Must read: "What ISIS Really Wants."

A long and very worthwhile essay, and perhaps the best place to begin understanding what ISIS is about. It's also worth remembering that as we focus on choreographed atrocities, more than 200,000 Syrians have died in the country's four-year civil war.

What ISIS Really Wants, by Graeme Wood (The Atlantic)

The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it.