Cole's treatise- goes more or less like this

Analysts thought that Isis was different from al-Qaeda because Isis wants to take territory

The Paris attack seems to contradict that 

AQ had  tried and failed to attack local governments  " the near enemy" and had been driven by that failure  to instead attacking the "far enemy" -us aiming to draw us into a ruinous war.

But "Paris" was a risk for Isis because it does indeed have a "home address"

Until now Isis has resembled pirates who had scattered  strongholds

"They don't actually do much governing of the places they dominate,Mainly extract resources from them"

And their public beheadings are also similar  to the pirates as a way of increasing the likelihood of future  ransom

But isn't Isis hyper puritanical  unlike  the pirates?

No way.  Isis buys and sells slave girls and uses then in the process

Looked at this way "Paris" was like a pirate attack

And was probably intended like the 2004 Madrid bombings to cause the French back off -as Madrid caused Spain to get out of Iraq

"The analogy, as with all analogies, is inexact.But seeing Daesh  as a set of raiding pirate strongholds rather than as a conventional state makes sense of its various  activities"local crooked actions, oil and drug smuggling, human trafficking.

The policy implications of this way of viewing it is that President Obama's containment strategy won't work. As a raiding state Daesh  can't be contained. It has to be rolled up, and political concerns about the image of Kurdish or Shiite allies of the US on the ground conquering Sunni Arab populations simply have to be set aside.

As a long time follower of Cole's this conclusion was surprising. Is he right?