The spectacular advances by ISIS forces in Iraq in recent days have been a catastrophe for Iraq and a major setback for American interests but they are not the end of the world.
ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) now holds substantial swathes of territory and may have something like $2 billion in cash, a fleet of armored vehicles and probably more small arms than it knows what to do with. Unusually among jihadist groups, ISIS has focused in Syria on governance beyond just shooting, beheading, and crucifying people it doesn’t like. Presumably it will do the same in Iraq.
However, this will not last. For an explanation why, we can turn to probably the most brilliant jihadist strategist to have touched a keyboard: Abu Musab al-Suri. He believed that “open fronts,” such as the 1980s jihad against the Soviet Union, efforts intended to liberate and hold territory, are unlikely to succeed. The simple fact is that they cannot stand up to modern military power backed up by modern intelligence. Instead, he recommended a turn toward individual jihad because it avoided the enemies’ strengths. In other words, Al-Suri would say that the more cities ISIS captures, the more money it has to keep track of, the more armored vehicles it acquires, the more social services it has to organize and deliver, the more it is setting itself up for a fall. These things have all sorts of pernicious effects from the point of view of security: they tie ISIS to fixed territory, they create networks that can be mapped and exploited, and they provide targets to airpower and artillery. RAND analyst Blake W. Mobley, a former CIA counterintelligence officerand author of Terrorism and Counterintelligence, sums up the issue (albeit with regard to different case studies) this way: “controlled territory places a challenging but guaranteed high-value target directly in the…sights” of the terrorists’ adversaries.
Afghanistan and Somalia provide evidence of the fundamental truth of the observation that al-Suri and Mobley make. Only a small push from the U.S.-led coalition was necessary to send the Taliban regime running in 2001. In Somalia, al-Shabaab and before it the Islamic Courts Union, have had tremendous difficulties holding on to power in the face of attacks from local opponents and the Ethiopian and Kenyan militaries, and occasional American raids.
All this suggests that it should be fairly easy to reverse most of ISIS’ gains. When they are reversed—and no matter who does the reversing—the critical thing will be to portray the ISIS land grab as the latest futile gesture by Sunni jihadists always destined to lose, a waste of energy and lives that Allah did not allow to stand because of its inherent stupidity. Such an approach might allow us to salvage something positive from this debacle.
And a debacle this is. Not because of the loss of territory or armored vehicles but because of the small arms, explosives and, most of all, the money that ISIS has grabbed. Those will continue to fuel operations that will plague Iraq, the United States, and the other concerned nations for years to come. We all should all follow the guns and money and worry less about tracing the front lines in Iraq.
Mark Stout is a Senior Editor at War on the Rocks. He is the Director of the MA Program in Global Security Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Arts and Sciences in Washington, D.C.
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I hope so but my gut feeling is that it won’t pass–not for a long while at any rate. As I understand it ISIS’s success has been driven by the total alienation of the Sunnis from Maliki’s government. I can see how the Shi’ite Iraqi army may prove far more willing and able to fight in its own areas if ISIS goes for them. What I can’t see is how Maliki puts his country back together after this. By force? He’s already tried that without success. More force, more resistance. By political compromise? If a viable one existed before this how much less viable will it be after another wave of sectarian violence.
Hi David. You raise a good point about how Maliki will have trouble putting his country back together. I am inclined to agree, though I think that is a different question from whether ISIS can hold a big swathe of Iraq into the out years.
The way I see it is that ISIS has pissed off not only the Maliki government on one flank and the Assad government on the other, but also two very organized military forces: Iran and the US. And all this is being watched closely by another squared away military force that will not react well to incursions onto its territory: the Kurdish peshmergas.
Professor Stout, you get the name of the terrorist group wrong from the very start: ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). That’s a poor translation of the Arabic.
ad-Dawlat al-Islāmiyya fī’l-‘Irāq wa’sh-Shām
The final “S” in the acronym ISIS stems from the Arabic word “al-Sham”. This can mean the Levant, Syria or even Damascus but in the context of the global jihad it refers to the Levant. Levant is a larger area.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levant
This inaccuracy obscures the broad purpose of ISIS and jihadists in general.
I think the Sunnis were irretrievably alienated from the Maliki government from day one, no matter what. The enmity and history of atrocities is such that there won’t be peaceful cooperation. When the Sunni Arabs ran the place, they crushed opposition and the Shi’ites need to do the same, now that they have the upper hand.
Aren’t we right back to the Iran-Iraq War? Al Qaeda now replaces Saddam and the consequences of either winning are much more severe for the U.S. Don’t forget Iran has made a deal with ISIS long ago which is why ISIS does not attack Iran directly. So how can we get them to totally kill each other off so we can finally get some peace? We should give them both a big red button and get them to press it at the same time. We could mislabel the buttons on purpose this time.
I couldn’t disagree more. ISIS stated goal is an islamic caliphate. The name their leader chose is the Kunya al Bagdhadi. He did this for a reason, because he wants Bagdhad. As for the ‘easy’ push, the Northern Alliance fought the Taliban for decades and got nowhere. In Fallujah and Ramadi, getting rid of the AQI fighters in 2004/05 involved horrific house to house fighting. ISIS conducted this blitzkrieg for a reason: They wanted the terrain and have no intention of giving it up. And it’ll take more than “modern arms and intelligence” to accomplish that. That can – and have – successfully stood up to such things in Syria, and can do the same thing in Iraq.
The next Target is Jordan..no one is mentioning that but the leaders of Isis have said that numerous times. Westerners have to stop looking at Territory and by names of places and towns…and see this by factions. with people who are similar yet have a different religious belief. Much Like the Vietcong..it is the most difficult fight for your friendly farmer by day becomes your enemy at night..it isn’t like the Russian front of ww2..Germans vs Russians…heck that was easy.
I think being able to stand up to attacks from the Assad regime (when “stand up to” means stay in the fight) and being able to hold territory and actually build something enduring. I grant that ISIS, and most other jihadist groups are extremely difficult to destroy, but their track record of being able to hold territory and actually create a state is pretty weak.
Ugh. Left out some words! I meant to say:
“I think there is a big difference between being able to stand up to attacks from the Assad regime (when “stand up to” means stay in the fight) and being able to hold territory and actually build something enduring.”
Shorter: “Its okay that Brazil won the world cup. All that fame will go to their head! And the commercial endorsements will distract them! And everyone will be gunning for them next year! Poor Brazil, they know not what they have invoked!”
What a load of crap.
And the debacle is not the gain of arms and money. Its the trust America will never again have. Everyone in the world can be certain that the “next” administration will throw them under the bus for political traction.
I suspect the ultimate fate of ISIS will be similar to that of the Khmer Rouge…but, as in Cambodia, it will take much blood and treasure before the jihadists will be defeated:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge
“The simple fact is that they cannot stand up to modern military power backed up by modern intelligence.”
Which pretty much ensures that whoever ultimately defeats ISIS it won’t be the Obama administration.
I would suggest that the Sunni, after watching how the ISIS rule, will soon look at the Iraqi government as a lesser evil. That has happened before. Part of the reason why Islamicists can’t generate military power is because they can’t run a modern country.
I take your point which makes it clear that you are wrong. Both the Taliban in Afghanistan and the salafists in Iraq have prevailed against the strongest military in the world even after 10 years of war. There is only one way to achieve even a semblance of victory when fighting against a religion and we aren’t ever going to go there.
If ISIS can’t hold ground and govern, then they can’t win. That’s what victory looks like. So far, they have held some territory from the Russian-backed Syrian government.
The Viet Nam comparison is this: The Viet Cong merely kept the fight alive until the NVA launched a successful conventional invasion of the South. Note, the NVA only succeeded after South Viet Nam was abandoned by her powerful patron. The Iraqi government decided they didn’t want direct US help anymore. Now they need it and can’t get it, so they are turning to Iran. The nightmare scenario for the rich, but weak Sunni regimes to the South is playing out. The Shi’ite Iranians (non-Arabs, Persians if you will) are gaining control over Sunni Arab populations.
“The simple fact is that they cannot stand up to modern military power”
You’re assuming there is a country with the political will to deploy modern military power in Iraq.
“The simple fact is that they cannot stand up to modern military power”
– Abu Musab al-Suri
Poor chap. He never reckoned facing the likes of Barack Obama. That knowledge would have surely gladdened his heart and mind and his writing would have taken a different tact and tone. He probably never thought the rich, freedom loving Western Democracies would elect such callow people as we have today, and continue to elect them.
One word: Hezbollah.
OK, more words – just what “modern military” is going to push ISIS out of Sunni Iraq? The Shia Iranians? The long-gone US? Maliki’s heroes?
I think it is entirely possible that ISIS crazies will antagonize the local Sunni chieftans just as Al Qaeda did before the Anbar Awakening. That could create an opening for someone to arm and support the locals for Awakening II (I lean to Iran, oddly, because they aspire to lead the whole Muslim world, not just the Shia portion).
But “possible” is not inevitable. Hezbollah has held out against a very well organized Israeli military for decades.
I find it interesting that this author does not even mention the brutality, loss of life, and misery inflicted by ISIS. But dwells on money and materiel.
http://blog.jim.com/tag/phariseeism
ISIS will fail spectacularly at governance because it cannot restrain itself. Islamists and Marxists share the credo of the Pharisees: I am holier than thou, therefore I shall rule over thee. Thus every Islamist or Marxist revolution is quickly subsumed by ever more extreme (i.e. holier) factions of itself, until it becomes infinitely extreme and collapses into a “left singularity”.
The only alternatives are either a return to traditional authority based on families and tribes (e.g. the Anbar Awakening), or a very strong King, Caliph, Hitler, Stalin, or Saddam who announces that the Revolution has gone far enough, and executes anyone more revolutionary than himself (e.g. Roehm, Trotsky)
“…they cannot stand up to modern military power backed up by modern intelligence.” Um, yeah. But just who is it that you propose is going to provide that sort of push back? Because we’re sure not going to be the ones doing it. As long as they don’t hack off the local tribal leaders, I do be believe that they just got themselves a budding caliphate. Two billion in gold and cash is a lot of swag.
“When they are reversed—and no matter who does the reversing…”
Herein lies the fatal flaw in your reasoning.
What if no one does the reversing?