August 29, 2014
The Obama administration should look at these recommendations, if they aren’t already pursuing them.
When asked by a reporter during an August 21 news conference whether the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (now simply referred to as the Islamic State) is an imminent threat to the national security of the United States, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel spoke in the very clear and blunt thelanguage that he was once known for when he was a senator representing the great state of Nebraska.
“[A]s to the comment about an imminent threat, I think the evidence is pretty clear. When we look at what they did to Mr. Foley, what they threatened to do to all Americans and Europeans, what they are doing now, the—I don't know any other way to describe it other than barbaric. They have no standard of decency, of responsible human behavior, and I think the record's pretty clear on that. So, yes, they are an imminent threat to every interest we have, whether it's in Iraq or anywhere else.”
That’s a pretty strong indictment on the Islamic State and the horrendously bankrupt ideology that it represents. But it also happens to be a far more dire assessment than the White House has indicated in its own remarks.
This, of course, is not to suggest that President Barack Obama or his advisers in the National Security Council don’t take the threat of the Islamic State seriously. This is certainly not the case; if it were, the president would not have authorized a selected campaign of U.S. airstrikes on ISIL targets in northern Iraq. Rather, the stark difference in language that the White House and the Pentagon have used to describe the Islamic State suggests that the whole-of-government counterterrorism strategy that Washington is trying to create is still very much in the sausage-making process.
What should that whole-of-government counterterrorism strategy look like? Former U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad put forth a series of proposals based on his extensive diplomatic experience in an August 22 article for The National Interest. Think-tankers, columnists, ex-officials, and politicians all have their own opinions, with more aggressive action against ISIL bases in Syria often leading the pack of ideas. Many of the recommendations that have been put on the table, however, tend to be military-centric. The U.S. military certainly has a vital role to play in any anti-ISIL campaign, but as the Obama administration has rightly observed on a number of occasions, there needs to be something beyond the military realm to full grasp the horrific scourge that the Islamic State represents. Politics, economics, and the difficult work of regional and international diplomacy must all be incorporated into any policy if the long-term objective is to track, contain, and eventually degrade the military prowess and capability of the Islamic State. Fortunately, the White House is advocating for precisely that.
At the risk of being called naïve, inexperienced to the intricacies of Arab politics, or an armchair strategizer bloviating from the safety of his own coach, here are a few bullet points that the Obama administration, the U.S. military, the U.S. Foreign Service, and the Treasury Department should at the very least consider during their deliberations. I assume that officials across the U.S. Government are already contemplating some—if not all—of these policy proposals, and would in no way be surprised to learn that the administration is already in the middle of rolling them out to the public. But in any case, here they are:
1. More Arms to U.S Allies: To date, the Pentagon has transferred stockpiles of small arms and ammunition to the peshmerga forces currently defending Irbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, and the strategically important Mosul Dam. Washington has been assisted in this task by its European allies, with France, Great Britain, Albania, Italy, and several more working alongside the U.S. military in the arming effort. “[W]e are providing a tremendous amount of military assistance to the Peshmerga through the Iraqi security forces,” Hagel said in his August 21 news conference. “[A]s a matter of fact, all year long, we have been accelerated—all the requests made by the Iraqi government for lethal assistance and equipment and we continue to do that.”
Yet, from the view of my living room sofa and based exclusively on the press reports and news releases available to everyone who has a television or computer, the weapons delivered to the Kurds so far have been limited to a very specific military objective: keep the Kurdish capital safe from an ISIL advance, and keep ISIL away from the Mosul Dam. While both of these objectives are certainly worthy ones for the administration to support, they do absolutely nothing to address the sizable portion of territory that ISIL militants hold in other parts of Iraq. Boosting contacts with the Sunni tribes in Anbar, Salahaddin, Ninewa, and Diyala provinces could help address this shortfall.
The primary reasons why the 2007-2008 Sunni Awakening movement succeeded in destroying much of Al-Qaeda’s infrastructure in Iraq at the time was because the United States was willing to take some risks in thinking outside-the-box, recognize that Anbar’s tribes had a common interest with the Americans in degrading Al-Qaeda, and work to separate reconcilable elements from the irreconcilable. Some of the very same tribes in Anbar province that were so instrumental in the counterinsurgency campaign six years ago are now asking for similar assistance from the U.S. It may be an optimal time for the administration and the Defense Department to resurrect Awakening, 2.0.
2. Expand the Target List: As of August 27, U.S. Central Command has conducted 101 airstrikes against a variety of ISIL targets, including fixed artillery positions, IED emplacements, Humvees, MRAP’s, trucks, and stationary vehicle convoys. While 101 airstrikes may seem like a sizable number, the ratio whittles down to just over 5 strikes per day since the U.S. intervention began on August 8. Approximately 63 of those operations could be said to have been in support of Iraqi and Kurdish forces in the vicinity of the Mosul Dam. In pure figures, that means just over 62 percent of the U.S. military operations in Iraq to date have been confined to a strict geographical area of the country.
The Islamic State, however, is not confined to the Mosul Dam. The organization is instead spread across two nations the size of Jordan.
When combined with the ground operations of the Iraqi security forces and thepeshmerga, U.S. air power has made incredible inroads in the Sinjar and Mosul area. Thanks to this collaboration, Iraqi and Kurdish soldiers have retaken the Mosul Dam. Why not use this same playbook in support of Iraqi forces in other parts of the country? It would be difficult to believe that President Obama has not discussed such an option with his civilian and military advisers.
3. Build That Regional Coalition: Republicans may sigh whenever President Obama brings this up in a news conference or an interview, but it’s true that the United States cannot resolve the ISIL problem on its own. Absent a complete reversal of the Obama administration’s foreign policy and the re-deployment of tens of thousands of American personnel inside both Iraq and Syria, the U.S. military can only try to contain ISIL and squeeze its activity within a smaller space. This is precisely why Washington needs to leverage its traditional regional alliances, particularly with the Gulf Arab states, and enlist their support for a full-throated counterterrorism effort.
The warped and offensive dogma that the Islamic State represents is just as much of a threat to the national security of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, and Turkey as it is to the United States. In fact, one can argue that America’s Arab allies have a lot more to worry about, given ISIL’s location in the heart of the Middle East and its intent to unilaterally erase the borders that have existed in the region for nearly a century.
Fortunately, it appears that the Gulf Arab monarchies are finally starting to take ISIL seriously. Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz blacklisted ISIL and Jabhat al-Nusra as terrorist organizations earlier this spring, and he wrote a royal decree that would send any Saudi who travels to Syria or Iraq for the purpose of waging war a hefty prison sentence. Perhaps due to pressure from the Saudi Government, Grand Mufti Sheik Abdulaziz Al al-Sheik, the highest religious authority in the Kingdom, blasted the terrorists of ISIL as enemy number one of the Islamic faith. And in the strongest language from the Saudi royal family to date, the Saudi Ambassador to the United Kingdom released a statement that is sure to be greeted by Americans and Europeans with open arms: “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia wants the defeat and destruction of the Islamic State and any other terrorist networks. Terrorist networks are as abhorrent to the government and people of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as they are to the government and peoples of the rest of the world.”
Saudi Arabia’s Gulf allies need to follow its lead, and Washington’s diplomatic corps should do everything in their power to push them in the right direction.
4. Go After ISIL’s Funding Stream: Just like any organization worldwide, the Islamic State needs money if it has any hope in expanding the borders of their caliphate. Launching a full-scale and uncompromising economic war against the group is therefore a fundamental element in any U.S. counterterrorism campaign.
Since 9/11, the U.S. Treasury Department has exponentially improved its ability to find the money pipelines that support terrorist groups overseas, and destroy those pipelines before further damage is done. Treasury’s August 6, 2014 designation of three individuals (2 Kuwaitis and 1 Algerian) who were found to have advocated, facilitated, and donated significant funds to the Islamic State is an illustration of the non-military tools that the U.S. Government can use to weaken a terrorist group. More of these designations need to occur, and the U.S. Government needs to demand that the Gulf states put similar financial restrictions in place.
Unconditionally pursuing donors will not bankrupt the Islamic State; indeed, one of the factors that distinguishes ISIL from other terrorist organizations and makes the group so versatile and dangerous is its ability to tap into sources of funding outside of the donor network (this has been done through taxation of local businesses, extortion of individuals, ransoms, bank robberies, and the export of cheap crude oil on the black market). Obstructing donations in the Gulf won’t do anything to hinder the millions of dollars that ISIL receives each week through other channels. It will, however, put a dent in their bank accounts.
5. Pursue the Islamic State in Syria: “[C]an they (ISIL) be defeated without addressing that part of their organization which resides in Syria? The answer is no. That will have to be addressed on both sides of what is essentially at this point a nonexistent border.”
Those were the words of Gen. Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when asked whether the Islamic State can effectively be defeated without addressing its operational presence in Syria. It’s difficult to argue that his assessment is faulty: acting kinetically in Iraq without doing the same in Syria is akin to fixing half of the roof on a rainy day. Sure, part of the roof is repaired, but the rain will still pour into the house. In the case of the Islamic State, all of the air strikes in the world around Mosul, Tikrit, Tel Afar, and Fallujah won’t do much to compress the space that ISIL fighters will continue to have in eastern and northern Syria. In fact, it may only strengthen ISIL’s presence inside Syria as its foot soldiers travel towards its safe-haven further west.
The White House is beginning to embrace the same argument that Chairman Dempsey used last Thursday. In his own news conference with reporters, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes was unequivocal on the need to at the least debate the use of U.S. military force in Syria. “If we see plotting against Americans, we see a threat to the U.S. emanating from anywhere, we stand ready to take action against that threat,” Rhodes said. “We've made very clear time and again that if you come after Americans, we're going to come after you wherever you are, and that's what's going to guide our planning in the days to come.”
The U.S. intelligence community and the Defense Department are alreadydoing the legwork required before President Obama gives the go-ahead for U.S. air strikes on the other side of the Syrian-Iraqi border. U.S. reconnaissance aircraft are flying in Syrian airspace scouring for targets, improving their understanding of the order of battle, and compiling more accurate information as to how the Islamic State operates, where its bases are located, and where its leaders hide. If this is a preclude to deeper U.S. engagement, then the president is cognizant of the fact that the entire “caliphate” must be confronted in order to exert the kind of pressure that will degrade their momentum.
6. Get Serious About Arming the Moderate Syrian Opposition: Over the long term, the cheapest and most risk-free strategy that the United States can pursue is developing a collection of effective and lasting relationships with the people who actually live in the region. The U.S. military has a trusted set of friends in Iraq in the Kurdish peshmerga, but the situation is far more complicated in Syria. The moderate opposition of the Free Syrian Army, once the vanguard of the revolt against Bashar al-Assad’s regime, is now caught between two enemies (Assad and ISIL) that are equally existential to the movement’s staying power. It will be all but impossible for the United States to adequately degrade ISIL’s capacity to inflict violence in Syria unless it can enlist assistance from the people that call the area home.
The Central Intelligence Agency has been training and advising moderate Syrian rebels in Jordan for at least a year. This program, however, is small and is designed as much to recruit Syrians for intelligence on ISIL as it is to improve the FSA’s fighting capability relative to jihadist brigades. The Obama administration recognizes that the training effort needs to expand, which is why the White House has requested from Congress $500 million for a train-and-equip mission run by the Defense Department. But because the funding request is tied to a normal budget request, it could be months before the money is approved and appropriated. If the administration’s goal is to build up a grassroots moderate opposition before it’s too late, it may want to think about seeking an emergency funding request. ISIL is not waiting to conquer more territory in Syria; the United States should not wait either.
Admittedly, none of these recommendations are innovative or groundbreaking. Republicans and some Democrats in Congress have been advocating for many of these steps for a long time, and some within the White House at the present time are indisputably talking about the viability and workability of the options presented.
Proposing bullet-points for an anti-ISIL strategy is easy, but implementing them will not be. U.S. personnel, particularly the dedicated special operators who are tasked with carrying the policy out, will be at some degree of risk. In Washington, the entire national security bureaucracy will need to exhibit unity of effort to minimize any problems that may arise or any turf battles that may occur. President Obama will need to personally invest in the policy, enlist the support of the American people, and explain to the public and to the people’s representatives in Congress in clear and unambiguous terms why such an ambitious strategy is needed to counter the Islamic State.
Before reflexively dismissing deeper U.S. involvement in a region that most Americans would prefer to write off, it’s imperative for all of us to ask whether the alternative—the status quo—is any better for U.S. security in that part of the world. From the looks of the headlines in Iraq and Syria, the answer should be obvious.
Daniel R. DePetris is a senior associate editor at the Journal on Terrorism and Security Analysis. He has also written for CNN.com, Small Wars Journal andThe Diplomat.
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