Middle East and North Africa

Iraq

  • United States
    Jordan’s ISIS Challenge
    Today’s news and images of ISIS burning Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh to death in a cage comes just days after the group decapitated a second Japanese hostage. Such horrific murders provoke, shock, and dismay, which is their goal. By combining medieval brutality with twenty-first century social media, ISIS seeks the largest possible amount of attention for itself and its distorted variant of religio-messianism. Such incidents require a more vigorous military, as well as messaging, response. The United States can intensify the role it has been playing in leading the coalition. But it is incumbent on senior religious figures indigenous to the Muslim world to counter ISIS’ narrative. Holding Kasasbeh hostage had helped provoke a limited backlash against Jordan’s participation in the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS. Prior to the news of his murder, some of Kasasbeh’s Bararsheh tribesmen protested in Amman againstKing Abdullah and his decision to participate in the anti-ISIS campaign. Such demonstrations, particularly amongst tribesmen, are unusual in Jordan. In its barbaric killing of Kasasbeh, ISIS hopes to drive an even greater wedge between Jordan’s Hashemite rulers and the small but not insignificant number of Jordanians sympathetic to ISIS, or at least opposed to Jordan’s fight against it. With Jordan now hosting over half a million Syrian refugees, there is considerable unease and conflict fatigue in the Hashemite kingdom. Employing their media savvy, ISIS released the images of Kasasbeh’s murder the same day as King Abdullah’s visit to Washington, even though the Jordanian pilot had apparently been murdered a month ago, according to sources in Amman. ISIS no doubt wanted to drive home the image of the Western-backed Abdullah being received in the capital of the coalition’s leader. Not wanting to play into this narrative, King Abdullah immediately cut short his visit to return back home. Upon return, he will likely rally the vast majority of Jordanians outraged by the murder of their pilot and take strong measures against incarcerated accused terrorists. ISIS knows and expects that. But ISIS nonetheless hopes its defiant gruesome murder of Jordan’s pilot, like the beheadings of other ISIS prisoners, will make some Jordanians question their country’s military support of the U.S.-led coalition and suggest that its participation is not worth the cost. ISIS calculates that provoking anguish and anger amongst its enemies will help generate new friends and recruits, or at least weaken the resolve of its adversaries. King Abdullah will doubtlessly try to prove this notion mistaken. ISIS is seeking to project an image of itself as fierce. Such tactics could successfully distract attention from the significant battlefield setback that ISIS has just suffered at the hands of Kurdish fighters in Kobani and elsewhere. Yet ISIS’ projections of fierceness are not just a contrivance. ISIS’ capture and control of Mosul and large chunks of Syrian and Iraqi territory last June demonstrate the very real military power at its disposal. But it adds, as an ideological force multiplier, its brand of Islamist ideology. That ISIS poses an ideological threat well beyond the battlefield suggests that the U.S.-led coalition’s reliance largely on air-power is too limited. Sure, determined Kurdish fighters were successful in countering ISIS on the ground in Kobani with coalition support, but only after a protracted and deadly fight. Similar fighters prepared to challenge ISIS on the ground in Iraq and Syria appear sorely lacking. But the ugly murder of Moaz al-Kasasbeh demonstrates that the anti-ISIS coalition needs a robust strategy to battle the Islamist forces on the ideological as well as the military battlefield.
    Blog Post by Robert Danin February 3, 2015 Middle East Matters
  • Iraq
    Weekend Reading: Egypt’s Spider-Man, Ottomania, and Iraq’s Militias
    Browse through Hossam Atef’s photo gallery, the photographer known as Antikka who recently made headlines with his latest project, “SpiderMan At Egypt.” Pinar Tremblay investigates the discriminatory effects of introducing Ottoman Turkish to the national curriculum. Joel Wing asks if militias in Iraq can be successfully integrated into the national security forces.
    Blog Post by Steven A. Cook December 12, 2014 From the Potomac to the Euphrates
  • Iraq
    Making War In Iraq
    It was sort of amazing back in August when President Barack Obama went before the White House press corps and publicly declared, “We don’t have a strategy yet” when it came to combating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). He was pilloried in a collective freak-out that crossed partisan lines. The president probably should not have said what he said given what he must now know about the press, his opponents, and his previous, ill-considered comments about post-Bin Laden extremist groups being “JV.” That said, admitting that his administration had not yet determined how to meet the ISIS threat was also sort of prudent. “Strategy” and “strategic” are among the most misused and abused words in Washington, and given the complex and unprecedented problems that are consuming Iraq and Syria, it was a good idea for the administration to take a step back and ask a number of basic questions before settling on its goals and determining the resources necessary to meet those objectives. For example, what resources were available to the United States? What are ISIS’ goals? What can regional allies do? How might regional adversaries react to various courses of action? What are reasonable goals for the United States? How will the American people respond to different approaches? Instead, as I wrote last September, the president was bullied into bombing ISIS after James Foley was beheaded, leaving the Pentagon, White House, and State Department to figure out a strategy on the fly. It was no way to go to war. Three months later, a strategy has come into view and it does not look pretty. The exigencies of fighting ISIS as well as keeping U.S. ground forces out of combat makes civil war more likely in the long run. This should not be misinterpreted as a plea to deploy large numbers of American soldiers to Iraq, but rather an analytic judgement based on the way—it seems—the administration has answered the questions I posed above. The strategy is fairly straightforward: Given the limited availability of U.S. forces due to the American people’s reluctance to go back to war in Iraq, American airpower combined with friendly and not-so-friendly ground forces will “degrade and destroy ISIS.” Yet in order for the friendly ground forces—the Iraqi military and Kurdish peshmerga—to combat the so-called Islamic State effectively, they need to be well-equipped and well-trained. And in the case of Iraq’s armed forces, again. In parallel, the Iranians have activated or set up Iraqi Shia militias to confront ISIS, a development to which Washington has not objected given the impossibility of sending American ground troops to Iraq. The present confluence of interests between the United States and Iran has produced endless references to the alleged rule of Middle Eastern politics, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” (Never mind the fact that this logic seems to work in other regions as well). Under present political circumstances, which limits the use of military force to airpower, the current strategy may be the best the administration can do to degrade, if not destroy, ISIS. Destroying the group requires something else entirely—an appealing narrative to counter Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s worldview. To date, there is a disparate group of mostly young Muslims who are attacking ISIS on religious grounds, but nothing coherent has emerged. Setting aside the fight against ISIS and what it might take to defeat them, something deeply worrisome about the Obama administration’s strategy comes into view: In order to meet the challenge of the so-called Islamic State, the United States is essentially encouraging the emergence of a variety of different armies in Iraq. Should Washington be successful, there will be a newly trained and equipped Iraqi security force alongside a Kurdish army with new equipment and additional training next to a variety of Shia militias—the Badr Brigades, the Mahdi army/Saraya al-Salam, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, and Kata’ib Hizbullah—all of which are closely linked to Iran. What does anyone think is going to happen? There is a lot of hope that Iraq will not disintegrate, but with a variety of armies operating on its territory, it seems more likely that there is going to be a fight hastening Iraq’s demise. We know two of the militaries—the Iraqi army and the peshmerga—are under the command of leaders who are cooperating only because of the overwhelming threat of ISIS to them both. Will this carry over after the emergency passes? The Kurds have certainly been more subdued about independence since the peshmerega underperformed in August, placing their capital, Erbil, at risk of being overrun, but they remain deeply suspicious of Baghdad—the recent oil deal nothwithstanding—and continue to draw a distinction between what Kurdish officials call “pre- and post-Mosul Iraq.” The Kurds insist that after ISIS took over Mosul, the rules of politics have to change in a way in which their rights are protected if they are to remain part of a united Iraq. Is that political freight the politicians in Baghdad can bear? Then there are the Shia militias, which are instruments of Iranian power. Even though they are Shia, and Shiites dominate the government, one can imagine that Tehran would look dimly on any effort to bring these groups under central authority. Iran’s civilian allies in Iraq almost blew it once when a combination of their incompetence and cynicism put the country in jeopardy in the wake of ISIS’ advances last summer; why trust them again? It seems more likely that Iran will want some or all of its allied militias to remain outside government control, much like Hezbollah in Lebanon. There is a compelling case to be made that the Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis have much to gain from pulling together and building Iraq. It is a good argument, but politics often has a way of making a mess of things.
    Blog Post by Steven A. Cook December 8, 2014 From the Potomac to the Euphrates
  • Iraq
    Weekend Reading: Mubarak Acquitted, (Another) Tunisian Uprising, and Iraq’s Flags
    Hossam Bahgat sheds some light on the verdict acquitting former President Hosni Mubarak of charges against him. Sam Kimball and Nicholas Linn contend that despite Tunisia’s recent elections, the country could be headed for another uprising. Karim Abou Merhi explores the raging "war of flags" in Iraq.
    Blog Post by Steven A. Cook November 29, 2014 From the Potomac to the Euphrates
  • Iraq
    Next Steps for U.S. Foreign Policy on Syria and Iraq
    Before the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, CFR Senior Fellow Elliott Abrams details the United States' goals in Iraq and Syria: to alleviate the humanitarian and refugee crisis; to prevent an Iranian victory in Syria; and to strike devastating blows at the Islamic State.
    Testimony by Elliott Abrams November 19, 2014
  • Islamic State
    Defeating ISIS
    President Barack Obama's strategy in Syria and Iraq is not working. The president is hoping that limited air strikes, combined with U.S. support for local proxies—the peshmerga, the Iraqi security forces, the Sunni tribes, and the Free Syrian Army—will "degrade and ultimately destroy" the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). U.S. actions have not stopped ISIS from expanding its control into Iraq's Anbar Province and northern Syria. If the president is serious about dealing with ISIS, he will need to increase America's commitment in a measured way—to do more than what Washington is currently doing but substantially less than what it did in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past decade. And although President Obama will probably not need to send U.S. ground–combat forces to Iraq and Syria, he should not publicly rule out that option; taking the possibility of U.S. ground troops off the table reduces U.S. leverage and raises questions about its commitment. A Big Threat A reasonable goal for the United States would be neither to "degrade" ISIS (vague and insufficient) nor to "destroy" it (too ambitious for the present), but rather to "defeat" or "neutralize" it, ending its ability to control significant territory and reducing it to, at worst, a small terrorist group with limited reach. This is what happened with ISIS' predecessor, al-Qaeda in Iraq, during 2007 and 2008, before its rebirth amid the chaos of the Syrian civil war. It is possible to inflict a similar fate on ISIS, which, for all of its newfound strength, is less formidable and less organized than groups like Hezbollah and the Taliban, which operate with considerable state support from Iran and Pakistan, respectively. Although not as potent a fighting force as Hezbollah or the Taliban, ISIS is an even bigger threat to the United States and its allies because it has attracted thousands of foreign fighters who could return to commit acts of terrorism in their homelands. What It Will Take to Defeat ISIS To defeat ISIS, the president needs to dispatch more aircraft, military advisors, and special operations forces, while loosening the restrictions under which they operate. The president also needs to do a better job of mobilizing support from Sunnis in Iraq and Syria, as well as from Turkey, by showing that he is intent on deposing not only ISIS but also the equally murderous Alawite regime in Damascus. Specific steps include:   Intensify air strikes. So far, the U.S. bombing campaign against ISIS has been remarkably restrained, as revealed by a comparison with the strikes against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan after 9/11. When the Taliban lost control of Afghanistan between October 7, 2001, and December 23, 2001—a period of seventy-five days—U.S. aircraft flew 6,500 strike sorties and dropped 17,500 munitions. By contrast, between August 8, 2014, and October 23, 2014—seventy-six days—the United States conducted only 632 airstrikes and dropped only 1,700 munitions in Iraq and Syria. Such episodic and desultory bombing will not stop any determined military force, much less one as fanatical as ISIS.   Lift the prohibition on U.S. "boots on the ground." President Obama has not allowed U.S. Special Forces and forward air controllers to embed themselves in the Free Syrian Army, Iraqi security forces, Kurdish peshmerga, or in Sunni tribes when they go into combat as he did with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. This lack of eyes on the ground makes it harder to call in air strikes and to improve the combat capacity of U.S. proxies. Experience shows that "combat advisors" fighting alongside indigenous troops are far more effective than trainers confined to large bases.   Increase the size of the U.S. force. Military requirements, not a priori numbers dreamed up in Washington, should shape the force eventually dispatched. The current force, even with the recent addition of 1,500 more troops for a total of 2,900, is inadequate. Estimates of necessary troop size range from 10,000 personnel (according to General Anthony Zinni, former head of Central Command) to 25,000 (according to military analysts Kim and Fred Kagan). The total number should include Special Forces teams and forward air controllers to partner with local forces as well as logistical, intelligence, security, and air contingents in support.   Work with all of Iraq's and Syria's moderate factions. The United States should work with the peshmerga, Sunni tribes, the Free Syrian Army, and elements of the Iraqi security forces (ISF) that have not been overtaken by Iran's Quds Force, rather than simply supplying weapons to the ISF. Given Shiite militia infiltration, working exclusively through the ISF would risk empowering the Shiite sectarians whose attacks on Sunnis are ISIS' best recruiter. The United States should directly assist Sunni tribes by establishing a small forward operating base in Anbar Province, and also increase support for and coordination with the Free Syrian Army. Current plans to train only five thousand Syrian fighters next year need to be beefed up.   Send in the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Between 2003 and 2010, JSOC—composed of units such as SEAL Team Six and Delta Force—became skilled at targeting the networks of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Its success was largely due to its ability to gather intelligence by interrogating prisoners and scooping up computers and documents—something that bombing alone cannot accomplish. JSOC squadrons should once again be moved to the region (they could be stationed in Iraq proper, the Kurdistan Regional Government, Turkey, and/or Jordan) to target high-level ISIS organizers.   Draw Turkey into the war. President Obama should do what he can to increase Turkey's involvement in the anti-ISIS campaign. If the Turkish army were to roll across the frontier, it could push back ISIS and establish "safe zones" for more moderate Syrian opposition members. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that he will not join the fray without Washington's commitment to overthrowing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom he rightly sees as the source of instability in Syria. Assuming Erdogan has honestly outlined his conditions for Turkish involvement in Syria, a greater U.S. commitment, demonstrated by a no-fly zone and airstrikes on Assad's forces, should be sufficient to entice Ankara to play a greater role.   Impose a no-fly zone over part or all of Syria. Even though U.S. aircraft are overflying Syria, they are not bombing Assad's forces. This has led to a widespread suspicion among Sunnis that the United States is now willing to keep Assad in power. More broadly, Sunnis fear that Obama is accommodating Assad's backers in Tehran to allow Iran to dominate Mesopotamia and the Levant. A no-fly zone over part or all of Syria would address these concerns and pave the way for greater Turkish involvement. The United States should act to ensure that Assad does not take advantage of the anti-ISIS campaign to bomb opposition centers. Obama could announce that no Syrian aircraft will be allowed over designated "safe zones." Such a move would garner widespread support among Arab states, undercutting attempts to portray U.S. action as a war against the Muslim world. There are legitimate concerns that overthrowing Assad now, before the Syrian opposition is ready to fill the vacuum, would be counterproductive and potentially pave the way for a jihadist takeover of all of Syria. But instituting a partial or even a complete no-fly zone would not lead to Assad's immediate ouster. It would, however, facilitate the moderate opposition's ability to organize an administration capable, with international help, of governing Syria once Assad finally goes.   Mobilize Sunni tribes. As long as the Sunni tribes of Iraq and Syria continue to tacitly support ISIS, or at least not to resist it, defeating ISIS will be almost impossible. But if the tribes turn against ISIS, as they did against al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2007, a rapid reversal of fortunes is likely. Galvanizing Sunni tribes into action will not be easy; Iraqi Sunnis feel that the United States betrayed them after the surge by leaving them under Shiite domination in Baghdad. The fact that Haidar al-Abadi replaced former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in September is a good first step. But Abadi is also a Shiite from the same Dawa Party as Maliki, making it unlikely that Sunnis will fight ISIS if they once again find themselves subordinated to Shiite rule. This concern could be allayed if the United States were to engineer a political deal to grant Sunnis autonomy within the Iraqi federal structure, similar to what the Kurdistan Regional Government already enjoys. To assuage Sunnis' fear of betrayal, the United States should pledge to indefinitely maintain advise-and-assist forces in Iraq—even without Baghdad's agreement, U.S. forces could at least remain in the Kurdish area.   Prepare now for nation-building. The United States should lay the groundwork for a postconflict settlement in both Iraq and Syria that does not necessarily require keeping both political entities intact. In the Iraqi context, this means offering greater autonomy to the Sunnis and guaranteeing the Kurds that their hard-won gains will not be jeopardized; the United States should propose to permanently station troops in the Kurdistan Regional Government. This is not necessarily synonymous with Kurdish independence, but the United States should give serious consideration to dropping its longtime opposition to the creation of a Kurdish state or possibly even two—one in Syria and one in Iraq.   Social fragmentation in Syria will make postwar reconstruction difficult; after three years of civil war, it may not be possible to reconstitute the country as it previously existed. The U.S. goal should simply be to ensure that Syrian territory is not controlled by either Shiite or Sunni extremists. The postwar settlement in the former Yugoslavia, which involved the dispatch of international peacekeepers and administrators under United Nations, European Union, and NATO mandates, could be a possible model. The United States should push UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura to work in cooperation with the Arab League, the EU, NATO, the United States, and even Russia to create a post-Assad administration that can win the assent of Syria's sectarian communities. As Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution has suggested, "[T]he U.S. should provide most of the muscle, the Gulf states most of the money, and the international community most of the know-how." This is admittedly an ambitious goal. Neither Assad nor ISIS is in imminent danger of falling, and it will be challenging to impose any kind of order in Syria. But the United States should not repeat the mistake it made in Iraq and Libya of pushing for regime change absent a plan to fill the resulting vacuum. Admittedly even the best-laid plans can fail, but failure is guaranteed if no such plans are in place.   Down the "Slippery Slope"?   Critics will call this strategy too costly, alleging that it will push the United States down a "slippery slope" into another ground war in the Middle East. This approach will undoubtedly incur greater financial cost (dispatching ten thousand troops for a year would cost $10 billion) and higher risk of casualties among U.S. forces. But the present minimalist strategy has scant chance of success, and it risks backfiring—ISIS' prestige will be enhanced if it withstands half-hearted U.S. air strikes. Left unchecked, ISIS could expand into Lebanon, Jordan, or Saudi Arabia. Greater American involvement could galvanize U.S. allies—the most important being Turkey and the Sunni tribes of Iraq and Syria—to commit more resources to the fight. If this plan is not implemented, a major ground war involving U.S. troops becomes more probable, because the security situation will likely continue deteriorating. By contrast, this strategy, while incurring greater short-term risks, enhances the odds that ISIS will be defeated before Obama leaves office.  
    Policy Innovation Memorandum by Max Boot November 17, 2014 National Security and Defense Program
  • Military Operations
    Guest Post: Developing a Narrative for Success in the Battle Against ISIS
    Col. Stephen Liszewski, U.S. Marine Corps, is a Military Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He most recently commanded the 11th Marine Regiment based at Camp Pendleton, California. Victory over the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is not only a matter of military success; President Obama recently made this point to coalition military leaders. The fight against ISIS is part of a larger struggle with violent extremist ideology. To achieve victory, the United States and its coalition partners must craft and employ an effective narrative. The narrative will provide a framework for action and should concisely outline the threat, the outcomes they want to achieve, and the measures they will take to reach these goals. In order to be effective, the narrative must simultaneously address multiple audiences—the American people, U.S. coalition partners and their domestic populations, and the members of ISIS and their potential recruits around the world.  Most importantly, the narrative must reach out to the moderate Sunni populations in Iraq and Syria. Make no mistake, the military component is essential to this fight. But it is becoming increasingly clear that the central struggle is between opposing ideologies, and an effective narrative will be a powerful weapon to counter ISIS propaganda. It will build trust with Sunni populations in Iraq and Syria while negating ISIS’s claim to be the defenders of Islam. If properly developed, the narrative will unify the international coalition for what is shaping up to be an extended fight. Strategists and planners can draw on lessons the U.S. military learned while building a campaign narrative in Helmand Province in Afghanistan in 2012. While operating in Regional Command Southwest there, I helped develop the campaign narrative used to explain the our purpose and intent to several audiences. We set several goals. First, the narrative had to speak to American and British forces in Afghanistan and to the families of these marines, sailors, and soldiers. They had to understand the threat we faced, and the importance of our mission. Second, our narrative also had to speak to and mobilize Afghan security forces. The Afghans knew that coalition forces were beginning to leave Helmand, and ignoring this fact would have destroyed the credibility of the U.S. narrative.  It was important that our Afghan partners knew that, after many years of American and British forces leading the fight, it was now time for the Afghans to take the lead because they were better trained and larger than the enemy. And third, because of the nature of counterinsurgency—a competition with the enemy for the will of the local population—it was important that the narrative inform the people of Helmand of our intent to help them move forward after many dark years under the Taliban.  The enemy’s narrative characterized U.S. troops as foreign invaders; this message needed an effective counter.  Our narrative had to address the enemy and make them aware of our unwavering commitment to victory while offering the opportunity to reconcile if they would lay down their arms. So, too, the strategic narrative for the fight against ISIS must coherently explain the challenge the coalition faces, the need for action, and the coalition’s goals and how it intends to achieve them. This must be done in plain English based on fact, not driven by emotion. As we learned in Afghanistan, the United States must simultaneously address several audiences—coalition forces and their domestic populations, Iraqi security forces, moderate opposition forces in Syria, the innocent people of Iraq and Syria, the members of ISIS and, perhaps most importantly, Muslims across the world. Another lesson we learned in Helmand province in 2012 was the need to manage expectations in developing goals. This was a challenge for us; we had been given a tough mission and 2012 was a year of transition in Helmand Province. We knew we would not have unlimited resources to accomplish our mission.  We had to fight the temptation to establish lofty goals that sounded appealing but were not feasible with the resources on the ground. Similarly, the coalition faces a resource-constrained environment in its current struggle with ISIS. It must ensure that its message does not promise too much given the resources at its disposal. The most important lesson we learned while developing and deploying a campaign narrative in Helmand Province was the requirement to align our words with our actions.  We took great care to ensure that the narrative we propagated was not rendered hollow by our actions, but instead helped to provide the framework and boundaries for our actions. An imprecise narrative would have tied our hands or established goals we could not achieve. When faced with difficult choices about future operations, we asked if the actions we were considering aligned with the narrative. If this was not the case, we would reconsider our plans. When actions are not aligned with the narrative, credibility and effectiveness are lost; the enemy can use this inconsistency to strengthen their competing narrative in the war of ideas. This lesson also must be applied against ISIS. Winning the loyalty of moderate Sunnis in Iraq and Syria demands a high degree of credibility with the local population and security forces, who must believe the coalition can help deliver a better future than ISIS. Credibility will also be an important tool when the United States take on the larger challenge of countering ISIS efforts to radicalize and recruit personnel needed to grow their organization. If the United States’ actions do not align with its words, ISIS will use this to undermine the credibility of the United States and its coalition, and strengthen their recruiting efforts. Crafting a narrative for the fight against ISIS that effectively and simultaneously communicates the coalition’s message to several different audiences will be difficult. But a narrative marshals the coalition’s thoughts and will enable an effective campaign by ensuring the desired outcome is achievable with the resources available. Once developed, a strong strategic narrative can be used to help stave off mission creep, provide clarity for the expected time needed to achieve victory, and build the credibility needed to win the larger fight against violent extremism.
    Blog Post by Guest Blogger for Micah Zenko October 29, 2014 Politics, Power, and Preventive Action
  • Iraq
    Weekend Reading: On Being Jewish in Egypt, Iraq’s Militias, and What Just Happened in Yemen?
    An old one from Eric Rouleau, who reflects on his experiences as an Egyptian-Jewish journalist. Omar el-Jaffal examines the phenomenon of militias in Iraq and its implications on the Iraqi state. Atiaf Alwazir summarizes reactions to the recent takeover of the Yemeni capital Sanaa by Houthi fighters.
    Blog Post by Steven A. Cook September 26, 2014 From the Potomac to the Euphrates
  • Iraq
    Iraqi President Fuad Masum on ISIS and Iraq's Challenges
    Play
    Iraqi President Fuad Masum joins Michael R. Gordon, national security correspondent for the New York Times, to discuss ISIS and the current situation in Iraq.
    Event with Fuad Masum and Michael R. Gordon September 26, 2014
  • Iraq
    Iraqi President Fuad Masum on ISIS and Iraq's Challenges
    Play
    Iraqi President Fuad Masum joins Michael R. Gordon, national security correspondent for the New York Times, to discuss ISIS and the current situation in Iraq.
    Event September 26, 2014
  • Syria
    The Obama Speech About ISIS: Giving Himself An "A"
    There is too much one could say about the President’s speech last night to fit in a blog post, but there are a couple of items worth noting. I was struck by the President’s unacknowledged turnaround on the Syrian rebels. Just weeks ago, the notion that they might be worth helping was a "fantasy." Here is an excerpt from the Thomas Friedman interview of August 10th, just a month ago. With “respect to Syria,” said the president, the notion that arming the rebels would have made a difference has “always been a fantasy. This idea that we could provide some light arms or even more sophisticated arms to what was essentially an opposition made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth, and that they were going to be able to battle not only a well-armed state but also a well-armed state backed by Russia, backed by Iran, a battle-hardened Hezbollah, that was never in the cards.” What happened? Did the "pharmacists" suddenly become ferocious fighters? In fact the President’s comments a month ago were nasty and inaccurate: many of the rebels were from Syrian Army units that defected, many more were former conscripts with Army service, and all had proven themselves willing to fight both the regime and ISIS for years now without serious American help. They deserved better than the President’s sarcasm. Now he wants to back them, but never bothered to explain what has changed-- or to admit that he had simply been wrong. In fact we know that Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry, CIA Director Petraeus, and Secretary of Defense Panetta urged the President to do more in Syria. He rejected their advice; he was wrong; he has now reversed himself--without admitting it, of course. I was also struck by one key aspect of his calculations. On the one hand, he says ISIS constitutes such a threat that we must bomb them ourselves, send hundreds of soldiers to the region, spend $500 million training and equipping Syrians to fight them, arm the Iraqis and the Kurds, and create a large (we hope, anyway) international coalition. On the other hand, he wasn’t willing to act until Iraq had a new and workable government. Why? If ISIS is such a threat, who cares if Iraq has a terrific government or a terrible one; we still need to fight these terrorists. It’s worth adding that Iraq really doesn’t have a new government yet, and several key cabinet positions including minister of defense are still being fought over. Still Mr. Obama moved forward. It just doesn’t compute. Once again he seems to have changed his mind, but won’t explain that to the American people. It seems that admitting error, or even just saying there are new facts that changed his view, is impossible. On the contrary, his is the best U.S. foreign policy you can imagine, and we know this because he told us so last night in describing his actions: This is American leadership at its best. So, he gave himself an "A." Compare what George W. Bush did when his strategy in Iraq was failing. In January 2007 he explained himself to the American people candidly: When I addressed you just over a year ago, nearly 12 million Iraqis had cast their ballots for a unified and democratic nation. The elections of 2005 were a stunning achievement. We thought that these elections would bring the Iraqis together and, that as we trained Iraqi security forces, we could accomplish our mission with fewer American troops. But in 2006, the opposite happened....The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people, and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me. It is clear that we need to change our strategy in Iraq. President Obama would be better able to gain and keep the support of the people, and the Congress, if he were more candid about mistakes he had made and changes in his strategy. Giving himself top marks will not do it.    
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams September 11, 2014 Pressure Points
  • Iraq
    Confronting ISIS Requires a Bigger Plan
    The Obama administration’s plan for expanding its military campaign against ISIS, however worthy, raises questions about how the militants can be defeated on the ground, says CFR’s President Richard N. Haass.
    Interview with Richard Haass and Bernard Gwertzman September 11, 2014
  • United States
    Senator Levin Calls for International Coalition to Oppose ISIS
    Play
    Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) joins Michael Getler of PBS to discuss the ongoing crises in Ukraine, Syria, and Iraq and the U.S. response.
    Event with Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) and Michael Getler September 11, 2014
  • United States
    Senator Levin Calls for International Coalition to Oppose ISIS
    Play
    Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) joins Michael Getler of PBS to discuss the ongoing crises in Ukraine, Syria, and Iraq and the U.S. response.
    Event September 11, 2014
  • United States
    Understanding ISIS’s Apocalyptic Appeal
    By Ella Lipin President Barack Obama’s expected announcement today of a long-term military campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) follows an unusually grizzly few months of territorial conquest and seemingly barbaric behavior. To the outside world, this period of atrocities perpetrated by ISIS, such as the beheading of two American journalists, may be another defining moment in shaping the Middle East. But for many people in the region, ISIS’s message resounds and its arrival marks the end of days and the fulfillment of divine prophecy. To understand ISIS’s appeal and ultimately how to defeat it, the United States must recognize how the organization situates itself within Islamic apocalyptic tradition. In July, ISIS released the first two issues of Dabiq, its digital magazine, revealingly named after a Syrian town believed to be the site of the future climactic battle, to be fought between Muslims and Romans, that will lead to Judgment Day. The use of Dabiq draws from hadith, revered accounts of the Prophet Muhammad’s sayings or practices. The relevant passage states that the end of days won’t come until the battle at Dabiq. After the battle, the triumphant Muslims will go on to conquer the Western world (symbolized by Constantinople). ISIS reprinted this hadith in full in the first issue of its new publication. Herein lies ISIS’s propaganda strategy: employ Islamic apocalyptic tradition – with the West as the modern day Romans – to mobilize followers. Both the organization and its new recruits understand this script, made all the more relevant and compelling by the recent debate about U.S. airstrikes in Syria. Other militant jihadists have used this approach before. A decade ago, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of al-Qaeda in Iraq – the Islamic State’s predecessor – invoked the same tradition: “The spark has been lit here in Iraq, and its heat will continue to intensify – by Allah’s permission – until it burns the crusader armies in Dabiq.” This quotation was recently used to adorn the opening pages of ISIS’s glossy new magazine. This prophetic rhetoric, coupled with ISIS’s claim to establish the first Caliphate since the Ottoman Empire, aims to place the organization as the sole legitimate representative of Muslims and the inevitable enemy of the Western world. It can be a powerful message, one that has already helped bolster ISIS’s popular support. This interpretation of events is not limited to Sunni extremists; a large number of Muslims believe these events may be imminent. A 2011-2012 Pew survey found that a high percentage of Muslims in the Middle East believe they would witness events leading to the Day of Judgment. In Iraq, where ISIS has recently expanded, 72 percent of respondents expect to experience the coming of the Mahdi, a messianic redeemer who will restore the political and religious purity of Islam. While the figures were lower in other Muslim countries—Tunisia (67 percent), Lebanon (56 percent), Morocco (51 percent), the Palestinian Territories (46 percent), Jordan (41 percent), and Egypt (40 percent)—the apocalyptic tradition clearly resonates deeply throughout the region. By exploiting the battle of Dabiq, ISIS hopes to recruit disaffected admirers among the many who believe that the end of days is fast approaching. According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, ISIS managed to recruit 6,000 new fighters, including 1,000 foreigners, in the month of July alone. However, just because large numbers of Muslims hold a belief that the end of times is imminent does not mean they sympathize with ISIS’s radical and militant agenda. Nor does it mean that ISIS can successfully build a wider following by tapping into a commonplace apocalyptic tradition. The United States must do what it can to keep it that way. Airstrikes may be an important tool in addressing the immediate security crisis created by ISIS’s gains in territory and popularity, but force cannot stand alone. The United States needs a comprehensive, long-term strategy to answer this prophetic narrative and prevent ISIS from broadening its allure. The first step towards crafting such a response requires an understanding by the United States and its allies of ISIS’s theological appeal. Ella Lipin is a research associate for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.  
    Blog Post by Guest Blogger for Robert M. Danin September 10, 2014 Middle East Matters