June 2014 ·
The Pros And Cons Of Drone Strikes In Iraq; What Should The U.S. Do Next?
Patrick Tucker had an article in the Friday, June 13, 2014 online edition of DefenseOne.com, with the title above. After POTUS Obama ruled out putting U.S. ground troops in Iraq, due the onslaught of Islamic extremists ongoing there, the White House is scrambling to decide what steps can be taken to hopefully arrest the momentum that Islamists appear to be gaining hour-by-hour, day-by-day. What form might these actions take?, asks Mr. Tucker. Armed drones seem to always be at or near the top of this White House’s list; but, as Mr. Tucker notes, “armed drones may provide the Administration with a cosmetic military solution,” at least in the short-term, “armed drones by themselves are likely to prove ineffective against an enemy like the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), a brutal offshoot of al Qaeda,” according to a number of experts that Mr. Tucker spoke with.
Drones Versus ISIS: The Pros
“Drones [strikes] against ISIS would have the same benefits that unmanned aerial vehicles have brought to every battlefield where they’ve been deployed — they’re low cost, and low-risk,” writes Mr. Tucker. “Compared with traditional fighter or reconnaissance aircraft, they can fly longer without stopping, allowing for better intelligence collection and targeting. When they’re shot down, you don’t have to worry about a potential hostage situation, or death of a pilot. With no status of forces agreement in place between Iraq and the United States, drone warfare could give some political cover for Iraqi leaders,” he notes.
“With a drone overhead, Maliki can credibly claim to the Iraqi people (and others in the region like Iran) that he didn’t allow any U.S. boots on the ground; or, U.S. persons in his country. It’s a flying robot, after all. This could matter “politically,” according to Sam Brannen, a Senior Fellow at The Center For Strategic and International Studies. “U.S.-armed drone strikes in Iraq might have some symbolic resonance,” agreed Audrey Kurth Cronin, the Director of The Center for Policy Studies at George Mason University — who has written on the use, and non-use of [armed] drones in Syria.
Drones Versus ISIS: The Cons
Mr. Tucker contends that, “too much ground has been lost, the enemy has grown too large, and available support for the Maliki government is too absent for armed drones to be a decisive weapon against the angry hordes. Much like in Syria, the U.S. doesn’t hold enough ground to use them effectively. The same could be said of Pakistan, where targeted drone strikes recently resumed, but in that country, the targets were more clear. They perform best — not against large groups of fighters, but very specific targets. In Iraq, drones present a little-risked, nothing-gained proposition,’ he concludes.
“We do not have good intelligence about what is going on, on the ground; it would be hard to identify the right targets. We don’t have human intelligence assets, or troops available to help guide them tactically. Third, we could hit civilians, or friendly forces, giving ISIS a huge propaganda coup that would be worse than no U.S. intervention at all,” said Ms. Cronin.
Pentagon spokesman, RADM John Kirby said Friday that “the U.S. had stepped up intelligence [collection] in the past several days”; but, he [also] acknowledged “intelligence isn’t always accurate.” When characterizing ISIS, RADM Kirby said, “it’s not a monolithic organization. Extremist groups rarely are. I don’t have any particular insights into their makeup and their manning. I mean, clearly, there’s a lot of foreign fighters involved here. It’s not a hierarchical organized, nation-state force,” he added.
Paul Scharre, at The Center for New American Security, said that “drone strikes may help relieve the symptoms of the current unrest; but, they hardly provide a cure. The issues in Iraq are [too complex] and too deep for robots to fix. The key problem that Iraq Iraqi military forces are facing is one of internal political cohesion. Reports from Iraq indicate that the ISIS offensive is not due to them defeating Iraqi military units in combat; but rather, to Iraqi military units melting away. Unmanned aircraft won’t change that,” he said.
As Mr. Tucker noted in conclusion, “our drone options would be better, in other words, had we planned for a situation like this earlier. Now, the mess is too big for the robots to clean up after us.”
Former U.S. Ambassador To Iraq, Ryan Evans On What U.S. Should Do Next
Ryan Evans, writing in the WarOnTheRocks blog, recently conducted an interview with former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq (2010-2012), James Jefferies about what the U.S. should do in light on the ongoing Islamic assault on Iraq. Ambassador Jeffries said that “the U.S. currently faces a triage. If ISIS is able to cut off and besiege Baghdad; and, other larger Shia cities in the days ahead, the U.S. must use air power; and, all sorts of other emergency assistance to stave off collapse of the state — or, a major Iranian intervention.”
“At the next level,” Ambassador Evans contends, “there must be a strategy to prevent a permanent ISIS presence in parts of Iraq and Syria. Absent a U.S. ground invasion, — which POTUS Obama has correctly ruled out,” he said, “this will require sophisticated U.S. diplomatic and political steps — to stand up local formations, supported by U.S. assistance, airpower, and training, along with support from regional allies, that can take on terrorists. To this end,” he said, “the Baghdad government would have to become much more inclusive.”
“At the third level,” argues Ambassador Evans, “from Pakistan to Mali, it is obvious that within the Sunni Middle East — when authority erodes — terrorists with an al Qaeda philosophy will spring up and gain traction. Attempting to stem this by imposing Western institutions and ideals has failed miserably. This is a profoundly troubling phenomenon. ”
Marc Stout, Senior Editor for WarOnTheRocks: “ISIS, This Too Shall Pass”
Marc Stout, Senior Editor for WarOnTheRocks, writing in today’s (June 16, 2014) edition, argues that “the spectacular advances by ISIS forces in Iraq in recent days, have been a catastrophe for Iraq and, a major setback for American interests — but, they are not the end of the world.” He suggests that ISIS may well make the mistake of strategic overreach. “For an explanation,” he recommends we “turn to probably the most brilliant jihadist strategist to have touched a keyboard: Abu Musab al-Suri.” Mr. al-Suri, Mr. Stout writes, believed “open fronts” such as the 1980s jihad against the Soviet Union, efforts to liberate and hold territory, are unlikely to succeed.” “The simple fact is,” he writes, “they cannot up to modern military power, backed by modern intelligence. Instead, Mr. al-Suri recommended a turn toward individual jihad — because it avoided the enemies’ strengths. In other words, Mr. Stout writes, “al-Suri would say that the more cities ISIS captures, the more money it has to keep track of, the more armored vehicles it acquires, the more social services it has to organize and deliver, — the more it is setting itself up to fail. These things have all sorts of pernicious effects, from the point of view of security: they tie ISIS to fixed territory, they create networks that can be mapped and exploited, and they provide targets for airpower and artillery.” Mr. Stout references Rand analyst Blake W. Mobley, a former CIA counterintelligence officer, and author of “Terrorism and Counterintelligence,” writing that he [Mr. Mobley] sums it up this way: “controlled territory places a challenging, but guaranteed high-value target directly in the sights…” of the terrorist adversaries.
Mr. Stout concludes that one has to look no further than Afghanistan and Somalia, to see the wisdom of al-Suri’s words, “only a small push from the U.S.-led coalition was necessary to send the Taliban regime running in 2001. In Somalia, al-Shabaab, and before it, the Islamic Courts Union, have had tremendous difficulties holding on to power in the face of attacks from local opponents; as well as the Ethiopian and Kenyan militaries, and occasional American raids.”
“All this,” Mr. Stout contends, “suggests it would be fairly easy to reverse most ISIS gains. When they are reversed-and no matter who does the reversing-the critical thing will be to portray the ISIS land grab as the latest futile gesture by Sunni jihadists always destined to lose, a waste of energy and lives that Allah did not allow to stand because of its inherent stupidity. Such an approach,” he argues, “might allow us to salvage something positive from this debacle.”
The Seeds Of The “Next” 9/11 Are Being Sown In Syria And Iraq
I hope Mr. Stout is right; and, I suspect to a large degree, he is. But, it is also likely, that no matter how this latest ISIS offensive ends/concludes, the seeds of “the next” 9/11 or terrorist attack on American soil — are being sown in this current conflagration.
David Kilcullen, author of “Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla,” predicts that future of modern conflict will be urban, coastal, and digitally networked. Instead of fighting in remote, rural areas, Kilcullen argues that in the future, the battles will likely occur in marginalized slums, in/or near coastal areas. He projects a future of feral cities, urban systems under stress, and with increasing overlaps between crime and war, internal and external threats, and the real and virtual worlds. Indeed, he argues, we must prepare for “the coming age of the urban guerrilla.”
If ISIS is smart and thoughtful enough, they will play long-ball here and not strategically overreach. Instead of exposing themselves to U.S. airstrikes — including armed drones — they will “melt” into the alleyways and crevices of Baghdad’s environs and other urban areas — where targeting from the air is either very difficult or, not an option. Not a whole lot to be hopeful for, at least at this stage
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