Think Tank Close to Obama Misses Mark on ISIS Strategy
The Center for American Progress, a think tank close to the Obama Administration, recently released a strategy proposal on how to defeat ISIS which contains numerous flaws that make it unworkable and ineffective in combating the threat from, and spread of, the Islamist terrorist organization. Not surprisingly, many of the themes addressed in the proposal meet the broad guidelines sketched out by President Obama in his ISIS policy speech yesterday.
The CAP strategy repeatedly emphasizes the goal being to “contain and degrade” ISIS. This is a rather ambiguous formulation that in the end frankly means nothing.
How can you “contain” an entity that is able to cull ideologically committed recruits from all parts of the world via the Internet? These recruits, after doing their “tours of duty” in either Iraq or Syria – having entered those countries through third-party states which sometimes leaves their trail untraceable – will also return to their home countries, having undergone further ideological indoctrination and military training.
They are capable of forming sleeper cells in their home countries and striking at strategically opportune times. This is not a problem that can be “contained.” Degrade is also a very ambiguous term. Does it mean to wear down ISIS until it is back at its former strength when it was only Al-Qaeda in Iraq?
The second flawed assumption is that U.S. military might alone could not defeat ISIS. ISIS is not a conventional terrorist organization any more. It has crossed the threshold from an elusive terrorist group that can successfully wage a guerilla war against the United States into having a standing, visible and recognizable force and institutions of state. As an aside, this emphatically does not mean that ISIS is a legitimate state or that it is no longer a terrorist organization. But it is a terrorist organization that has adopted the vestiges of statehood. Unlike Hezbollah, which has created a “state within a state” in Lebanon, making them harder to defeat at the hands of conventional military forces, ISIS is not secretive about its membership, and it does not coexist along with another state entity as Hezbollah does. Where ISIS rules, it is the State and the State is ISIS. States can be destroyed. Given that ISIS is engaging in conventional warfare tactics, it has made itself more vulnerable to far-superior U.S. military might.
The third flaw is the series of alliances this strategy proposes in defeating ISIS. It advocates cooperation with Turkey on defeating ISIS, yet Turkey has shifted its interests to align with Islamist terrorist groups. Turkey’s support for Hamas has drawn attention from the U.S. Congress. Turkey has even credibly been accused of facilitating, or at least permitting, the flow of ISIS fighters into Syria. Even if, viewed from Washington, Turkey’s security interests would be served by an alliance to eliminate ISIS, Turkey’s Islamist President Erdogan appears to have judged differently.
Moreover, the strategy proposes aiding and funding “Third-way Syrian opposition” groups like Harakat Hazzm and the Syrian Revolutionaries’ Front (SRF). The problem is that these “third-way” opposition groups, like Harakat Hazzm and the SRF, are Islamist groups themselves, or are at minimum, willing to ally with Islamist groups, including Jubhat al Nusra.
Another flaw the proposal makes is to advocate militarily supporting the Kurds via the Iraqi government. Supporting the Pesh Merga militarily and financially is sound policy which would go a long way to stopping ISIS in their tracks and rolling them back, and would obviate the need for U.S. ground troops to be deployed in Iraq.
However, if the assistance is made via the Iraqi government, it is unlikely that any of the assistance would be transferred to the Kurds. The Iraqi government, in coordination with Iran, continues to rely on Shi’a militias to fight ISIS. These militias maintain their own animosity towards Sunni and Kurdish forces.
Also importantly, the strategy does not consider to whom ISIS will lose ground once it is “contained and degraded,” and makes no contingencies for ensuring that such ground is not lost to state actors or non-state actors that are harmful to U.S. regional interests, like Iran and its Shi’a proxies operating in Iraq and Syria who are actually far more harmful to U.S. regional interests than ISIS, in the long run.
