If Syria and Iraq Become Fractured, So Too Will Tripoli and North Lebanon
BEIRUT — The talk now is all about whether Syria and Iraq will end up as divided states. The impetus for such speculation derives firstly from the latest Saudi, Qatari and Turkish joint resolve to mount huge numbers of jihadists on Syria’s borders. According to two senior political figures I spoke to, up to 10,000+ Wahhabist/Salafists (predominantly An-Nusra/Al Qaeda) have been gathered by the intelligence services of these latter states, mostly non-Arabs from Chechnya, Turkmenistan, etc. Plainly, Washington is aware of this (massively expensive) Saudi maneuver and equally plainly it is turning a blind eye to it.
Secondly, the speculation about a coming fractured Iraq has gained big momentum from ISIS’s virtually unopposed walk-in to Ramadi. The images of long columns of ISIS Toyota Land Cruisers, black pennants waving in the wind, making their way from Syria all the way — along empty desert main roads — to Ramadi with not an American aircraft in evidence, certainly needs some explaining. There cannot be an easier target imagined than an identified column of vehicles, driving an arterial road, in the middle of a desert.
Do these two cases of a Nelsonian “blind eye” have something to do with persuading the GCC at Camp David to sign up to the statement that they accepted that an agreement with Iran on its nuclear program was in their “security interests”? After all, Obama desperately needs it to paint Netanyahu as the isolated outlier on the Iran deal issue and thus undercut his ability to influence Congress.
Coincidentally, a highly redacted U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency assessment from August 2012 has been released through a federal lawsuit. It states that “If the situation unravels [in Syria], there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime.” The assessment says that the creation of such a Salafist principality would have “dire consequences” for Iraq and would possibly lead to the creation of an Islamic State and would “create the ideal atmosphere for AQI to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi.”
A few days after the release of the DIA assessment report, John Bolton lent weight to its claims: “I think the Sunni Arabs are never going to agree to be in a state [Iraq] where the Shia outnumber them 3-1. That’s what ISIS has been able to take advantage of. I think our objective should be a new Sunni state out of the western part of Iraq, the eastern part of Syria run by moderates or at least authoritarians who are not radical Islamists.”
Well, this is exactly what has happened. Should we be surprised? The idea of breaking up the large Arab states into ethnic or sectarian enclaves is an old Ben Gurion “canard,” and splitting Iraq along sectarian lines has been Vice President Biden’s recipe since the Iraq war. But the idea of driving a Sunni “wedge” into the landline linking Iran to Syria and to Hezbollah in Lebanon became established Western group think in the wake of the 2006 war, in which Israel failed to de-fang Hezbollah. The response to 2006, it seemed to Western powers, was to cut off Hezbollah from its sources of weapons supply from Iran.
In short, the DIA assessment indicates that the “wedge” concept was being given new life by the desire to pressure Assad in the wake of the 2011 insurgency launched against the Syrian state. “Supporting powers” effectively wanted to inject hydraulic fracturing fluid into eastern Syria (radical Salafists) in order to fracture the bridge between Iran and its Arab allies, even at the cost of this “fracking” opening fissures right down inside Iraq to Ramadi. (Intelligence assessments purpose is to provide “a view” — not to describe or prescribe policy. But it is clear that the DIA reports’ “warnings” were widely circulated and would have been meshed into the policy consideration.)
But this “view” has exactly come about. It is fact. One might conclude then that in the policy debate, the notion of isolating Hezbollah from Iran, and of weakening and pressurizing President Assad, simply trumped the common sense judgement that when you pump highly toxic and dangerous fracturing substances into geological formations, you can never entirely know or control the consequences. And once you go down this road, it is not easy to “walk it back,” as it were: the toxicity is already suffused through the rocks. So, when the GCC demanded a “price” for any Iran deal (i.e. massing “fracking” forces close to Aleppo), the pass had been already partially been sold by the U.S. by 2012, when it did not object to what the “supporting powers” wanted.
Will then the region fragment into a hardcore Wahhabist/Salafist corridor stretching across Syria and Iraq, while the non-Wahhabist other states (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen — and Hezbollah) stand in armed opposition to this entity? Perhaps. We do not know. But statements by Hezbollah’s Deputy Leader, Shiekh Naim Qassem and Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, suggest that neither Iran nor Hezbollah will accept a “fracked” Syria. (It is less clear however whether this applies to Iraq too, though we suspect that for Iran, it does.)
Similar comments have been made by a senior Hashad leader in Iraq: “It is impossible to eliminate ISIS in Iraq without following it into Syria. We will put our differences with Syria on one side and will join efforts to fight and eliminate ISIS … The U.S. knew that ISIS would expand in Syria and was planning to divide Iraq. This plan is over…” These comments may presage a more proactive response by Iran (and it is hard to see that Russia and China will not be more proactive too, given the composition of the forces now being groomed by Saudi and Turkish intelligence).
But there is another point to this speculation: It leaves out Lebanon. If Syria and Iraq are to be “fracked” — and hard-core Sunni fundamentalism return “to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi,” in the words of the DIA assessment, why should Tripoli (capital of Libya) and the north of Lebanon prove immune from this “fracturing”? Lebanon’s Tripoli was in fact the first ISIS-style “emirate.”
The reason why a Salafi-jihadist movement should have originated in Tripoli needs a little background. A city of half a million people, Tripoli is, in a nutshell, the seat of Sunni strength in Lebanon. Traditionally, Tripoli had been the center of militant pan-Arabist nationalist and Nasserist sentiment, and until the Lebanese civil war, it lay in the mainstream of Levant Sunnism. Militant Arabism in Tripoli had Arabist nationalist and Nasserist sentiment, and until the Lebanese civil war, it lay in the mainstream of Levant Sunnism. Militant Arabism in Tripoli had been so pronounced in the 1920s and 1930s that its inhabitants had fiercely opposed inclusion of Tripoli into a “Greater Lebanon.” In the 1930s, Sunnis from Tripoli took part in an armed revolt against the prospect of a “Greater Lebanon,” demanding Tripoli’s inclusion with the Syrian cities of Homs, Hama and Aleppo into a separate Sunni Arab-nationalist autonomy.
While the birth of jihadism in Tripoli can be ascribed to the outset of the civil war in 1975, the beginning of the substantive shift in the character of Sunni Islam in Tripoli may be dated to 1947, when the Salafist Sheikh Salim al-Shahal returned from Saudi Arabia to Tripoli to find the first Wahhabi-orientated Salafist movement. During Lebanon’s civil war, Al-Jama’a — the Lebanese equivalent of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) — fragmented and splintered under the stress. With Syria’s intervention in Lebanon in 1976, a host of radical Al-Jama’a offshoots inspired by the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran sprang up. In 1982, these Al-Jama’a breakaway factions formed Harakat al-Tawhid al-Islami (the Islamic Unification Movement). The hardline MB offshoots, now united as “Tawhid,” then seized control of Tripoli from the Syrian-backed militia forces.
Strengthened by arms and training from the PLO and an influx of trained Syrian MB operatives after President Assad’s ferocious crushing of the MB revolt in Hama in February 1982, Tawhid forces imposed Islamic law at gunpoint in neighborhoods which they controlled. The “Islamic Republic” of Tripoli lasted for a period of two years (e.g. banning alcohol, forcing women to wear the veil, etc.). Dozens and dozens of secular political opponents (mostly Communists) were executed, sparking an exodus of Christians from the city. In subsequent years, Saudi influence in Tripoli predominated, and Tripoli spawned diverse Salafist groups — absorbing many MB members who survived the Syrian crackdown — and witnessed a progressive migration towards radical jihadism.
In short, were Aleppo and other parts of Syria and large swathes of Iraq to be “fracked,” then expect the same for Tripoli and north Lebanon too.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
America Immobilized as Iran-Saudi Arabia Proxy War Turns Bloody
BEIRUT — The Middle East plainly gets it now: the U.S., after wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, inter alia, does not want to decisively intervene with military force in the region’s many complicated conflicts. Rather, it wishes to “re-balance” the region’s major powers — to strike an equilibrium of antagonisms — and wishes them to sort issues out amongst themselves. “This is your sectarian problem; you deal with it,” was how one Saudi commentator described the American attitude toward Saudi Arabia’s complaints about Houthi actions in Yemen.
It is hoped that such balance — if it is achieved — will allow America to stand aloof from the Middle Eastern centrifuge, which always seems to suck America back into its internecine quarrels. The involvement of special forces is a different matter, in Washington’s perspective: this, together with financial information, drones and cyber war, represents one tool by which the U.S. can manage the situation, tipping it one way or another in line with shifting interests. The nuclear talks are about bringing Iran into the new balance.
I have wondered before about the viability of such an approach in today’s Middle East, where states and non-state structures may simply opt out of any ground rules by which the balance can be maintained. Indeed, Saudi Arabia is doing just that — and egging on Turkey to follow suit. Rather than find balance, recent events seem to suggest that a messy — and for some, existentially dangerous — trial of strength is required before the new contours of the Middle East can emerge.
“It is not Iranian tanks sitting on their front lawn that Saudis fear, it is the revolutionary concepts embedded in Shiite thinking — and the contagion from that thinking.”
To be fair, as before, I note that in the domestic context in which America finds itself today, a process of disengagement was probably the best of bad options. But what makes good rational sense may not make psychological sense — at least not yet. Psyches can take longer to adjust, and can usually make the adjustment only after a dose of pain is inflicted on inflated egos.
Though the tentative agreement by the P5+1 leaves more unsaid than said (and it may not be sustainable in Iran, which has made major concessions for benefits that, at least in the initial published document, remain opaque), it nonetheless will do nothing to calm Saudi paranoia. Saudi Arabia purports to believe Iran is fomenting Shiite uprisings throughout the region against the status quo, and is seeking to drag the entire Middle East within the pale of a new Persian empire.
It is unlikely that most Saudis really believe that Iran harbors expansionary imperial ambitions (it has not invaded foreign territory in the last half millennium). More likely, Saudi paranoia derives from knowing that Iranians have not forgotten the Wahhabis’ murderous sack of Karbala in 1801-2, the wanton destruction of Shiite sacred shrines then and since, the branding of the Shiites as apostates who must be killed, the firing-up of radical jihadism to counter Shiism and the repression of Shiite populations across the Gulf.
No, it is not Iranian tanks sitting on their front lawn that Saudis fear, it is the revolutionary concepts embedded in Shiite thinking — and the contagion from that thinking — that Saudis fear and seek to delegitimize and quarantine.
The Trusty Tools of Sunni Jihadism
One clear result of this growing Iran “psychosis” (as a result of America’s quasi-rapprochement with Iran) is that the brief Sunni flirtation in recent months with the West’s battle against jihadism and extremism is over, and that the present trial of strength requires the old trusty tools — psychologically inflamed Sunni jihadism — to be unsheathed again.
But of course, Iran and its allies will not permit this. Iran, Hezbollah, the Iraqi Shiite militias, the Syrian army and the Houthis will seek to inflict a substantive defeat on any re-launch of inflamed Sunni jihadism in their respective arenas. This was the crux of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah’s speech on Mar. 27: Iran, we may infer from his tough words, no longer sees any prospect of an understanding emerging with Saudi Arabia in the wake of the nuclear agreement. Saudi Arabia, in Nasrallah’s estimation, is opting to push against Iran and its allies at all levels, and his speech foreshadows an equally tough response. Far from finding its equilibrium, the region is heading for further dramatic political change.
“America finds itself immobilized — caught between the ‘rock’ of fickle allies, who are deeply invested in one way or another in radical Sunnism, and the ‘hard place’ of legacy-constraint that prohibits any real move towards those who are ISIS’ true adversaries.”
Amidst all this flexing of muscles, America is effectively disempowered by its stand-off policy, but also from its political investment in the war on ISIS, with its many contradictions and tensions. In Iraq, for example, it is Iran and allied Shiite militias that are leading the fight against ISIS; in Yemen the (Iran-backed) Houthis are engaged in bloody clashes with al-Qaeda. But in the former instance, America tacitly acknowledges Iran’s contribution, whereas in the latter case, it supports the bombing of the Houthis fighting the jihadists, apparently on the grounds that an Iranian “proxy” cannot be allowed to threaten a principal crude shipping lane.
America finds itself immobilized — caught between the “rock” of fickle allies, who are deeply invested in one way or another in radical Sunnism, and the “hard place” of legacy-constraint that prohibits any real move towards those who are ISIS’ true adversaries (the Syrian Arab Army, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iraqi forces).
“Pull the Carpet out From Underneath the Iranians”
Consider this: “Taking matters into our own hands is the name of the game today,” Jamal Khashoggi, a veteran Saudi journalist and former adviser to the government, told the New York Times. “Saudi Arabia is moving ahead with its operations to pull the carpet out from underneath the Iranians in our region.” He claimed that pushback was showing signs of success without help from the Americans.
The Times report continued: “Saudi Arabian and Turkish sponsors, he [Kashoggi] said, had backed the coalition of jihadist groups [Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda] that recently captured the Syrian city of Idlib in the first major victory in months against the government of President Bashar al-Assad … members of the jihadi coalition ‘are the ones who captured Idlib, it is an important development, and I think we are going to see more of that,’ Mr. Khashoggi said, adding, ‘Coordination between Turkish and Saudi intelligence has never been as good as now.'”
Khashoggi was referring to the combined efforts, led by Turkish intelligence and supported by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, to field thousands of fighters in a jihadi coalition that resulted in the tactical withdrawal of the Syrian army from the part of Idlib on which its hold was already somewhat tenuous — and with its lines of supply quite extended. It can be argued that the withdrawal is not so significant in the wider context of the Syrian conflict.
Even if that is so, the symbolic significance is acute: Turkey and Saudi Arabia worked together to facilitate the takeover of Idlib, in the name of Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch), a counterpoint to ISIS’ seat of power in Raqqa. Jabhat al-Nusra, we are now told by several leading western and Gulf commentators, that, though it is al-Qaeda, nonetheless is an expression of “pragmatic” jihadism, and “could become an ally in the fight against the Islamic State.” (A few short months ago this view might have brought about an interview with western security officials. How times change!)
The Saudi desire to “pull the carpet out from underneath the Iranians” is also reflected in Iraq. The Times reported that the Saudis warned Washington “not to allow the Iranian-backed militia to capture too much of Iraq during the fight to roll back the Islamic State, according to Arab diplomats familiar with the talks.” In other words, do not let ISIS be defeated too much.
“If the prospect of a Sunni coalition force does prove to be a chimaera, and Yemen a Saudi failure, we shall surely see as a by-product more firing-up of jihadists in Syria and Iraq”
But, of course, the centerpiece of Saudi Arabia’s new assertiveness is its war in Yemen. The air campaign against Ansar Allah (the Houthi movement) and the forces loyal to former President Saleh represents in a very personalized way Saudi Defense Minister Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s attempt to do what some Saudis say America should be doing, but which it is not doing. Bin Salman’s air campaign has, so far, been greeted exultantly in some Gulf quarters. But, noticeably, his co-regent, Muhammad bin Nayef, has stayed silent — bin Nayef is considered to be a rival for the Yemen portfolio, and he might be quietly hoping that bin Salman will fail. It is a bold step to emulate America both in action and in the manner of that action (reliance on firepower), but the soaring emotions occasioned by the televised broadcasts of airstrikes are often subsequently tempered by an understanding of their inadequacies.
Optimism is so high that Khashoggi, the Saudi commentator, wrote:
Now that Decisive Storm is on, there must be someone observing the situation. What happened is setting a new rule in the science of “resolving crises,” and if this succeeds, it will encourage other regional powers to try it somewhere else.
The Syrians called for such an approach once operations began as they felt that there’s a clear similarity between their case and the Yemeni case, and they hoped that their illegitimate president and regime were targeted by a storm like that of the Decisive Storm.
Kashoggi goes on to quote President Erdoğan’s adviser, Ibrahim Kalin, as saying: “Yes, there are similarities and differences between Syria and Yemen. However the problems, circumstances and rivals are the same. The Saudi operation may repeat there and we must think about that.”
The key question is whether the Yemen operation will succeed. But beyond the hype, Saudi Arabia seems far from achieving its goal of restoring former President Hadi to power (his mandate has expired and he has a weak political constituency on the ground). The air campaign has barely impeded Ansar Allah and Saleh’s forces from extending their control over most of the country. As so often, air campaigns can serve to consolidate a nation in opposition to an external attacker — and this seems to be the case in Yemen.
Boots on the ground?
But what next? Invasion by a combined Arab military force? It is clear that the details of such an invasion force were not tied down well in advance of the order to launch an air campaign. It all smacks more of rhetoric than serious preparation and planning. The Houthis and their allies continue to fight for Aden. Saudi Arabia seems taken by surprise — and is casting around for external volunteers to re-take the port — but neither the U.S. nor Pakistan appear keen.
The Saudis’ reluctance to invade might fade. This will have wide repercussions, if it does. A Saudi failure to becalm Yemen would further disintegrate Sunni authority and identity. It would not be surprising if that were both the Iranian and the American calculation: Let bin Salman go with it, expecting quite plausibly that the desire to resolve regional crises will peter out. Perhaps that is Mohammad bin Naif’s calculation, too?
But if the prospect of a Sunni coalition force does prove to be a chimaera, and Yemen a Saudi failure, we shall surely see as a by-product more firing-up of jihadists in Syria and Iraq (the old remedy again).
It is in this context that Nasrallah’s speech is most pertinent. He said indirectly that the old rules of the game were finished with Saudi Arabia’s attack on Yemen. If Saudi forces (air or land) are deployed across Yemen, then, hypothetically, why shouldn’t the Iraqi militia and army — after taking Tikrit — move up to Syria’s border, and together with the Syrian army attacking from the north, cross into Syria and push ISIS into a military cauldron?
Just a thought.
How ISIS Is Using Us to Get What It Wants
“O crusaders, you have realized the threat of the Islamic State, but you have not become aware of the cure, and you will not discover the cure because there is no cure. If you fight it, it becomes stronger and tougher. If you leave it alone, it grows a…
Obama Is Wrong That ISIS Is ‘Not Islamic’
“We are fighting an ideology, not a regime.” – U.S. Secretary Of State John Kerry
“Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not ‘Islamic.’ No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim. And ISIL is certainly not a state. It was formerly al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq, and has taken advantage of sectarian strife and Syria’s civil war to gain territory on both sides of the Iraq-Syrian border. It is recognized by no government, nor the people it subjugates. ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.” – U.S. President Barack Obama
Let us be plain: President Obama’s (and Kerry’s) basic premise that America and its allies are fighting a deviant, un-Islamic ideology, which must, and can be delegitimized by gathering together the Sunni Arab world to pronounce it “un-Islamic,” simply underlines how little they “know” about ISIS — with which they are about to go to war.
There is no “true Islam” in Islam. There has never been any central “authority” in Islam that could define such a thing. For better or worse (mostly for the better), Islam wears many faces. But paradoxically, there is one contemporary orientation that does make the big claim of being “true Islam”: Wahhabism.
As Professor As’ad AbuKhalil notes:
“What Mohammed Ibn ‘Abdul-Wahab insisted upon — and what is followers today insist upon — is that men with the sword judge on behalf of God here on earth, and on all matters, small and big. This is where the Saudi Kingdom and ISIS fit. They are outside the boundaries of mainstream Islam, in that they refuse to even concede that they speak as representatives of a sect. Wahhabis (of all stripes) protest to even the name of Wahhabis: we are only Muslims, they assert; i.e. they alone are Muslim and everyone else is a kafir [unbeliever] who should be fought as ancient pagans at the time of Mohammad. Wahhabis claim that they represent the ‘true Islam’ when the strength of Islam throughout the ages is that there is no such thing as ‘the true Islam.'”
So the only claim to being “true Islam” is that proclaimed by Saudi Arabia — and asserted by ISIS, too. Just to be clear, this joint claim derives from them both sharing the same doctrinal foundation: ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s key text, The Book of Monotheism.
ISIS, in short, is as Wahhabist — or more so — as the Saudi King, Abdullah. There is here, surely, a delicious irony in Obama and Kerry taking upon their shoulders the task of seeking the “delegitimization” of the very doctrine from which the Saudi kingdom is derived.
So, the only upholder of “true Islam” and custodian of Mecca happens to share the “same” Islam as ISIS. How can King Abdullah then denounce it? And how could any Muslim, familiar with the issues, take any such denunciation — were it to be made — seriously?
AND IT IS A STATE
John Kerry would be right if he said al Qaeda is an ideology and not a regime. But he is wrong about ISIS. Unlike al Qaeda which only had an “idea,” ISIS has a clear purpose: to establish God’s “principality” here and now. It has a doctrine for how to bring such a state into existence (drawn from the wars launched to establish the original Islamic State); it holds a territory greater in size than that of Great Britain; it has large financial resources; it has a handsomely equipped army (courtesy of the U.S., the U.K. and others), one that is led by competent commanders; and it has a leader who, many find, spoke well (on the one occasion that he has appeared publicly).
In brief, this development (the “Islamic State”) may be much more serious, be more grounded, and have much wider appeal than western bluster about “thugs” and “mindless killers” would imply.
THE REAL TARGET OF AMERICA’S ARAB ALLIES IS ASSAD
A number of Gulf and Arab states have signed up with Washington to fight ISIS, but only because they plan to insert a Trojan Horse into the “war” agenda.
Their troops hidden in the belly of the wooden “horse” are gathered — not to fight ISIS — but to fight a quite different war. They want to turn it into a renewed offensive against President Assad and Syria. Indeed, at their preliminary summit in Jeddah, the Arab States agreed to a new Arab security architecture that would subvert the “war on ISIS” into war not just on ISIS, but also on President Assad and all Islamists (plainly they hope to pull the West into a larger war with the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc.). Leading Saudi commentator, Jamal Khashoggi made the Saudi plan clear in a recent op-ed:
“We can thus say that eliminating ISIS also calls for the elimination of Assad … The operation must target Moscow’s ally in Damascus and topple him or pave the way to toppling him. Perhaps this is the logical explanation as to why Saudi Arabia approved training camps for the moderate Syrian opposition. It’s tantamount to declaring an indirect war on the Syrian regime … The Jeddah alliance is everyone’s opportunity for a new beginning. It is not limited to its immediate task of eliminating ISIS but also includes the possibility of expanding towards reforming the situation in Iraq and Syria.”
America’s position is the nuanced one that it will not “coordinate” with Damascus, but, it will “deconflict” (Kerry’s words) with it.
Syria’s armed forces demonstrably have militarily effectiveness, and America knows it — and the only other game in town (as its expression goes), is ISIS. So, America, it seems, has conceded — as a sop in order to keep the Gulf engaged — to some Saudi diversion of the “war against ISIS” into a war, retargeted, to unseat President Assad.
This reorientation sits comfortably with the Gulf exculpatory narrative that ISIS is no armed neo-Wahhabist vanguard movement, but merely a natural Sunni “reaction” that arose out of Assad’s and former Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki’s sectarian policies.
Saudi Arabia will — as its contribution to defeating ISIS — then train and arm 5,000 “moderate” Syrian oppositionists to return to Syria. The U.S. understands full well that its (and its Saudi sponsor’s) objective will be to bring down Assad — and not to fight ISIS (with whom the Syrian “moderates” reportedly coordinate in battle and have a non-aggression pact).
Syria’s army is 130,000 strong, plus a further 100,000 auxiliaries. It is not likely that Saudi’s Syrian brigades — which have had a dismal record so far — will bring down President Assad, but they will make U.S. policy incoherent and Syria more bloodstained.
If there are two main protagonists in Syria — the Syrian Army and ISIS — then America has no choice: It must prefer Assad, but it cannot be seen to be doing so, without offending Saudi Arabia. So America enters the conflict with one arm tied behind its back (by its own Gulf allies).
In ISIS’ strategically important Syrian backyard, America has no visible and direct partner — indeed, as former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and Syria Ryan Crocker commented: “We need to do everything we can to figure out who the non-ISIS [Syrian] opposition is. Frankly, we don’t have a clue” — but can only work with Assad in a deniable and indirect way (which it is doing).
But the U.S. cannot really hope to prevail against ISIS in such a convoluted manner — and with its Gulf allies (and many American think tank allies, too — see here, here and here) trying to muddy the waters by inserting their own Saudi-trained “moderate” army in order to weaken Assad at the same time that America is “deconflicting” with him.
U.S. AIR ATTACKS SEEN AS ANTI-SUNNI, NOT ANTI-ISIS
Even in Iraq, the anti-ISIS coalition limitations will become more clear. Air attacks will become perceived not as attacks on ISIS but as attacks on the very Sunni communities into which it has merged and melted away. (The Iraqi government already has had to halt such strikes for this reason).
The Iraqi Shiite will defend their territories with utmost vigor, but may well choose to stay aloof from entering the Euphrates Valley with its long history as a militant Sunni heartland. Baghdad will not wish to pursue the war into a full-court sectarian conflict, and the Peshmerga will have neither the capability nor the will to do more than protect their own communities. In sum, ISIS may find that there is actually a notable lack of regional will to repair the fracture of Iraq — but instead a will that seeks to contain it as is.
ISIS NOT A THREAT TO AMERICA
Is the Islamic State a threat then? It is worth recalling that — unlike al Qaeda — ISIS’ primary aim is not so much to provoke America into an overreaction and self-implosion (as Bin Laden thought the Afghan war had done to the Soviet Union).
ISIS is not, of course, indifferent towards America, but it’s primordial focus rather, is on founding God’s Principality on earth, and instituting God’s Law. It is not surprising then, that U.S. officials say that there is no present threat to the U.S. homeland.
ISIS is about seizing territory militarily, securing its frontiers, eliminating idolatry and heresy and physically establishing a Caliphate.
Featured
