by Paul Iddon
A
recently proposed strategy published by the 'Institute for the Study
of War' offers what is bound to be a controversial solution to the
threat posed by Islamic State (IS, referred to herein as 'ISIS')
which insists that any feasible military solution will indeed require the deployment of American ground forces in Iraq and Syria.
Written by Kim and Fred
Kagan and Jessica Lewis 'A Strategy to Defeat The Islamic State'
proposes many potential steps the United States can take to address
ISIS. Fred Kagan is of course one of the chief intellectuals involved in devising the troop surge implemented in Iraq which did help
bring some semblance of stability to that country before the U.S.
withdrawal in late 2011. That fact in and of itself makes this
strategy well worth understanding, evaluating and of course critiquing.
From the get-go the authors
make it clear that their proposed strategy for defeating ISIS will
require an insertion of ground forces. As many as 25,000 in fact
which they envision being made up of “special forces and special
mission units.”
In essence they inform their
readers that,
'The
activities recommended in this paper will likely require the
deployment of not more than 25,000 ground forces supported by
numerous air and naval assets. The bulk of those forces will likely
be comprised of various kinds of units supporting a much more limited
number of special forces and other assets deployed in small groups
with tribes, opposition forces, and Iraqi security forces. This plan
does not envisage U.S. combat units conducting unilateral operations
(apart from targeted attacks against individual enemy leaders and
small groups) or leading clearing operations. It requires some combat
units in the support and quick reaction force (QRF) roles.'
As for Syria broadly
speaking their solution is quite straightforward. The United States should seek to
take on the al-Qaeda affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra (JN), ISIS and the
Assad regime. They summarize this view when they write,
'The
problem in Syria is relatively easy to state, but extremely difficult
to solve. The Assad regime has lost control of the majority of the
territory of the Syrian
state. It
has violated international law on many occasions and lost its
legitimacy as a member of the international community. Assad himself
is the icon of atrocities, regime brutality, and sectarianism to
Sunni
populations in Syria and throughout the region. His
actions have fueled the rise of violent Islamists, particularly ISIS
and JN. U.S. strategy must ensure that none of these three actors
control all or part of Syria
while supporting the development of an alternative, inclusive Syrian
state over time.'
A consistent theme
throughout their paper is the fundamental necessity of a political
solution in both Iraq and Syria coupled with a military one. Again on
Syria they insist,
'The
U.S. must also engage much more vigorously in efforts to develop an
inclusive government-in-waiting in Syria. We must do more than trying
to unify what is left of the moderate opposition. We must also reach
out to the ‘Alawite community and to Syria’s other minority
groups in search of potential leaders who could join forces with
moderate Sunni
leaders to oppose extremists on all sides.'
From
the get go we're informed by the authors that their strategy may
prove impossible to implement given circumstances which range from
whether or not potentially friendly elements in both Iraq or Syria
will cooperate with them to whether or not the Iraqi
Security Forces (ISF)
can be effectively reformed when they
inform us that,
'Even
then, this strategy suffers from the high risk of failure and the
near-certainty that the U.S. will suffer casualties, including at the
hands of supposedly friendly forces. American troops dispersed among
the Sunni
population are at risk of being kidnapped. The significant
anti-aircraft capabilities of ISIS put American helicopters at risk.
It may turn out that the Sunni Arabs cannot or will not fight with
us, finally, and that the overall strategy proposed here is
infeasible. In that case, it will be necessary to abandon this
strategy and reconsider our options.'
Nevertheless,
'The
U.S. should adopt this strategy despite these risks. The
consequences of inaction or inadequate action are evident: ISIS
will retain control of much of the territory it holds, sectarian war
will escalate, more foreign fighters including Americans and
Europeans will cycle through the battlefield and get both trained and
further radicalized, and al-Qaeda will benefit from the largest and
richest safe-haven it has ever known. It
is worth accepting the risks of this strategy to avoid this outcome.'
To
date the authors tell us that Obama's record hasn't at all been a good one due to the fact that,
'He
celebrated the regional and international partnerships that will join
in the U.S.-led plan. This
plan is largely a continuation of the failed counterterrorism
strategy that the administration has pursued for years, and in which
the threat of the Islamic State arose. The plan to lead other
regional and indigenous forces in conducting an air-ground campaign
to degrade and destroy ISIS in Iraq assumes conditions in the region
that are no longer present. These conditions will likely cause the
U.S. strategy to fail.'
Furthermore,
to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIS the authors argue that the
United States cannot adopt an Iraq-first, Syria-second strategy. It
must engage ISIS in both countries simultaneously,
'Only
military formations that cross sectarian lines will be able to
challenge ISIS. This is an exceptional battlefield condition that
cannot be assumed in either Iraq or Syria. Furthermore, the
involvement of regional actors such as Iran, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia
in the Syrian war has only increased the sectarian nature of the
conflict over the last two years; their involvement in Iraq at this
point may have the same effect.'
The
authors continuously stress that United States policy in confronting
ISIS must see to an atmosphere permeate whereby Sunnis feel empowered
and are able to take a decisive stand and reject the
Islamic State which has been forcibly established around them. The
authors also argue that,
'Air
strikes alone – which may be perceived as U.S. support to
Iranian-backed Shi'a governments trying to oppress the Sunni Arabs –
will not allow the U.S. to evaluate this variable and may well reduce
the willingness of Sunni Arabs to join with us and, more importantly,
to rejoin Iraqi and Syria. Developing a strategy that has a chance of
success requires identifying the center of gravity of the overarching
regional problem — the struggle within the Sunni Arab community
itself amidst the collapse of state structures in the Middle East.'
Futhermore they reiterate their advocacy of
U.S. approach which aims to remove
Assad, JN and ISIS from the picture in Syria.
The
following paragraph aptly sums up why this is the position they take,
'ISIS
must be defeated in Syria, and Assad must be removed from power. But
a strategy that delivers Syria into the hands of Jabhat al-Nusra
would be disastrous for the U.S. and its regional allies. JN is a
loyal al-Qaeda affiliate and would establish an al-Qaeda state in
Syria that
would support the global jihadi movement. Any successful strategy for
dealing with ISIS in Syria must also separate JN from the bulk of the
opposition, marginalize it, and ultimately defeat it as well, while
setting conditions for an inclusive post-Assad government that can
prevent any al-Qaeda affiliate from re-establishing itself in Syria.
This
recovery of the opposition requires the removal of Assad as a
necessary pre-condition for ending the Syrian
war.'
Working
closely with the Sunni communities
they insist
is essential for defeating such forces due
to the fact that,
'Al-Qaeda
and like-minded groups such as ISIS can only flourish in distressed
Sunni communities. They attack every other religion and sect, but
their bases must be in Sunni lands because their ideology is an
extreme, exclusionary interpretation of Sunni Islam. Doing
anything to al-Qaeda — defeating, disrupting, degrading,
destroying, anything else — requires working with the overwhelming
majority of the Sunni
communities within which it lives and operates. Those
communities have shown their distaste for the ideology and the groups
that espouse it, rising up against them in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria,
Yemen, Somalia, Egypt, and almost everywhere else they have appeared,
except Pakistan.'
While
the Iranian dimension in all of this is not on the top of their
proposed agenda it is nevertheless featured throughout. The authors
repeatedly denounce the prospect of Iranian "hegemony" in
the region and denounce its role of stoking "sectarian
polarization."
They scathingly critique
Iran's role in the region throughout the
text. The
following paragraph very aptly sums up
their many contentions with Tehran's
policies,
'Iran
is the principal regional symbol of sectarianism, preferentially
supports extremist Shi’a groups, and
is integrating national security forces into an international
structure that includes its own forces and terrorist groups. Working
with Iran will have the same effect on Sunni perception as working
with Assad. It may also drive our Gulf Arab allies away in the belief
that the U.S. has made a permanent shift of alliances in the Middle
East. Iran’s leaders and military commanders, finally, have
consistently and loudly repudiated any notion of cooperating with the
U.S. in Iraq.'
They
also denounce the idea of coordinating
with Iran in any way insisting
that,
'Doing
so legitimizes the presence of Iranian
troops in Iraq,
a principle to which the U.S. cannot accede. It would also
effectively require a level of intelligence-sharing and mutual
confidence that would place U.S. troops too much at the mercy of the
IRGC. Lack
of coordination with Iranian assets, however, can lead to accidental
exchanges of fire between U.S. and Iranian troops. Such exchanges
could in turn lead to escalating conflict with Iran.'
Regarding
Iran's
proxies and allies
in Iraq the authors contend that,
'The
U.S. must use the expanding leverage increased military support will
give it in Baghdad to continue to shape the emerging Iraqi government
to be as inclusive and non-sectarian as possible. Well-known
sectarian actors and Iranian
agents such as Hadi al-Amiri (Badr corps commander), Qais al-Khazali
(Asa’ib Ahl al-haq leader), and Qassim al-Araji (Badr corps deputy)
cannot have leading positions in the security ministries or security
services if there is to be any hope of persuading Iraq’s Sunni
Arabs that they are safe in the hands of the new government. Reported
U.S. pressure to keep Hadi al-Amiri from getting a ministry was an
important step. Continued pressure must be exerted to keep him and
others like him from getting ministerial posts or otherwise obtaining
de jure control over Iraq’s
security services. If
such individuals are given inappropriate portfolios, the U.S. should
continue to exert leverage — including refusing to work with forces
over which they have been given command or influence — to secure
their removal.'
They
also recommend
the following regarding regional powers who have funded, directly and
indirectly, terror groups operating in Syria,
'The
U.S. should exert all possible pressure on states that are currently
supporting extremists in Syria
either to reorient that support to moderate forces or simply to cut
it off. If prominent supporters of extremists such as Qatar refuse to
change their behaviour, the U.S.
should act in concert with international partners to interdict that
support and consider sanctioning the offenders.'
The
authors also make
clear that the United States has and
will likely
continue to have
little sway over the Hezbollah,
'Hezbollah’s
deployment of thousands of troops to Syria — the first major
external military expedition in its four-decade history — initially
strained its support in Lebanon. The expansion of sectarian conflict
and the increase in Sunni extremist operations and attacks in
Lebanon, however, have rallied support around Hezbollah once again.
Strengthening
the Lebanese government and armed forces independent of Hezbollah —
to the limited extent to which that is possible — could threaten
the organization’s control sufficiently to distract it from Syria
somewhat. It might even weaken Hezbollah’s position in Lebanon
more fundamentally, although that prospect remains dim.'
More
risk are acknowledged when they discuss the prospect of JN
and ISIS working together when collectively targeted by the U.S.
Again inaction is deemed worse since it,
'…
would allow ISIS and JN to build up their forces independently and
offers no assurance that they will not ultimately recombine in any
event. The ongoing jihadi competition caused in part by the ISIS-al
Qaeda rivalry, moreover, has already increased the likelihood of
attempts by other al-Qaeda affiliates to attack the U.S. homeland and
U.S. interests abroad. The additional spur such efforts might receive
from an American intervention in Syria and Iraq would be more than
balanced by depriving two of the most lethal affiliates — JN and
ISIS — of large territorial sanctuaries.'
As
for Iran's potential reaction to such operations,
'Iran
may perceive intervention as a re-invasion to position U.S.
forces to attack Iran
in the event of the failure of nuclear negotiations and may respond
with regional attacks. The
geographic focus of U.S. efforts may provide Tehran some reassurance,
since they will be focused in northern and western Iraq
away from the Iranian
border. But the U.S.
should also consider supplying its Gulf allies with additional
defensive capabilities to deter any such Iranian response or render
it ineffective if deterrence fails.'
Arguing for "additional defensive capabilities" for the Gulf states may be considered heavy-handed when one takes into account the
fact that these Gulf Cooperation Council members have already been sold billions-of-dollars in arms and
sophisticated military hardware in the last five years alone – the
2010 arms deal to supply Saudi Arabia with fighter jets was the
biggest in both America and Britain's history.
All-in-all
in both Iraq and Syria the authors determine that there is no wholly
military solution nor a wholly political one. Any solution will have
to be a delicate combination of the two, in their conclusion they
state,
'A
strategy that does not describe how Iraq will win Mosul
back and how a legitimate government will regain control of Syria’s
northern cities is not a strategy to defeat or destroy ISIS.
ISIS can
control those areas now in part because the populations violently
oppose the Assad regime and the government in Baghdad. The
formation of a new government in Iraq
does not solve this problem by itself. It may superficially bandage
sectarian wounds, but it may also exacerbate them, particularly if
the leaders of sectarian militias receive security portfolios. There
is no meaningful political discourse in Syria
at the moment. And even if political accords were reached in Damascus
and Baghdad, ISIS
retains the ability to control subject populations through brutal
terror. There
is no purely political solution to these problems.'
Obviously
there is no clear-cut
simple solution when it comes to
addressing such a complex set of problems. For
the good of a detailed, open and informed debate the ideas proposed in this paper
should be rigorously evaluated when it comes to determining what
should be done about ISIS and what broader role, if
any, the United States should play in
the Middle East region in relation to this present ongoing crisis.
