Haviland Smith on ISIS

 

With its meteoric military rise, its leadership, management and financing, the newest terrorist scourge facing the world is ISIS.  Operating in what is clearly a political vacuum in northeast Syria and western Iraq and benefitting from the studied indifference of most of the Muslim world, Isis is clearly on a roll. 

The chaos in the Middle East and the broader Muslim world is largely the result of a combination of incredibly bad United States military/foreign policy decisions and the concomitant disintegration or destruction of all those elements, both good and bad, that were in place and maintaining order in the region before we invaded Iraq in 2003. 

And in the midst of all of this chaos, Americans are coming slowly to the realization that ISIS presents us with real, long run, existential problems and that we probably have absolutely no idea how to deal with this situation at the moment. 

Our problem in policy formulation on this issue is also of our own making.  It comes as a result of the same horrendous decision to invade Iraq, for that invasion created two new realities for us.  

First, it has made more than half of the U.S. population extremely wary about any further military involvement in the Islam.  We are war-weary to the extent that virtually no policy proposal for dealing with ISIS has failed to mention the guarantee that there will be no U.S. boots on the ground.  

Secondly, that Iraq invasion, coupled with our endless stay in Afghanistan, has virtually guarantees that the re-commitment of American troops in uniform will have a unifying anti-American effect on Muslim populations, even though the radical ISIS is viewed with horror by most of those local populations.  

If you doubt that, look first at the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan after 2003 which was driven largely by the fact that when the locals were faced with a choice between foreigners (Americans) and locals, they decided to back their own.  Or, look at the way Sunnis in Syria and Iraq, heavily influenced by hostile, unaccepting Shia governments in Baghdad and Tehran, have tolerated, even joined with ISIS in its fight for power.   The fact is that, particularly in Islam, given any need to choose between foreigners and locals, it is a rare thing that the foreigners will be favored.  All one has to do to understand that is read the history of the region. 

So, what are our policy options?  The attitudes of both American and Muslim citizens toward the American military establishment, basically rule out the effective reintroduction of U.S. troops into the area, even if we had the necessary resources to do it.  Yet, if ISIS is to be neutralized, it will not be done without ground forces.  It’s not just the ISIS soldiers, it is the larger question of denying them control of the territory over which they now preside in Iraq and Syria. 

Then we have Kurdish and Iraqi troops.  The problem there, accepting that they are ill-equipped, ill-trained and relatively ineffective, is that there are historical political reasons to worry about such confrontations.  We have ages old Kurdish/Turk frictions.  Additionally, any Iraqi army of the future is going to be Shia dominated in a struggle with Sunni ISIS.  That scenario bears the strong possibility that a Shia-Sunni conflict ultimately could easily embroil the entire region. 

Needing foot soldiers and ruling out all non-Muslims, we are left with the rest of the Muslim world.  Note that none of them have so far rushed into the fray against ISIS, either because they are frightened to be seen to do so, because they prefer them to the alternative, or might even actually support them.  Why else would the Iraqi Sunnis, who are among the more secular Muslims, support a bloodthirsty bunch of zealots who want to install the most conservatively radical sectarian government imaginable? Perhaps as a counterbalance to Iraqi Shia forces? 

We need to keep trying to find Muslims who disagree enough with ISIS to fight against them.  Barring such an unlikely find, we need to arm anyone - Kurdish, Iraqi or Shia - who wants to fight against them.  We need to keep US military uniforms completely out of the fray, but we might be well-advised to get ready for a protracted, completely covert or clandestine struggle against ISIS which would involve our intelligence resources as well as our black, paramilitary operational capabilities.

Or we can pretend there is not a real threat and wait until they hit us, which, absent meaningful U.S. involvement, they most certainly will do at some point in the future. 

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief who served in East and West Europe and the Middle East, as Executive Assistant in the Director’s office and as Chief of the Counterterrorism Staff.

 

Comments

[steve]

ISIS is the perfect camel-nose-in-the-tent event for direct US military action against Syria.

Prior to airstrikes, a no-fly zone over ISIS areas, then perhaps a denial to Syrian ground forces of any access to the area.

[turcopolier]

Patrick Bahzad

Send me an e-mail address. I have interesting news about Jerusalem. pl

[LJ]

ISIS is hardly a failure of our foreign policy. It is instead, a creation by the current, dominant faction burrowed into the military, the foreign policy establishment, and the intelligence bureaucracies. This faction constitutes a new Washington Consensus whose ultimate goal is the isolation and the dismantling of the Russian Federation. The new consensus unites what were once called neo-conservaqtives and liberal internationalists around a new vision that says world domination is both possible, but essential. The belief is that the right mixture of soft and hard power will lead to the internal destabilization of the current Russian regime based on a distinctive Russian identity. The result will be it dismantling into entities that can be more easily managed with the consequent asset stripping as a primary goal.

Once the Russian initiative has been completed, then other less difficult problems, can be solved. And then, we will be at The End of History.

Remember, soft power is not so soft when they take the form of color revolutions as are now taking place in Syria and Ukraine. They start with trained and paid demonstrators, then snipers on the rooftops, then the coup. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Here is a link documenting John McCain's meetings with individuals that would later be known as ISIS.
http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2014/08/john-mccain-conductor-arab-spring-caliph/

And here is another one on what could be a Russian Federation read on the internal threat of ISIS.
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13930604000476

[Fred]

“because witnessing a terror campaign unfold in your country isn't something … you should also realize that any such campaign would have drastic consequences in terms of civil and public liberties in the USA”

I agree and this is the threat to the US.

"ISIS serves as a magnet for most Djihadis now worldwide, so you got them "cornered" in a smaller area ... Let's turn it into a kill zone and see what happens."

Didn't we see a variation of that theme in the Sunni triangle in '07-08?

[The beaver]

CP

Looks like everyone is in a jam:
Latest from the UN:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/armed-group-detains-43-peacekeepers-syria-25159343

"The statement did not specify which armed group is holding the peacekeepers. Various Syrian rebel groups, including the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, have been fighting the Syrian military near the Golan Heights. On Wednesday, opposition fighters captured a Golan Heights crossing point on the disputed border between Syria and Israel."

According to Matt R Lee from ICP:
"an armed group in the vicinity of Al Qunaytirah.. in addition, another eighty-one UNDOF peacekeepers are currently being restricted to their positions in the vicinity of Ar Ruwayhinah and Burayqah,”

[turcopolier]

LJ

"Here is a link documenting John McCain's meetings with individuals that would later be known as ISIS" In order for your conspiracy to work one would have to believe that McCain and Obama are partners in this. Do you believe that? pl

[confusedponderer]

re "McCain and Obama are partners"

I don't buy that McCain acted a stalking horse for Obama vis a vis ISIS. That's rather implausible.

McCain would absolutely do something like that on his own, and probably with greater enthusiasm iof he knew Obama opposed it.

As head of IRI McCain has, at least as I perceive it, conducted a what amounted to a neo-con counter-foreign policy throughout the Obama administration.

At times during the first term it became so blatant that people started asking whether McCain had noticed that he lost the election against Obama.

I can see McCain colluding with folks like Nuland and her hubby in particular, but with Obama? No way.

[ISL]

Agree with your cynicism. I define existential threats as ones to existence, which overrides almost all other considerations. Politicians like to claim existential as a justification for shortsighted policies.

[cville reader]

Maybe a better question to ask is who is actually running our foreign policy? It doesn't seem as if Obama is-- he only seems to be reacting.

Have SST readers been following this story?

http://www.unz.com/article/billionaires-make-war-on-iran/

[Patrick Bahzad]

Fred: i wouldn't see it necessarily as a variation of the Surge of 07-08, because that was meant mostly to drive a wedge between Sunni heartland (or Triangle as you mentioned) and the greater baghdad area.
Besides most of Al-Qaeda djihadis in Iraq had been wiped out at that time most of them as early as 2004 in the two assaults on Fallujah(and Zarkawi was killed in 2006).
Besides, in 2007-2008, most foreign fighters wanting to go for Djihad would do so in Afghanistan, not Iraq. Later came Libya and most of all Syria, now they're spilling over into Iraq as well.

[curtis]

The only people that ISIS is an existential threat to are the current power brokers/mongers around the world (D.C. etc) who, IMO, should be pushed aside anyway, "crazies" with weapons or not. The current currency/monetary systems need to collapse as well since they are one of the major root problems of our time. We are long past the point where reward systems based on the ignorance of past centuries rule our decision making.

Time for reality to be driven home to people and the human community to grow up.

[LJ]

I think this POV would be more accurate. Obama is not running the show. He is being run. McCain as well? My vague thesis is meant to raise a point and a question: the point, there is a deep state, and who and what are the goals of the deep state.

[Fred]

Patrick,

I believe the "surge" was the label Bush, Patraeus and company applied to the circumstances which included the effort of the US to convince the Sunni tribes in the region to fight Al-Qaeda elements - along with the addition of more US troops being deployed back into Iraq. They essentially credited the combat of US troops with the elimination of AQI wile discrediting the tribes. The US and the Maliki regime promptly betrayed those tribes and the leaders (some of whom are now advising/leading ISIS) while at the same time incorporating the "Sons of Iraq", i.e. the Shia militias, into the Iraqi army. That later army has subsequently disintegrated when in combat with ISIS. The battles in Fallujah you mention did not eliminate that AQ threat. It certainly did not defeat the ideology of the religious movement that is the foundation of AQ and now ISIS.

[Patrick Bahzad]

You're absolutely right as to the timeline and events. I was referring more to the difference between Surge and current situation from point of view of foreign dighters joining in the fight. In Iraq there wasnt such a large share of foreigners from the West.
Fundamentally though, the "Surge" was just the exit strategy Bush and Cheney were looking for to get an honourable way out of the mess they had created. The Surge gave the American public the impression things were getting better, and in particular the importance of AQ elements were largely over-estimated in that period in order to give the American citizens the impression the US forces were fighting mostly AQ in Iraq. Truth is, AQI had only about 800 to 1000 fighters in Iraq at the time and between 2 and 10 % max. of the attacks perpetrated during that period (2007-2008) can be attributed to AQI, which by the way is not exactly the same as ISIS.
But you're right about the sequence of events that followed the so-called Surge and that have led to a resurgence of djihadi groups like ISIS in Iraq.