ISIS redux

Source: Institute for the Study of War

By The New York Times

Here’s some speculation.John Boehner observed, I think rightly that President Obama's strategy of air strikes, relying on rebel groups and the Iraqi army to fight the ground war, isn't working; the question however is: what are we trying to achieve and why? If the goal is to contain or eliminate ISIS, we are receding. So while he’s right, I wonder what John Boehner’s alternative might be (calling on the President to get a new strategy may be good political strategy, but doesn’t really help much with the ISIS problem).

One of the central elements of our current strategy is being seen clearly to be in the back seat, helping local actors in their efforts (and at their request) to battle ISIS, rather than in the driving seat. That was not helped by the recent Special Forces operation in Syria that killed ISIS’s ‘money man’, Abu Sayyaf. This was not only inconsistent with the rhetoric of “no boots on the ground”, it also put the US squarely back in the sights as a primary combatant in the eyes of all Sunis, ISIS included.

One option is to move further down this path – to intervene more robustly with a few more boots on the ground. Two questions arise; first will it work and second will it escalate? For an answer to the second, Viet Nam may be a guide. A few military advisers became over half a million military personal, 80,000 of whom were in a combat role. To answer the first, that looks very like a road we’ve already been down in Iraq; one that didn’t work out too well. Fighting a fanatically motivated, volunteer force that frequently uses terror and guerilla tactics is ultimately an winnable battle for the US, but one that makes us a target both there and here. So if more force isn’t the answer what is?

Perhaps it’s re-framing the question. If our aim is not to defeat ISIS but to reduce the likelihood of America and Americans being attacked by ISIS (and other similar religious extremists) then stepping away may be a better answer. True, ISIS will probably continue to commit atrocities (but Boko Haram is doing that in Nigeria and we’re not talking about getting into that mess). But the question should be not whether ISIS will continue to brutalize ‘non-believers’, but whether they there would be less of this were the US to intervene more aggressively?

Suppose ISIS isn’t stopped and incorporates most if not all of Iraq and Syria into the Califate? Is America safer with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi controlling (or trying to control) swathes of the Middle East? One argument is that trying to crush ISIS is a fool’s errand and that more fighters will appear to replace those killed in the struggle. On the other hand, letting ISIS try to manager and control the territory it has taken may prove sufficiently challenging that is has little capacity left for foreign adventures. Added to that, its focus will be far less on what is now sees as its Evil Empire, and more on the enemy within (the Shiites) or nearby (Iran). So perhaps if the goal is not to obliterate ISIS, bur to reduce the likelihood of Americans and America being attached perhaps less is more?