nihilistic. The Islamic State aims at expanding the Caliphate over the whole world and ruling the earth under shariah. Its values and interests run counter to ours, but the Islamic State is not nihilistic.

One question that remains is how to forcibly address and stop this terrorist state without making things worse.