A fluid analysis of the stability of obliquely propagating ion‐electrostatic waves to current flow along the magnetic field in a fully ionized, collisional plasma is presented. The stabilizing or destabilizing effects of frictional force, collisional energy transfer, electron and ion viscosity, electron and ion thermal conductivity, and thermal force are investigated. Simple analytical expressions for the growth rate arising from each dissipative mechanism are derived for ion‐cyclotron, cosine ion‐acoustic, ion‐acoustic, and cosine ion‐cyclotron waves.