ISIS Has Shifted The State Of Play Across The Middle East
24 October 2014
By Osman Mirghani
The air campaign against the positions of the Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have become a source of
ridicule and sarcasm in the US media for its meager
results and inefficiency in halting the advance of the
group's fighters. Expensive weapons are being used,
costly sorties are being carried out and
sophisticated, laser-guided missiles are being fired
at the group's positions, without much success in
preventing the march of ISIS fighters in both Syria
and Iraq.
In the face of growing criticism of his strategy in
over two months of air strikes, US President Barack
Obama organized a meeting this week with the army
chiefs from the 21 countries participating in the
international campaign against ISIS. The coalition is
taking on a group whose fighters, we were first told,
number 12,000, then the estimate increased to 15,000
and finally more than 20,000. No one knows precisely
how many fighters have joined ISIS ranks; but whatever
the exact figure, it does not compare to the number of
fighters and weaponry the international coalition, the
Kurdish Peshmerga forces or the Iraqi army possesses.
We are facing a mysterious organization that has
altered the reality on the ground and imposed a war
that may lead to the dismantling of states. There is
nothing logical about how ISIS has extended its
influence and seized control of vast expanses of land
in Iraq and Syria—larger than the size of
Britain—sometimes engaging in clashes near the border
with Lebanon. The territory ISIS controls is not like
the mountainous cave complex of Tora Bora in
Afghanistan where the Taliban hid from US forces.
Instead, ISIS roams freely in an area that encompasses
major cities, oil refineries and electricity plants.
The organization levies taxes, sells oil and
communicates with the world via modern technology. It
has successfully spread its propaganda to attract new
recruits, lured in by firebrand discourse calling for
the establishment of a caliphate and the provision of
weapons, salaries and marriages, or what has been
dubbed "sexual jihad."
Some analysts have begun to warn that the war on ISIS
will cost the US alone more than 20 billion US
dollars. Western political and military personalities
are warning it will be a prolonged war, extending up
to 30 years, according to former US Secretary of
Defense Leon Panetta. That is, the war on ISIS will be
much longer than the two world wars combined.
The expansion of ISIS and the state of disarray among
its opponents perhaps tempted the Houthi rebels in
Yemen and their allies to swoop on the government in
Sana'a in what is another bizarre scenario. The
advances by extremist groups in Libya to control the
country by declaring their own government and storming
the capital Tripoli may also be, in part, a
repercussion of ISIS's successes and the slow progress
on the part of the international community in
confronting and defeating the group. The bitter truth
is that we are floundering in the face of movements
that are destroying countries, dismantling their
social fabric and fanning the flames of sectarianism
which continues to threaten the entire region.
Apart from any conspiracy theories, there are many
indications that, following its remarkably swift
ascendance, ISIS, like Al-Qaeda, is going to be on the
scene for many years to come. ISIS emerged at a time
when Al-Qaeda has grown weak and old; ISIS is seeking
to replace Al-Qaeda as a magnet for new generations of
extremists seeking a battleground and banner. There
are some who have become convinced that defeating ISIS
will not see off Islamic extremism for good. ISIS may
become exhausted, with several of its leaders killed
or forced to flee the battlefield, only for another
jihadist movement to emerge to take its place. However
until that happens, ISIS will still have contributed
to the dismantling of the central governments of Iraq
and Syria, completely changing the regional web of
alliances on the ground. Things are not going to
return to normal now that a new reality has been
imposed on the region, with extremists fueling
sectarianism, sowing fear in the minds of minorities
whose members have long been part of the region's
social fabric. Iraq is already being dismantled since
ISIS has widened the gap between Sunnis and Shi'ites,
targeted Christians and Yazidis and strengthening
calls for an independent Kurdistan and the arming of
the Kurds.
All of this has shifted the view on the situation in
Syria as Washington delays discussions on the fate of
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. The collapse of the
Syrian opposition in ISIS's wake has invalidated all
the former strategies that were already complicated by
the growing disputes within opposition ranks. Today,
Western countries are indirectly cooperating with
Assad's regime as the coalition's bombardment of ISIS
reduces pressure on Syrian government forces. At the
same time, military training of opposition groups will
require time during which the battlefield will change
again. Despite the mysterious manner in which it
emerged, ISIS would not have succeeded had it not been
for the prevailing circumstances in the region.
©
EsinIslam.Com
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