https://warontherocks.com/2017/05/ch...ern-caliphate/

Selected Excerpts with emphasis added:

In the pantheon of possibilities ranging from complete collapse to a future resurgence, the organization will likely survive its looming military defeat. This outcome is supported by historical research on insurgencies that indicate groups rarely collapse and disappear. In fact, like the past history of ISIL itself, groups are quite capable of withstanding the loss of territory by returning to earlier stages of organizing, recruiting and fund raising. While ISIL has been fixated with securing and controlling sympathetic populations in the past, it has demonstrated a remarkable ability to survive without territory, as it did between 2008 and 2013. In the future, the underground struggle that follows on the heels of the conquest of Mosul and Raqqa will not require large numbers of fighters. The group’s veterans are experienced in blending back into the local population to wage a low-level insurgency...

Yet there is no reason to think ISIL is close to being vanquished. The two major factors that led its predecessor, the Islamic State in Iraq, to resuscitate its organization and evolve into a truly global threat — the Syrian civil war and the political manipulation of sectarian tensions in Iraq — remain important variables in what comes next. RAND research that examined all insurgencies between 1945 and 2009 found that the most important factor in reducing their duration is the ability of the counterinsurgents to reduce the tangible support of the insurgents. To achieve this, state security services, police forces and border control are critical, and neither Iraq nor Syria can currently claim to have any of these in abundance or quality...

Who Governs the Sunnis?

This political question has been at the heart of the conflict since the U.S. military conducted a surge of troops and diplomats that opened the door for rapprochement between Sunni-dominated areas of Iraq and the national government in 2007. This relationship, which at one point held real promise, failed to develop and since 2010 ISIL opportunistically capitalized on its slow deterioration. By 2014, Iraqis in the Sunni majority areas gave a lukewarm embrace of ISIL that was as much of an indictment of the inept and corrupt Iraqi Sunni political class as it was of the Maliki administration’s loss of perceived legitimacy and right to rule.

Now that Sunnis have learned the hard way that ISIL’s utopian revolution overpromised and under delivered, who will fill the vacuum? The strong organizational structure of the Iraqi Islamic Party that ruled many of the Sunni provinces failed to translate into good governance, creating the opening for ISIL to offer itself as a viable alternative. The hardliners within the broader Sunni political establishment’s attempt to return to power after its previous failures (including the embarrassing loss of Mosul) — coupled with its historical anti-western attitude — means it will be a poor partner for the Iraqi government. Still, as researcher Rasha Al Aqeedi points out, issues including corruption, mistrust in local and central politics and radical ideologies all remain major obstacles to good governance in Iraq — even more so than the conventional wisdom that Sunni rejection of a Shiite order was the primary factor leading to ISIL’s resurrection throughout the most volatile parts of the country.

One difficult challenge in wooing Sunni politicos has been ISIL’s long-time tactic of preemption and elimination of future Sunni rivals. Starting with the dismantling of the Sahwa in Iraq, local Sunni tribal militias, and the cooption of tribal figures after 2008, ISIL’s use of calibrated violence against its own population has crippled local leaders and torn apart the social fabric— possibly permanently. Nonetheless, if regional Sunni actors can inspire the resurrection of a functioning local governance structure supported and protected by powerful benefactors ISIL will find it difficult to compete anywhere outside of the rump of the remaining caliphate...

Furthermore, the overreliance on Iraqi counter-terrorism and special police forces as regular infantry in the fierce, door-to-door urban combat of Mosul is destroying the very capability the Iraqi state will need to win the occupation phase for a successful transition to stability, whatever form that might take. Who will fill that security vacuum? If by default the Iraqi government is forced to rely on its ad-hoc mix of popular mobilization forces, ISIL’s chances of a return in Iraq will be much higher due to its lack of legitimacy in Sunni areas. The legitimacy of the Abadi administration has been an underappreciated aspect of Iraq’s success against ISIL. This political mandate must be carried forward if the defeat of ISIL is to be a permanent one, and impending robust challenges by Abadi rivals — including former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the populist Muqtada al-Sadr — could sour Washington on future cooperation if either of these two attain power.


In Syria, the Assad regime’s chances of reclaiming territory in former rebel-held areas are much more suspect than its counterparts in Iraq, and surprisingly more complex due to the sheer number of actors in Syria with differing political end states. Any ISIL retreat east to its remaining rump state along the Euphrates will likely open up a fierce competition for resources and influence between tribes, jihadi groups, rebel groups, the state, and state-aligned proxy forces. Unlike in Iraq, ISIL has been an outsider with limited ties in Syria, although those relationships have grown stronger as ISIL has controlled territory and influenced populations. ISIL success since 2013 in exploiting divisions and stealing away fighters demonstrates how conducive this environment is group survival, and for this reason it will remain an influential entity for some time to come...

The challenge in Raqqa and the rest of eastern Syria will be the growing Kurdish-Arab and Kurdish-Turkish tensions. If the Kurdistan Workers’ Party aligned with Syrian Democratic Forces becomes involved in liberating urban areas, these tensions will likely erupt. Moreover, the Turks will likely never accede to a People’s Protection Unit (YPG) role in governance and the Kurdish militias could have trouble giving back what territory they are able to conquer. Despite being among the most effective fighting forces on the ground, will the Kurds eventually be jettisoned as an ally in favor of maintaining positive relations with Turkey? The United States finds itself in a precarious position, seeking at once to placate its NATO ally Turkey, while simultaneously reassuring the Kurds their hard fought gains are not just fleeting...