http://swarajyamag.com/world/is-isis-capable-of-governing-its-caliphate/
Sandeep Kumar Dubey
19 Dec, 2015
It is in the strategic interest of the international community to let ISIS collapse from its inherent contradictions, instead of crushing it militarily.
In their article Why ISIL Will Fail on Its Own published on 29 November, 2015, in the PoliticoMagazine, professors of Economics at UC San Diego, Eli Berman and Jacob N. Shapiro, associate professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, defended the US President Obama’s recent policy pronouncement of ‘containing’ the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (invariably known as ISIS, ISIL and IS), rather destroying it militarily in one go. Prof Berman and Shapiro support the view that it is in the strategic interest of the international community to let ISIS collapse from its inherent contradictions, instead of crushing it militarily. They say-
We’re fighting a failed state in the making, one that will implode if merely contained, and will collapse even faster under coordinated economic and military pressure from its neighbours.” They see in its collapse “ideological benefits.
The professors explain-
No one uses communism to rally rebels anymore (save for a few small groups in India); the collapse of communist states in the 1990s demonstrated to everyone how ineffective the ideology was at running a modern economy. As Ronald Reagan correctly saw, allowing communism to collapse of its inherent contradictions would discredit it forever…..As the Soviet Union was to communism, so ISIL is to jihadism.
If one goes deeper into the problem, one would find the professors’ view very realistic and pragmatic in approach. Every political violence has some political objective to achieve. As with Al Qaida or Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS’ political objective is to establish a caliphate with a Caliph for all the Muslims of the world. In fact, within three weeks of its taking control over the Iraqi city Mosul, ISIS declared Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi its Caliph, for the first time after collapse of Ottoman Empire in 1924.
Al-Baghdadi is also the head of ISIS, headquartered in the Syrian city of Raqqa. So far it has succeeded to establish a caliphate in some parts of Iraq and Syria. The ISIS runs a parallel ‘state’ in the areas of its control with an Islamic system of governance. It controls a large swath of land reportedly as big as the size of Pennsylvania and expanding day by day with the help of its ever growing fighters. Reports suggest some 27,000 people around the world have joined ISIS in the past 18 months.
However, one cannot just hold an area for long without governing it. The challenge with ISIS is not just to govern the areas under its control but more than that. It has to govern these areas better than earlier, as it is waging an ‘ideological war’, where to sustain it has to showcase that the caliphate works better than any existing political system in the world. ISIS will have to project the caliphate as a better alternative to the modern nation state which is now fast turning into a welfare state. In fact, the top leadership seems to be aware of this.
As per some reports, the ISIS has also started doing activities of civil nature from constructing roads, taking care of oil wells to providing electricity to the people under its control. However, providing essential services (especially water, electricity, medicine etc.) to the people (estimated at 8 million) under its control would be a Herculean task for the ISIS. Governing in the rural areas might not be that difficult as in the urban areas.
Reportedly, there are some 50 cities and town in Iraq itself that are under control of ISIS. Governing these cities and towns would not be that easy as many of the cities have already experienced the kind of service delivery of a modern nation state and urban management. Does the ISIS have that kind of human resources and administrative set-up to give the impression of a better urban management and governance style? It seems it does not and has been looking for the skilled/ideological suitable workforce.
Just like Iraq where 99 per cent of the government revenue comes from the oil export, the ISIS also heavily depends on oil economy and finances its war machinery primarily by selling the oil at half of the market rate in black, as there is sanction on the trade of oil trade with ISIS, which will get further tightened. They are also getting money from different countries as donations but it may not continue for two reasons. One, the respective countries are tightening their financial monitoring and surveillance systems. For example, in Australia alone from where some $50 million were stashed away to fund terror groups, number of terror finance investigation tripled over the past year. Two, the US-led coalition forces are specifically targeting those who manage the finance regime of the ISIS.
The reported recent killing of the ISIS’ Finance Minister Abu Saleh in the airstrike by the US-led coalition is one such example of eliminating the ISIS cadres with the financial responsibility. How to generate funds then indigenously not only to run the caliphate but also expand it is something which ISIS would be grappling with in the days to come. Different levies and taxation on the people in their areas of control may not even be sufficient to run the caliphate’s basic administration. It is likely that in the case of any ceasefire, apart from western countries even Iraq and Syria may initiate the economic boycott of the ISIS. They have already cut off their fund flow to the areas of ISIS control to disburse the salary and wage.
There are many other challenges before ISIS to actually prove itself better than any other system of governance. It has been fighting wars literally on its all fronts geographically with Syrian and Iraqi forces and also the Kurds. Added to this is the airstrikes by the US-led coalition and Russia. ISIS’ economy has been a war economy which means the resource mobilisation would be squarely for the defence purposes, than civil. In the war between ISIS and the US-led coalition, existing infrastructures are being destroyed at the fast pace. Restoring these infrastructures especially in the ISIS controlled areas will require large fund and skilled manpower. ISIS has already destroyed the existing government bodies without replacing it with alternatives.
Additionally, as ISIS is carving out its territory out of Syria and Iraq, it is destined to face the same typical problems that a pre-war Syria and Iraq would face: high rate of unemployment, poverty, water scarcity etc. In Syria, the unemployment rate is 54.3 per cent and after the crisis 90 per cent of the industrial enterprises have been closed. In Iraq half of whose population is under 19 years old, the unemployment rate is 18 per cent among the youth of 15-24 years and 23 per cent of the population live under USD 2.2 per day. In the Human Development Index of the year 2014, Syria ranked 134th and Iraq 121st. To revive the devastating economy of violence and raise the quality of life of the people under the areas of its control would certainly be not an easy task for ISIS by any standard.
Given the resource scarcity in the areas of its control, ISIS’ strategy would be to deliver on those things which have politically wider visibility and require less resources. For example, ISIS would rather embark on providing electricity for its wider visibility and it is easier also because it has reportedly got control of major power plants such as ones at Aleppo and many people in Iraq and Syria in general supplement the public electricity network with private generators. It can also focus on establishing law courts to administer the justice (as per Sharia) as it would require less resources. These could be used as examples of service delivery and governance for propaganda purposes.
The day is not very far when the followers and ‘fans’ of ISIS would start looking at the ‘performance’ of ISIS in terms of governance and service delivery in the areas of its control. Fighting a war on ideological line is easier than managing the state affairs post war, especially the economy!
19 Dec, 2015
It is in the strategic interest of the international community to let ISIS collapse from its inherent contradictions, instead of crushing it militarily.
In their article Why ISIL Will Fail on Its Own published on 29 November, 2015, in the PoliticoMagazine, professors of Economics at UC San Diego, Eli Berman and Jacob N. Shapiro, associate professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, defended the US President Obama’s recent policy pronouncement of ‘containing’ the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (invariably known as ISIS, ISIL and IS), rather destroying it militarily in one go. Prof Berman and Shapiro support the view that it is in the strategic interest of the international community to let ISIS collapse from its inherent contradictions, instead of crushing it militarily. They say-
We’re fighting a failed state in the making, one that will implode if merely contained, and will collapse even faster under coordinated economic and military pressure from its neighbours.” They see in its collapse “ideological benefits.
The professors explain-
No one uses communism to rally rebels anymore (save for a few small groups in India); the collapse of communist states in the 1990s demonstrated to everyone how ineffective the ideology was at running a modern economy. As Ronald Reagan correctly saw, allowing communism to collapse of its inherent contradictions would discredit it forever…..As the Soviet Union was to communism, so ISIL is to jihadism.
If one goes deeper into the problem, one would find the professors’ view very realistic and pragmatic in approach. Every political violence has some political objective to achieve. As with Al Qaida or Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS’ political objective is to establish a caliphate with a Caliph for all the Muslims of the world. In fact, within three weeks of its taking control over the Iraqi city Mosul, ISIS declared Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi its Caliph, for the first time after collapse of Ottoman Empire in 1924.
Al-Baghdadi is also the head of ISIS, headquartered in the Syrian city of Raqqa. So far it has succeeded to establish a caliphate in some parts of Iraq and Syria. The ISIS runs a parallel ‘state’ in the areas of its control with an Islamic system of governance. It controls a large swath of land reportedly as big as the size of Pennsylvania and expanding day by day with the help of its ever growing fighters. Reports suggest some 27,000 people around the world have joined ISIS in the past 18 months.
However, one cannot just hold an area for long without governing it. The challenge with ISIS is not just to govern the areas under its control but more than that. It has to govern these areas better than earlier, as it is waging an ‘ideological war’, where to sustain it has to showcase that the caliphate works better than any existing political system in the world. ISIS will have to project the caliphate as a better alternative to the modern nation state which is now fast turning into a welfare state. In fact, the top leadership seems to be aware of this.
As per some reports, the ISIS has also started doing activities of civil nature from constructing roads, taking care of oil wells to providing electricity to the people under its control. However, providing essential services (especially water, electricity, medicine etc.) to the people (estimated at 8 million) under its control would be a Herculean task for the ISIS. Governing in the rural areas might not be that difficult as in the urban areas.
Reportedly, there are some 50 cities and town in Iraq itself that are under control of ISIS. Governing these cities and towns would not be that easy as many of the cities have already experienced the kind of service delivery of a modern nation state and urban management. Does the ISIS have that kind of human resources and administrative set-up to give the impression of a better urban management and governance style? It seems it does not and has been looking for the skilled/ideological suitable workforce.
Just like Iraq where 99 per cent of the government revenue comes from the oil export, the ISIS also heavily depends on oil economy and finances its war machinery primarily by selling the oil at half of the market rate in black, as there is sanction on the trade of oil trade with ISIS, which will get further tightened. They are also getting money from different countries as donations but it may not continue for two reasons. One, the respective countries are tightening their financial monitoring and surveillance systems. For example, in Australia alone from where some $50 million were stashed away to fund terror groups, number of terror finance investigation tripled over the past year. Two, the US-led coalition forces are specifically targeting those who manage the finance regime of the ISIS.
The reported recent killing of the ISIS’ Finance Minister Abu Saleh in the airstrike by the US-led coalition is one such example of eliminating the ISIS cadres with the financial responsibility. How to generate funds then indigenously not only to run the caliphate but also expand it is something which ISIS would be grappling with in the days to come. Different levies and taxation on the people in their areas of control may not even be sufficient to run the caliphate’s basic administration. It is likely that in the case of any ceasefire, apart from western countries even Iraq and Syria may initiate the economic boycott of the ISIS. They have already cut off their fund flow to the areas of ISIS control to disburse the salary and wage.
There are many other challenges before ISIS to actually prove itself better than any other system of governance. It has been fighting wars literally on its all fronts geographically with Syrian and Iraqi forces and also the Kurds. Added to this is the airstrikes by the US-led coalition and Russia. ISIS’ economy has been a war economy which means the resource mobilisation would be squarely for the defence purposes, than civil. In the war between ISIS and the US-led coalition, existing infrastructures are being destroyed at the fast pace. Restoring these infrastructures especially in the ISIS controlled areas will require large fund and skilled manpower. ISIS has already destroyed the existing government bodies without replacing it with alternatives.
Additionally, as ISIS is carving out its territory out of Syria and Iraq, it is destined to face the same typical problems that a pre-war Syria and Iraq would face: high rate of unemployment, poverty, water scarcity etc. In Syria, the unemployment rate is 54.3 per cent and after the crisis 90 per cent of the industrial enterprises have been closed. In Iraq half of whose population is under 19 years old, the unemployment rate is 18 per cent among the youth of 15-24 years and 23 per cent of the population live under USD 2.2 per day. In the Human Development Index of the year 2014, Syria ranked 134th and Iraq 121st. To revive the devastating economy of violence and raise the quality of life of the people under the areas of its control would certainly be not an easy task for ISIS by any standard.
Given the resource scarcity in the areas of its control, ISIS’ strategy would be to deliver on those things which have politically wider visibility and require less resources. For example, ISIS would rather embark on providing electricity for its wider visibility and it is easier also because it has reportedly got control of major power plants such as ones at Aleppo and many people in Iraq and Syria in general supplement the public electricity network with private generators. It can also focus on establishing law courts to administer the justice (as per Sharia) as it would require less resources. These could be used as examples of service delivery and governance for propaganda purposes.
The day is not very far when the followers and ‘fans’ of ISIS would start looking at the ‘performance’ of ISIS in terms of governance and service delivery in the areas of its control. Fighting a war on ideological line is easier than managing the state affairs post war, especially the economy!
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