As Americans watched the World Cup soccer games, the
Wimbledon tennis tournament and the interesting but less exciting nomination
battles leading up to the 2014 congressional elections, there was a strange
lack of serious discussion about yet another significant regional political and
military crisis. The breakdown of
political order in the Middle East which initiated the “Arab Spring” overthrew the old order of authoritarian
governments in Tunisia Egypt, Libya, and Egypt and falsely heralded, as the
media inspired label implies, a new Middle Eastern paradigm of representative
government and nascent democracy. But
the reality of tribal and sectarian conflict killed democracy in its crib and
naïve Western visions of new national unity in these states vaporized in as the
internal conflicts became more violent.
Nowhere was historic reality more ignored than in Iraq and Afghanistan
where the wartime strategies of the U.S. and an array of allies, morphed into a
hopeless belief in “nation building”.
The failure of the “elected” government in Iraq to
address the severe sectarian divide in terms of political inclusion and the
benefits which flow from the central authority, left the state in a tinder box
condition. In simple terms, the Shi’ite
majority felt no responsibility towards the Sunni minority which had enjoyed
power and privilege for decades under the reign of Saddam Hussein.
The Sunni minority expressed their opposition to the
Shi’ite government by almost daily bomb attacks on government facilities,
police and civilian Shi’ite populations after the American withdrawal , but the
tinder box was lit by the civil war which broke out in neighboring Syria in
2011 after peaceful protests similar to the Arab Spring revolts were put down
by military force. The resulting
militarization of the conflict resulted in the fragmentation of the forces
opposed to Bashar Assad’s government.
Once again the conflict is based on sectarian divisions. The Assad regime is a minority Alawite government which represents only 12% of the Syrian
population. The rest are predominately Sunni’s.
Alawites are a sect with theological connections to Shi’ism and thus
Assad found support from Shi’ite Iran.
The Sunni based opposition forces attracted militant
extremists from across the Middle East who formed separate and competing armed
militias.
Thus the Syrian conundrum faced by President Obama
was whether to supply military aid to the insurgency which might then fall into
the hands of extremists groups who would then represent a threat to regional
stability, or to stand by and let the Assad regime continue its brutal
suppression of the insurgency and the civilian population. Obama’s indecisiveness and ineptness in the
early stages of the revolt when “moderate” Sunni forces were leading the effort,
no doubt contributed to the escalation of the violence and the radicalization
of the opposition forces. Obama’s famous
“red line” threat and retreat in the face of Assad’s use of chemical weapons on
the civilian population turned the conflict first into a stalemate and then
into the government’s advantage. This
early equivocation allowed Russia’s President Putin to score a diplomatic coup
by negotiating a phased removal of Assad’s chemical stock pile. It thus encouraged the regionalization of the
war by bringing in radical Islamist elements and energizing the domestic
radical Sunnis.
Now the most radical Sunni militias whose extremism
exceeds the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, have coalesced into a
quasi-military force which has gained control of important sections of northern
Sysria and have spread across the western border of Iraq. It has declared itself a modern version of
the 7th Century Islamic caliphate which swept across the Middle
East.
As preposterous as this sounds, the underlying facts
of such an extremist group gaining control
of large sections of Syria and Iraq presents serious problems for other
states in the region and for the expansion of international terrorism.
The magnified threat this group poses is based on
the differences between it and its former affiliation with the terrorist Al-Qaeda
network which has evolved into loosely affiliated separate terrorist groups
like al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI),
which now has become The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) then the
Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (ISIL); and which now has taken the name of
simply The Islamic State. Unlike AQI, the Islamic State has defined
itself as a regional political entity.
It seeks control of trans-national territory and has had significant
success in northern Syria and most dramatically in Iraq.
The
chronology of its success is striking:
In
March, 2013 it occupied the Syrian provincial capital of Raqqa.
In
January 2014 it took over the Iraqi city of Fallujah.
Since
then it has partially occupied the Iraqi provincial capital of Ramadi.
On
June 10, 2014, Iraq’s third largest city Mosul fell to ISIS.
Currently,
the forces of the Islamic State are within 50 miles of the capital of Baghdad.
A
failure of the current Shi’ite government in Iraq and the occupation of large
portions of the nation by the Islamic State would produce a multi-party civil
war between the radical Islamists, the Shi’ite majority, tribal based Sunnis
and the Kurds who currently control the Northeast portion of Iraq.
This
is the medium term bad news. In the
longer term, a successful consolidation of the Islamic State in northern Syria
and Iraq would present the Western world with another terrorist state with
significant oil based wealth. The
inherent regional instability this would cause would stimulate irregular energy
markets including higher prices as well as security threats. The Islamic State’s publicly announced
regional territorial ambitions should be taken seriously. After consolidation
in Syria and Iraq it should be expected that the more moderate and Western
oriented governments of Syria’s border states Lebanon and Jordan would be at
risk.
The
Islamic State’s military is not exceptionally large but it is well equipped
with weapons, captured from Syria and U.S. weapons provided to and captured
from, the Iraqi military. While assistance to the current government in
Iraq is problematic the fundamental issue is one of supporting the lessor
evil. It is widely recognized that the
vulnerability of Iraq is partially due to the unwillingness of the Maliki government to extend participation and equity
to the large but minority Sunni population.
This has caused an attitude of indifference or actual support among this
population for the Islamic State’s forces as they move south across Iraq. Prime Minister
Maliki is being pressured by the U.S. and elements of the international
community to form a more inclusive government or even to resign but so far has
resisted both efforts. However these are
medium term political efforts which will take time to produce any positive
effect. The military occupation of more
and more Iraqi territory won’t wait for difficult political solutions.
As
usual in international security crises, European nations are indecisive and
lack the initiative to take robust action, preferring to let the U.S. take the
lead. This allows them political cover
from any backlash by Islamic entities and domestic political cover from
potential casualties or large defense expenditures. Unfortunately, President Obama prefers to
“lead from behind”, an oxymoron which in this case translates into doing the
minimum and hoping for some unforeseen positive outcome. While nobody is
leading from the front, and the Islamic State advances on Baghdad, he has emphatically stated
that American ground troops will not be reintroduced into Iraq. This is typical Obama rhetoric since no
credible member of Congress has suggested such a response. Instead, Obama’s response is simply political
posturing.
At
a recent news conference Obama outlined his “response” to the military crisis
in Iraq.
“As
I said last week, ISIL poses a threat to the Iraqi people, to the region, and
to U.S. interests. So today I wanted to provide you an update on how
we’re responding to the situation.’
First, we are working to
secure our embassy and personnel operating inside of Iraq.
Second, at my direction,
we have significantly increased our intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance assets so that we’ve got a better picture of what’s taking place
inside of Iraq.
Third, the United States will continue to
increase our support to Iraqi security forces. We’re prepared to create
joint operation centers in Baghdad and northern Iraq to share intelligence and
coordinate planning to confront the terrorist threat of ISIL. Through our
new Counterterrorism Partnership Fund, we’re prepared to work with Congress to
provide additional equipment. We have had advisors in Iraq through our
embassy, and we’re prepared to send a small number of additional American
military advisors -- up to 300 -- to assess how we can best train, advise, and
support Iraqi security forces going forward.
Fourth, in recent days,
we’ve positioned additional U.S. military assets in the region. Because
of our increased intelligence resources, we’re developing more information
about potential targets associated with ISIL. And going forward, we will
be prepared to take targeted and precise military action, if and when we
determine that the situation on the ground requires it. If we do, I will
consult closely with Congress and leaders in Iraq and in the region.
I want to emphasize,
though, that the best and most effective response to a threat like ISIL will
ultimately involve partnerships where local forces, like Iraqis, take the
lead.
Finally, the United
States will lead a diplomatic effort to work with Iraqi leaders and the
countries in the region to support stability in Iraq.
In
summary, President Obama’s response to the creation of a radical Islamist state
in parts of Syria and Iraq is to; protect
the U.S. embassy; increase reconnaissance; send 300 “advisors” to “train and
support” the Iraqi army after eight years of training and equipping that very
army; send an additional aircraft carrier and two cruisers to the Persian Gulf
in what is essentially a “show the flag” exercise since it is highly doubtful
that Obama will commit manned aircraft to the conflict.
The
IS forces are highly mobile and moving quickly.
While it is true that it will be up to the recently ineffectual Iraqi
military to ultimately defeat the insurgency, the use of armed drones or U.S.
tactical aircraft would be a significant help and provide an important motivational
boost to the Iraqi forces who are struggling with a lack of commitment and poor leadership. Air support has once again been criticized as
too dangerous to civilians who may be intermingled with the IS forces. However, the IS forces must travel by road
between cities and regions where they are exposed. Civilian populations should not be expected
to sit by during battles in populated areas, intermingling with
combatants. Air controllers on the
ground and precision ordnance could be expected to minimize civilian casualties
while providing the one major advantage to government forces fighting the
insurgency.
Calls
for “diplomacy” as a strategy make little sense since the IS has nothing to
negotiate. They are successful
aggressors motivated by an intransigent religious ideology to accomplish a
single goal; an Islamic caliphate stretching across the Middle East.
The
“Arab Spring” has died. The region is in
chaos in Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Iraq and Sub-Saharan Africa only being
the most obvious cases. Iran continues
to meddle in the Syrian and Iraq conflicts while it stalls serious negotiations
on it’s nuclear weapons program. (Obama has just granted another in a series of
extensions for the resumption of negotiations, taking the process well into the
Fall of 2014.) Another terrorist state in the region, even one without well
defined borders would be disastrous for regional and world security. Special envoy to the Middle East and former
British Prime Minister Tony Blair explained the situation quite clearly:
“It is in our interests for this jihadist extremist
group to be stopped in its tracks. I understand entirely why people say ‘it is
nothing to do with us and I don’t want to hear about it’.”
But he said the
Jihadis “are not simply fighting Iraqis and they are also willing to fight us
and they will if we don’t stop them”.
“It is vitally
important that we realize what is at stake here and act. We are going to have
to engage with it or the consequences will come back on us as we see in Syria
today.
“The best policy for
us to realize that whatever form of intervention we choose is going to be
difficult but it’s better than the alternative. You do not need to engage as we
did in Afghanistan or Iraq, but we do have interests in this.”
Obama
should take a strong position on the situation and show some leadership without
worrying about purely political consequences.
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