The jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS) continue to consolidate their grip on Sunni Iraq. They control most major cities, they took over the border crossings with Jordan this week, and now they're re-opening banks and government offices and establishing political control.

Welcome to the new Middle East caliphate, a state whose leader is considered the religious and political successor to the prophet Mohammed and is thus sovereign over all Muslims. The last time a caliphate was based in Baghdad was 1258, the year it was conquered by the ravaging Mongols. Now the jihadists aim to do the ravaging, and it isn't clear that the Obama Administration has a plan to depose them.


cat
Jordanian soldiers on their tanks at the Ruwaished Iraq-Jordan border crossing on Monday. EPA

 It's important to understand how large a setback for American interests and security this is. Establishing a caliphate in the Middle East was the main political project of Osama bin Laden's life. Current al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri once said a new caliphate would signal a turning of world history "against the empire of the United States and the world's Jewish government."

In 2005, a Jordanian journalist named Fouad Hussein wrote a book on al Qaeda's "second generation," which focused on the thinking of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed by U.S. forces in 2006. 

The book described a seven-phase plan, beginning with an "awakening" of Islamic consciousness with the September 11 attacks. Among other predictions, it foresaw an effort to "clear plans to partition Syria, Lebanon and Jordan into sectarian statelets to reshape the region." In phase four, timed to happen between 2010 and 2013, the Arab world's secular regimes would be toppled.

And then? Phase five would see the "declaration of the caliphate or Islamic state" sometime between 2013 and 2016. This was to be followed by "total war," or "the beginning of the confrontation between faith and disbelief, which would begin in earnest after the establishment of the Islamic caliphate."

***

None of this means that events over the past decade have been dictated by an al Qaeda master plan. But you might forgive a legion of current or would-be jihadists for thinking as much. Al Qaeda is a movement driven by a combination of fantasy and fanaticism. Events that appear to corroborate the former will inevitably fuel the latter.

The plan of phases should also serve as warning that ISIS will not be content running a shambolic rump state in the desert. The group now sits on a large arsenal of weapons along with a horde of cash and gold bullion, potentially making ISIS the world's deadliest and richest terror organization. Though there are conflicting reports on whether ISIS has captured Iraq's largest oil refinery at Baiji, ISIS clearly intends to seize economic assets to operate them.

With oil and tax revenue, ISIS can dispense services and finance a jihadist army. The Journal reported this week on an ISIS recruitment video that shows armed militants speaking with British and Australian accents and extolling the virtues of jihad in Syria and Iraq. ISIS now controls territory from western Syria to the suburbs of Baghdad. Even if it doesn't try to take the Iraqi capital, it can reinforce existing positions and make any counterattack by Iraq's army costly and dangerous.

A jihadist state will also put more pressure on America's allies in Jordan who are already under siege by refugees from Syria. The same goes for the Kurds in northern Iraq, though the Kurdish peshmerga are professional fighters who ISIS would be wary of challenging now. But as the years go on, the oil in Kirkuk would be a tempting ISIS target.

One question is whether ISIS has learned from its failed reign of terror in Anbar province in 2005 and 2006, when it alienated local Sunni sheiks through sheer brutality and drove them into an alliance with the U.S. military. From Afghanistan to Egypt to Algeria, the Islamists' political Achilles' heel has always been their penchant to go too far. But it would be reckless for the Iraqi government or Obama Administration to count on them self-destructing one more time.

Then again, it isn't clear President Obama has any strategy at all. In his comments last week, we heard a lot about the need for political reform in Baghdad, along with his trademark admonition to "ask hard questions before we take action abroad, particularly military action." At no point did the President speak of "defeating" ISIS as a U.S. goal.

Perhaps Mr. Obama imagines there is no point in playing "Whac-A-Mole," as he put it, "wherever these terrorist organizations may pop up." But the core contention of all jihadist groups is that supposed superpowers like the U.S. always weary of a long fight, and that powerful weapons are of no use in timid hands.

Perhaps the government in Baghdad will pull together politically and militarily to halt ISIS and take back the cities it so swiftly seized. But hoping to get lucky is not a strategy. Meantime, brush up on your Islamic history and terminology. A mere 13 years after the U.S. chased al Qaeda and the Taliban from Afghanistan, and a mere three years after bin Laden's death, the terror master's political project is returning to life on President Obama's watch.