With “Yes, we can” optimism, the Obama White House now expects Kurd, Sunni and Shia Iraqis to forget their centuries-old distrust to become its frontline soldiers in a primal war to restore the order of State entities imposed by the West over the Middle East a century ago. [icopyright one button toolbar]
The self-proclaimed Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State has already destroyed that order. It has erased the frontier between Syria and Iraq, in addition to breaking their territorial integrity. The borders and internal structures of both countries were mandated by the British-French colonial powers through the 1916 Sykes-Picot decisions and minor later modifications.
A militarized Islamic State made secure and permanent by dismembering Syria and Iraq is a far worse danger to the world order than Russia’s annexation of Crimea. It will alter power equations in the entire region stretching from Lebanon to India and West China. It could inspire creation of similar Islamic States in Libya and Afghanistan, which are teetering on the edge of chaos.
It will also trigger a fierce rivalry between IS and the remnants of al-Qaeda, to which al-Baghdadi belonged before a split. Both may undertake spectacular acts of terrorism against Americans and Europeans to seek leadership of Muslim extremists fighting against the West’s “decadent” influence and moderate Muslims in the Arab world.
Yet, Obama is trying to give Americans the impression that this is only a regional matter that can be dismantled by “folk” in the neighborhood, with limited American help over an unspecified period of time.
Unlike al-Qaeda’s sporadic terrorism, Baghdadi’s new creation has all the trappings of a State except international recognition. It controls its territory, has installed functioning systems of administration, health care, commerce, tax collection and justice. It has dams, oil wells and electricity.
Above all, it has access to US-made Abram tanks, heavy armored vehicles, cannons and countless guns and ammunition. It has shoulder fired anti-aircraft weapons so only very high-flying warplanes can attack its forces. It may also have secret supplies of anti-aircraft missiles. Its soldiers are battle-hardened and honed in war tactics.
Against this far more lethal foe than Al Qaeda affiliates, the White House expects unproven local “allies” not yet in hand to make blood sacrifices to dismantle the Islamic State without putting American boots on the ground.
It expects those allies to give fierce battle despite a military balance that favors IS fighters on the ground.
To reverse that balance, the Obama administration thinks providing some air support, weapons and intelligence will be sufficient, despite clear evidence since 2003 that crushing Islamic fighters in the region is a very tall order even for the entire American military machine.
It thinks that fear of the Islamic State’s religious extremism will be enough motivation for everyone to unite and fight valiantly against an enemy that threatens the Western way of life more than their own.
This expectation is ingenuous since all Iraqi factions are habituated to extremism. They are regular practitioners of terrorism. It is unwise to expect fierce unity among those numerous self-absorbed power centers to conduct a long war against the IS, when a decade of US occupation failed to impose even loose cooperation upon them.
The White House forgets that the IS is a Salafist Muslim entity next to Salafist Saudi Arabia. It is horrifyingly extremist as was the Salafist al Qaeda-aided Taliban government in Afghanistan, which the Saudi’s recognized as legitimate. Private Saudi groups are still suspected of helping violent Salafist extremists with funds and weapons.
The White House seems to believe that the new strain of Islamic terrorism embodied by the Islamic State can be contained, if not destroyed, without continually rising costs to the US. It hopes this this is not a treacherous slope to a third Iraq war likely to mire the next American President.
Obama is misled if he imagines that Kurdish and Iraqi soldiers, aided by a few US advisors and warplanes, can prevent the self-proclaimed Caliph from firmly establishing the Islamic State stretching from Lebanon, through Syria to Iraq.
Air raids can stop IS fighters from gaining territory but dislodging and destroying them requires boots on the ground. The key question is, “Will local boots be enough?” Don’t hold your breath.