Beyond the frontline: watching ISIS

[OUTLAW 09]

To add to Bill's commentary, U.S. capabilities are still miles ahead of the next competitor. Sure, the U.S. has its structural problems and a strong argument can be made that U.S. power relative to other states is declining, but there still is a long ways to go for other states to become peers. Much of the problem in the U.S. is self-imposed (political dysfunction, financial constraints, etc).

As for Iraq - well, unfortunately Bill is correct that some kind of action is required and that the Obama administration is trapped in the past. It's hard to see any other way to address the problem of ISIS without further commitments to Iraq's security. I see ISIS as the culmination of an escalation cycle of Al Qaeda, starting with the initial pre-9/11 spectacular attacks, and now with a movement that is relatively well-organized and disciplined. This is a problem two decades in the making and it will be some time, and will take more than just airstrikes, to resolve it.

The former QJBR then AQI then ISIL and now IS while initially looking towards the AQ mothership during the founding years and Zarqawi having been in AFG ---even Zarqawi was on the outs with UBL/AQ by 2006, and was "disowned" if one takes the time to go back and read all of the edicts/fatwas that flew back and forth between Iraq and Pakistan/AFG during that period.

IS has been "disowned" as well by AQ in 2014, and in fact has become a competitor of the first order and virtually the richest "terrorist" group in the world right now--AQ is nowhere close on the financial side.

It has a far greater recruiting pull that does AQ in general and has received the allegiance oaths to the new Caliphate/al Baghdadi from virtually all of the branch AQ groups.

IS does not need nor will it need in the future to have ties with or be associated with AQ.

IS is a new breed of insurgency, radical Takfiri in nature and aggressive.

It is displaying a remarkable adaptability ---meaning they changed within hours their ground tactics after being bombed, they are in fact using an excellence mission command that the current Army cannot match---actually if one takes the time to read the JCoS's Mission Command article from 2012 one might in fact notice al Baghdadi is copying it to the letter.

Military tactics on the ground---swarming attacks in a fashion not seen in the ME coupled with a complete understanding of maneuver.

One can see the insurgency learning curve experience gained in Iraq coupled with the battlefield experience gained in Syria.

The key though while engaging IS---do not attack Islam as the supposed problem---this is a radical Takfiri ie terrorist group---attack instead the concept of terrorism.

By focusing say on the supposed Islamic side of the problem just creates a better recruiting narrative. Meaning the message to the youth--see the West is attacking Islam thus you must strike back and protect it. This message is pulling extremely well now especially when they can show battlefield successes against the enemies of the IS---meaning anything other than a Takfiri.

Why the hesitation right now might be explained in the simple fact---no one can seem to explain their sudden military tactics, their battlefield successes and what drives them. No one can quite see the interrelationship between IS and the Sunni coalition headed by al Duri and no one can foresee just how/why the Sunni tribes are now an unknown factor.

As an example---the Christians surrounded in the mountains are being circled by no more than 350 fighters in light trucks that are just driving in circles at the base of the mountain range---350 fighters clashed with the Peshmerga and basically defeated the myth that the Psehmerga are the great northern fighters.

Problem is ---it was all there to be seen from 2002 to 2010 and past 2010--we in our hurry to declare a COIN victory did not want to take the time to understand what we were seeing.

Example---why was Baghdadi parked in Bucca which was reserved for Wahhabi's and the more radical types--yet released and never sent to trial by the US or the Iraqi's. I have not seen any info on his arrest, his internment first in Abu Ghraib and then why he was placed in Bucca--anyone sent to Abu G and Bucca even if not guilty of anything attended for a period of time one of the finest insurgency training centers in the ME and the US did nothing to stop it.

Understanding the rise of al Baghdadi is the critical piece-ie he is displaying a serious sign of being a solid religious leader, a solid battlefield tactician/commander, he is a solid group leader, and an astute understander of the West--not Islam- not the IS is the problem---understanding al Baghdadi is the issue.

Thus the hesitancy in the US as they cannot "figure out" al Baghdadi and his end state game.

[davidbfpo]

Two different viewpoints from London. One by a Kings War Studies academic, who also lectures to Qatar's military, so may have extra value; entitled 'How to best externalize the R2P in Iraq?':http://kingsofwar.org.uk/2014/08/how...e-r2p-in-iraq/

Personally I think his option for regaining support from disaffected Sunni tribes is long past. Nor are regional 'powers' that willing to commit.

As the UK sends Tornado recce aircraft, Chinooks and Hercules transports, all ostensibly for humanitarian purposes Shashank Joshi, from RUSI, examines 'British Options in Iraq: Capabilities, Strategies, and Risks':https://www.rusi.org/analysis/commen.../#.U-t10aORcdW

His sub-title is:

Pressure is building for the government to recall parliament over the crisis in Iraq and consider intervening alongside US forces. But what are the options for Britain, and what risks do they carry?

I am not sure where this pressure is coming from - beyond Whitehall. Given this government's stance on supporting the USA, it is likely to be Washington that is applying pressure.

In anticipation of these choices, we should therefore ask – of ourselves, and of ministers – what is Britain’s strategy in any intervention? A non-exhaustive list would include:

1. One-off degradation of ISIS’ offensive capabilities;
2. One-off humanitarian relief;
3. Indirect support to Kurdish forces;
4. Indirect support to Iraqi government forces;
5. A longer mission to contain ISIS, until those local forces gain strength;
6. A direct and sustained aerial campaign to destroy ISIS – or even more broadly, 'the defeat of jihadism';
7. Some combination thereof.

[davidbfpo]

To look for the "root cause" of Isis is to miss the point. The group represents all the subterranean barbarism that every so often is apt to crawl, blinking into the light, out from the depths of the human subconscious.

Certainly an interesting POV and a reminder that ISIS is not new, nor just an extreme form of Islam IMHO:http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/...h-9664506.html

[Bill Moore]

Certainly an interesting POV and a reminder that ISIS is not new, nor just an extreme form of Islam IMHO:http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/...h-9664506.html

From the enclose article David kindly posted

despite the SS repeatedly reaffirming at its death camps that "here there is no why", for much of the left there was always a "why".

This underscores much of the debate in SWJ circles. We have those who believe the reason is failed government, economics, etc. Root causes that we can somehow address, and then the world will be all rainbows and unicorns again.

We have others, closer to my school of thought, that often there are no root causes that we can address. We waste our time and money with our various development programs when they're directed to weaken AQ and other extremists.

The left hates to hear this, but sometimes it really does come down to killing those who are trying to kill you. Alternative approaches against sadistic killers have failed us repeatedly. To those who say we can't shoot our way out of this, I offer that the collective we can and we must. BUT, and this is an important but, we must do so in a discriminate manner, and in a way that doesn't mobilize the neutrals to turn against us. The extremists are a greater threat to the majority of Muslims than they are to us, so calls to go war with Islam are frankly unethical and misguided. However, aggressively pursuing and eliminating ISIS is a necessity if value our security and way of life. In Iraq they have formed an Army, if they choose to fight us semi-symmetrically they will make our work that much easier.

These thoughts are directed towards AQ, those who embraced Al-Qaedaism, and their associates and affiliates. Those the author would call fascists. The above is not an approach to deal with insurgents that have valid political issues they're trying to fix.

But let us be clear: the "root cause" of fascism (and what Isis is practicing us clerical fascism) is an absolute rejection of a plural and democratic society. It is our existence, rather than the subtleties of how we behave, that is intolerable to Isis, hence current attempts to exterminate "un-Islamic" religious minorities in Iraq – a genocide-in the making thankfully being thwarted by the United States.

[JWing]

Bill

I think of the Surge strategy of those you can reconcile with and those that you can't. IS is one of the latter and you have to kill them. At the same time there are plenty of Sunnis and some insurgent groups that you can turn and those are the ones that you need to reach out to with political reconciliation, development projects, etc. That can also hopefully turn away more people from joining IS. I don't think it's an either or.

[KingJaja]

From the enclose article David kindly posted



This underscores much of the debate in SWJ circles. We have those who believe the reason is failed government, economics, etc. Root causes that we can somehow address, and then the world will be all rainbows and unicorns again.

We have others, closer to my school of thought, that often there are no root causes that we can address. We waste our time and money with our various development programs when they're directed to weaken AQ and other extremists.

In Nigeria, where I come from, Western analysts are all over the place about Boko Haram & how poverty and alienation are its root causes - but when you ask them about local Christians who are even poorer and more alienated (because the power structures the British left behind empowered the Muslims in Northern Nigeria) - they are blank.

I suspect Iraqi Christians and Yazidis would feel the same way as African Christians about the way the Western academic elite has chosen to explain away violent Islamism.

In the Middle East, the West can comfortably ignore religious minorities as they aren't likely ever have any political power (all US presidents do so; whether Republican or Democrat). In Africa, the Christians aren't likely to be politically insignificant, but as far as the West is concerned, Africa is a strategic backwater.

So the liberal narrative of Islamist terrorism is likely to persist - as these movements will never be an existential threat to the West like Hitler & Nazis.

[davidbfpo]

Shashank Joshi, of RUSI, has another article 'Where does the Islamic State's fetish with beheading people come from?':http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/sh...eading-people/

He tries to answer this:

What, though, is the purpose of such brutality? The jihadists of the Islamic State (IS) are not, after all, nihilists. .....they are a highly professional military force, more similar to an army than insurgents, and seek a well-administered Islamic state. So why engage in beheadings and crucifixions?

First, psychological warfare is a key part of IS’s military strategy.

Second, IS understands that Western governments are, to some extent, dissuaded by the prospect of a British or American soldier meeting with a similar fate.

Third, terrorism is a form of propaganda by the deed. And the more chilling the deed, the more impactful the propaganda.

Now this is unexpected - well for me:

The first is that it can induce your enemies to fight even harder, because surrendering is such an awful option. One academic study shows that “the Wehrmacht’s policy of treating Soviet POWs brutally undercut German military effectiveness on the Eastern front”. Moreover, the Soviets’ own relative brutality to Germans meant that German soldiers fought harder in Russia than in Normandy. The lesson? IS can make its enemies flee, but it would be a foolish Iraqi unit that surrendered – and the net effect is that IS has to fight all the harder.

[OUTLAW 09]

An interesting article on IS written just before Malaki was pushed out---the conclusion paragraphs are interesting and go to what Bill M was mentioning---it must take a full fledged ground war to push out IS but by the current actors on the ground and that appears to not be the case in the coming months.

Some interesting comments on the IS and how it is governing in areas taken over that seems to clash with the standard media take that they are all crazies and brutal.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-0...on-iraq?page=2

ISIS has attracted an entire generation of radicalized Sunni militants to the region. If one watches interviews with their enemies such as e.g. Peshmerga fighters, one topic that is occasionally mentioned is that they don't seem to fear death much. Combined with their well-known brutality, this undoubteldy makes them a formidable fighting force. However, there is evidently far more to ISIS than that.

In this context, we recommend watching the Vice News report on ISIS filmed in Raqqa, the current capital of the “caliphate”. One impression one comes away with is that ISIS is quite careful not to alienate the population too much, in spite of strictly enforcing the sharia. Along similar lines, since ISIS is running Mosul, a number of Sunnis that have initially fled have returned to the city – which for the first time in an eternity has electricity around the clock. ISIS is a bit like Hitler in that way: it is so to speak making the trains run on time, while mercilessly killing large numbers of its perceived enemies and assorted “apostates” at the same time. The group also runs what appears to be a highly effective propaganda campaign – not only via electronic media, but also on the ground in the areas it conquers (its recruitment drive in Iraq is flourishing).

The Islamic State even has something like a national anthem by now, a jihadist anasheed (a piece of Islamic a capella music with very light or no instrumentation) – “Ummaty Qad Laha Farujn” (My Ummah, Dawn Has Appeared) – which actually sounds quite interesting (never mind the martial lyrics). In fact, the music is probably the only good thing to come from ISIS so far:

The ISIS “anthem” Ummaty Qad Laha Farujn – an interesting sounding a capella piece in the anasheed style

All of the above suggests that it will be exceedingly difficult to effectively destroy ISIS. One method of countering it would in theory be the strategy that has already been successfully employed in almost defeating its predecessor organization AQI (“Al Qaeda in Iraq”). This mainly involved alienating AQI from its local support base. A guerrilla force cannot persist unless it has the support of the local population. However, it seems uncertain whether the same strategy can be used with success again. For one thing, Maliki's suppression of the Sunnis has made ISIS the lesser evil in the eyes of many locals. For another thing, the organization has evolved a great deal and is highly unlikely to repeat AQI's mistakes.

It seems to us that if the goals the president has announced in recent days are to be achieved, nothing short of a full-scale invasion of Iraq (as well as of Syria for good measure) is likely to suffice – and even then, success is by no means guaranteed. Another possibility – a remote one at this stage, but it cannot be ruled out just yet – is that the regional forces arrayed against ISIS actually get their act together for a change.

[JWing]

I cannot recommend enough the writings of Fanar Haddad to understand sectarianism in Iraq. Here's one of his new articles "Secular Sectarians"

http://www.mei.edu/content/map/secular-sectarians

Sectarianism in Iraq and the Middle East is not so much about dogma or religious orthodoxy but control of the state and involve ideas about class and regionalism.

[jcustis]

James Foley's beheading was different that anything I've seen before in the barbarism used by jihadists to strike home fear.

The open-air murders of kneeling, bound Iraqi civilians and soldiers dates back to 2003, and they follow a common theme that many of us with access to the raw footage have seen before.

Yesterday was very different, and Foley's captors seem to have taken some lengths to achieve a specific impact, based on several things the video shows.

First, they deliberately shaved his head, and have likely kept it shaved for some time. Considering the wooly-haired appearance of most IS fighter's
Foley's bare scalp showed something else. Perhaps they were trying to message frailty and weakness.

Second, the choice of a barren landscape seems chosen to evoke an image of the purity and strength of IS, as well as its dominating power even though it is being exerted over an unarmed man. As I watched the video, I truly felt as if I was right there watching events transpire. There was no clutter, no other IS knuckleheads in the frame touting rifles and wearing the paraphernalia of jihad. There was one masked murderer and one captive. pure black and pure orange. One lone knife.

The breeze blew at their garments, and the images took me back to every day spent underneath merciless suns in Iraq and Afghanistan. I felt my palms begin to sweat.

It was murder, plain and simple, and I felt so sad for Foley's family, friends and co-workers who have held on to hope that he is alive, only to know he suffered an unimaginable death as a pawn in a larger conflict.

This one seemed markedly different.

[Bill Moore]

In Jomini's book, "The Art of War" he addresses this in the section in article VII of his book, titled "War of Opinion."

Jomini thinks along the line of Bob's World, when he states ,

religion is the pretext to obtain political power, and the war is not really one of the dogmas. The successors of Mohammed cared more to extend their empire than to preach the Koran,

He then accused the crusaders of thinking more of expanding trade than spreading Christianity.

Final quote

The dogma sometimes is not only a pretext, but is a powerful ally; for it excites the ardor of the people, and also creates a party.

Regardless, we have a security problem on our hands that is expanding. It is unlikely we will be able to address the root political, social, and economic causes of which I'm sure there are many, so our focus IMO is reducing the threat through military action in ways that mitigate further agitating the underlying phenomena that motivates this behavior. No one said it would be easy, but ignoring the problem because we can't address root causes in my view is a dangerous cop out.

[OUTLAW 09]

In Jomini's book, "The Art of War" he addresses this in the section in article VII of his book, titled "War of Opinion."

Jomini thinks along the line of Bob's World, when he states ,



He then accused the crusaders of thinking more of expanding trade than spreading Christianity.

Final quote



Regardless, we have a security problem on our hands that is expanding. It is unlikely we will be able to address the root political, social, and economic causes of which I'm sure there are many, so our focus IMO is reducing the threat through military action in ways that mitigate further agitating the underlying phenomena that motivates this behavior. No one said it would be easy, but ignoring the problem because we can't address root causes in my view is a dangerous cop out.

Bill---you are now starting to see what I comment often about the Iraqi Sunni side--meaning when one fully understands what one is truly seeing then and only then can one move forward---we the US military never did fully understand what we were seeing.

jcurtis's comments are great---why because he fully saw the impact of the video--that is what they want--this group under Baghdadi is far more troubling because he is a thinking adapting and intelligent Amir--spiritual leader, a solid field commander and a great tactician.

That is why I keep going back and asking---what did we miss in Abu G and Bucca---it was there in 2005-2009 to see why did we the IC not see it and still do not see it?

It is also why I warned here to not start a bombing campaign as it would and has caused exactly what I anticipated would happen---they are far different than AQ---they can and will strike Americans--as single targets as that is the COG for the US=--not attacks on the homeland not attacks on towers--but a steady attack against Americans walking do the streets of Helsinki, Berlin, Hong Kong---literally anywhere in the world and no amount of CIA/DIA/NSA/DHS can hinder that. We are so easy to read thus the taking of US hostages long before they crossed the border into Iraq.

Had we not bombed the American would still be alive it is as simple as that as brutal as it sounds---AND now there is talk about more combat personnel into Iraq. And we as the US cannot get a straight policy on a far deeper threat---the new Russia/China which impacts us over the longer haul more so than Baghdadi ever will.

This we the US have not seen before in this "supposedly" GWOT.

There will be no defeating them---it is a long haul now and they are getting better and better at governing--the missing piece.

The former Iraq now is a true satellite of the Iranians and to a degree occupied by the Iranians which is what Baghdadi wanted in the first place--this is his Sunni Shia clash and notice the KSA outside of protecting their borders from returning fighters and hardening the internal security has not uttered a single comment against the Caliphate outside of the first series of comments.

KSA silence is an indicator.

[davidbfpo]

A previously unheard of website, so maybe some caution. Their explanation for the data presented:

Vocativ has discovered, collated and tabulated the available data from monthly reports posted in various online forums affiliated with ISIS. The reports detail every ISIS attack in chronological order (see embed below). The ISIS reports were published by what the organization calls its “media ministry.” These reports were provided only in Arabic, which suggests ISIS wasn’t targeting them for Western exposure, but rather to spread news of its achievements throughout the Arabic-speaking world to would-be recruits and supporters. It should also be noted that, as ISIS generated the reports, not all details can be corroborated. Regardless, the organization’s data provides a detailed picture of how ISIS views itself and what its shifting priorities are in the battlefield.

Link:http://www.vocativ.com/world/iraq-wo...ge=all#!bHpDun

[davidbfpo]

A short, detailed article based on an interview of Professor John Horgan, a British psychologist now @ UMass-Lowell:http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/08...-recruits.html

A key point:

They’re offering an opportunity for people to feel powerful. They’re making disillusioned, disaffected radicals feel like they’re doing something truly meaningful with their lives.

Are we and others ready for this?

Disillusionment is very, very common in every single terrorist and extremist group you can think of. That’s something that can be very toxic if those accounts get out and gather momentum.

Disillusionment is the most common reason why people voluntarily choose to walk away from a terrorist group. People become disillusioned if they feel that the group has gone too far, if they don’t seem to have a strategy beyond indiscriminate killing. Disillusionment can arise from disagreements with a leader, it can arise from dissatisfaction with the day-to-day minutiae. There are many directions from which disillusionment can arise, and it’s only a matter of time before those accounts leak out from ISIS, and I think we would do very well to be on the lookout for those kinds of accounts, because they offer an opportunity to dissuade further potential recruits from being involved.

[davidbfpo]

A short article from The Guardian, best explained by the writer's bio:

Ali Khedery is chairman and chief executive of Dragoman Partners, a strategic consultancy. He served as special assistant to five American ambassadors in Iraq and as senior adviser to three heads of US Central Command from 2003-10. He was the longest continuously serving American official in Iraq.

He ends with:

As world leaders now consider a military campaign to confront Isis, they should remember the lessons of America's costly and largely fruitless engagements in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam. They should understand that no amount of foreign military power can ever make up for the misrule of corrupt, failed governments like those in Damascus, Baghdad, Kabul or Saigon. Unless they want a regional holy war, leaders should especially discount the advice of some who are now calling for an alliance with Assad's genocidal regime – perhaps the single greatest root cause of Isis's rise.

Instead, they should embrace the lessons of Iraq's Sunni tribal awakening, that only Syrian and Iraqi Sunnis can defeat radical militant Sunni entities like Isis. Likewise, they should understand that only the mullahs in Tehran can help quell radical militant Shia entities like Lebanon's Hezbollah, Assad's intelligence operatives or Iraq's militias.

Link:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...had?CMP=twt_gu

[davidbfpo]

Prompted by Will McCants article (cited below) I thought a thread on ISIS beyond the frontline - which currently dominates the MSM - would be useful. Not the news reporting, rather lessons learned, analysis and commentary as an adversary - for many - and as a threat.

I will endeavour to copy appropriate posts from other threads, notably the current Iraq thread and elsewhere. Outlaw09 has already referred to the information available years ago on ISIS / AQ in Iraq, that was deemed of little value - so I am sure he will chime in.

Now back to Will McCants, a Brookings analyst, 'Five Myths about the Islamic State':http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-fr...-state-mccants

[davidbfpo]

Yassin Musharbash, a German-Jordanian journalist and Jihad watcher, has a short five point commentary '5 Things we don't know about the Caliphate':http://abususu.blogspot.de/2014/08/5...caliphate.html

Why another five point eludes me. He explains, with his emphasis:

So in the interest of self-discipline, academic transparency and self-questioning, here is a brief list of the five most important things we (or I, at least) do not know about the Caliphate, but really wish I knew

[davidbfpo]

Four quite different commentaries found today; two British and two American.

'The real threat from the Islamic State is to Muslims, not the west' by Sonny Handal. As the title implies he is worried:

In many ways it is perhaps the worst development in recent Muslim history since 9/11. There are two reasons for this: First, it is likely to cause even greater unrest in countries where Muslims aren't a majority, and second, the Islamic State group could tear apart the Middle East and cause further unrest for generations.

I have long argued that strategically it is important to keep India's Muslims in view, so this passage is not good news:

India, which has the world's second-largest Muslim population, is especially in shock after Islamic State sympathisers have turned up from Kashmir in the north to Tamil Nadu in the south. There is not one recorded instance of an Indian Muslim having fought for al-Qaeda, but already four are suspected of having joined the group.

Link:http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opi...357532975.html

Majid Nawaz, of the Quilliam Foundation, ex-radical, makes a good contribution on what ISIS means and its methods. His advocated response is wishful thinking:http://warontherocks.com/2014/08/wha...-east-needs/#_

Paul Pillar I expect is known to American readers anyway an ex-CIA analyst and writes in 'National Interest':http://nationalinterest.org/blog/pau...spective-11150

It is very much IMHO a plea to recognise lessons learnt and ends with:

In that regard we cannot remind ourselves often enough—especially because this fact seems to have been forgotten amid the current discussion of ISIS—that ISIS itself was born as a direct result of the United States going after a different monster in Iraq.

The last article, the shortest, is a braoder outlook:

We’re caught in a revenge cycle with a death cult, and it’s redefining modern warfare.

Link:http://www.washingtonpost.com/postev...ighting-a-war/

[davidbfpo]

Clint Watts (CWOT on SWC) has followed ISIS closer than most analysts. His short FPRI column asks: Why would the U.S. want to be ISIS’s ‘Far Enemy’?

For ISIS, attacking the U.S. may be a long-term objective but their base of support is mobilized by its delivery on objectives that al Qaeda touted but never moved on-–e.g., establishment of an Islamic State, governance by Sharia law, and widespread violence against all enemies of jihadi interpretations of Islam.

Link:http://www.fpri.org/geopoliticus/201...siss-far-enemy

[davidbfpo]

From a long, mainly historical explanation, by Alistair Crooke: 'You Can't Understand ISIS If You Don't Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia':http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alasta..._5717157.html?

ISIS is a "post-Medina" movement: it looks to the actions of the first two Caliphs, rather than the Prophet Muhammad himself, as a source of emulation, and it forcefully denies the Saudis' claim of authority to rule.

His last paragraph is rather savage:

Why should we be surprised then, that from Prince Bandar's Saudi-Western mandate to manage the insurgency in Syria against President Assad should have emerged a neo-Ikhwan type of violent, fear-inducing vanguard movement: ISIS? And why should we be surprised -- knowing a little about Wahhabism -- that "moderate" insurgents in Syria would become rarer than a mythical unicorn? Why should we have imagined that radical Wahhabism would create moderates? Or why could we imagine that a doctrine of "One leader, One authority, One mosque: submit to it, or be killed" could ever ultimately lead to moderation or tolerance?