A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter launches mortar shells towards Zummar, controlled by Islamic State , near Mosul September 15, 2014. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah – RTR46B59 As I have written , even without ISIS, the Middle East, the epicenter of radical Islam, is a complex political-military environment dominated by the Sunni-Shia religious conflict, but influenced by ethnic aspirations, tribal rivalries, regional hegemony, superpower competition and ever-shifting allegiances.