Of course a true world war is just the best case scenario. The west could easily whip the Islamic countries in a war right now, and even if China weighed in on their side (which it wouldn't since it routinely cracks down on Muslims) it would be a war we could win, even if we would probably have to sacrifice a generation of young men. Instead what's likely to happen is that all at once there's going to be a few big flashes and no more Washington DC, London, and Tokyo. The nuclear genie has long been out of the bottle but finally we have a large and dedicated group that doesn't give anything resembling a fuck about human life and would be more than willing to use it if given half a chance. They have started kidnapping civilians in Iraq and are threatening to burn some Japanese alive unless the government takes it's 550 non-combat personel out of the country.
I talked to Justin about this and he agrees that it's a fucking disaster. There's no good way to extricate ourselves from this that leaves the country stable and U.S. world reputation intact. We're pissing away superpower status and safety and for WHAT? The benefit of a few oligarchs?
Complex analysis is impossible at this point because so much is unknown. The only thing that's for sure is that shit has gone very very bad in a big way.