Might almost certainly won't make right...

Indeed, it’s not nuclear projectile science, so to speak.

The region has become locked in a loop where the violence is either enacted to forestall further, greater violence or worse, entirely pathological.

Adding to this violence will never unlock a new level, featuring a possible conclusion to it all.

This would require one side to renounce violence, and in a sense I do really mean ONE side, because from the outset only the Islamists have shown absolutely no willingness to relent, to forge a stable, shared future.

Right now one side is suffering terrible violence largely owing to their continued obstinate determination to perpetrate it or at least project it onto the other.

The moment they declare an intention to stop, it all stops. 

 This war is grounded, has always been grounded, in their refusal to settle for anything less than everything. Compromise, and a form of peace will almost certainly ensue quite rapidly.

One can all too easily become distracted by all the piled on complications (and commentary and politicised confabulations therewith) from appreciating that it really is that simple.