In ISIS: Can the West Win Without a Ground Game?, published in the October 2014 issue of The Tower Magazine, Jonathan Spyer outlines the dilemmas facing policy makers who wish to, in the words of President Barack Obama, “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
One choice facing policy makers is to ally with Syrian rebel groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra, but this would mean that the United States was “supporting one group of Sunni jihadis against another.” Even anti-salafist Sunni rebel groups are often anti-Western.
Western airstrikes of ISIS targets could lead to the possibility that ISIS would be “sandwiched between pro-Iranian forces on either side before being destroyed.” Such an outcome is undesirable because this would be “handing a major victory to the Assad regime and its Iranian backers—enemies of the West of significantly greater potency and seriousness than the Islamic State itself.”
Rather than relying on Sunni or Shiite Islamists to destroy ISIS, Spyer suggests that the West adopt a “more modest policy of degrading I.S. capabilities,” instead of destroying it. The problem with this option is that it would be a “tacit admission that the U.S. did not intend to promote its policy as originally stated by the President .”
Spyer goes further and writes that the uncertainty of the West’s goals and tactics reflects a more basic problem: a failure to understand the roots of the conflict. Spyer writes, “[w]hat is taking place across Syria and Iraq, and across their borders into Lebanon, Turkey, and Iran, is a sectarian war.” Spyer argues that once the nature of the war is understood, any strategy to contain the conflict “must rest on the identification and strengthening of non-Islamist forces willing to band together and partner with the West.”
Most obviously, there is a line of pro-American states along the southern side of the arena of the war. These are Israel, Jordan, and in a far more partial and problematic way, Saudi Arabia. Both Israel and Jordan have demonstrated that they are able to successfully contain the spread of the chaos coming out of the north. Both are well-organized states with powerful militaries and intelligence structures. Jordan has clearly benefitted from the deployment of U.S. special forces to prevent incursions by the I.S. Israel has also made clear that its resources will be available to assist the Jordanians should this be required. (Egypt, too, while not in the immediate vicinity of the conflict, can be a silent partner as well—as its campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood and tough line against Hamas have shown, it is nothing if not a virulent opponent to political Islam.)
This is what the proper coordination of allied states is supposed to look like. And it works in containing the conflict. To the east of the war’s arena is of course Iran. To its west is the Mediterranean Sea. To its north is a long, contiguous line of Kurdish control, shared between the Kurdish Regional Government of President Massoud Barzani in northern Iraq, as well as the three enclaves created by the PKK-linked Democratic Union Party (PYD) in northern Syria. The YPG militia, which is the military force in these enclaves, has fought the I.S. almost since its inception, and has largely prevailed in keeping the jihadis out of the Kurdish areas.
As part of a strategy of containment, the West should increase support for and recognition of both the Kurdish enclaves in the north of Syria and the Kurdish Regional Government itself. Both are elements capable of containing the spread of the jihadis from the north. It has become clear in recent days that the Pesh Merga, despite early setbacks, is a useful instrument in preventing the further advance westward of the Islamic State, and in so doing protecting the investment of international oil companies in the oil-rich parts of Iraq. The YPG militia, though poorly equipped, has also avoided major losses.
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