Dealing with Daesh: Tactics and Strategies

Author: Amir Madani, Writer, International analyst, Institute of Political Studies S.Pio V Rome Italy

The international community continues to witness the perpetual violence of terrorist groups such as Daesh, also called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIL, ISIS or IS),[1] the beheading machine pretending to be a state. The horror is not limited geographically, as the recent tragic events in Paris and Copenhagen demonstrate. It is a cancer that feeds on the myriad unresolved economic, ethno-cultural, and political/geopolitical contradictions within society – most especially in societies devoid of any democratic heritage, like many in the Arab-Islamic Middle East and South East Asia. Like cancer, it metastasizes when unchecked by democratic and legal institutions.

President Obama defined the strategy for the US-led war against Daesh: “Our objective is clear: We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL.”

President Putin likewise supports the Iraqi government’s fight against terrorism. He expressed his disdain for terrorism in Syria in these proverbial words: “One should hardly back those who kill enemies and eat their organs.” China, too, suffers Jihadist pressures and its government appears ever more visibly opposed to Daesh and its local affiliates.

The neo-Caliphate ambitions of Daesh reflect a nostalgia for a time before any State or civil society in the modern sense existed.  Their terrorism is ideological, and weapons alone cannot destroy an ideology.

In the short term, Daesh may be contained, limited and its infrastructure degraded temporarily by military force. In the long run, however, eradicating it will necessitate an ideological and cultural movement that delegitimizes it, by facilitating an emerging middle class and democratic institutions throughout the region by means of cultural, ideological and socio-economic reforms.

It is reasonable, therefore, to consider both tactics for the immediate and strategy to invalidate them ideologically and culturally over time.

Some Tactical Steps

(a)    Recognition and engagement with the institutions of the regimes currently in place, regardless of their current political order. Failure to even minimally recognize national sovereignty is a trap that would de facto validate Daesh ideology and the caliphate myth.

(b)   Relentless military pressure to effectively limit the expansion of terrorist acts. This requires close coordination between air and ground forces: Without boots on the ground, bombing is far less accurate and effective, putting civilians at risk as well. After the Afghan and Iraqi experiences, it would appear that the current US political context does not favor putting US troops on the ground. However, Iran already has allied local militias active in both Iraq and Syria. This means the needed coordination between air power (the US Air Force) and ground forces could be possible, but that the two countries continue to behave as rivals. There exists the possibility of a change, however: If, with mediation by Russia, China and other members of the 5+1, an agreement can be achieved on the controversial Iranian Nuclear Project, then perhaps a coordinated air/ground effort could emerge, to the detriment of Daesh and the great benefit of civilization.  

(c)    A Regional Conference under the auspices and supervision of the UN Security Council, with leadership roles for the US, Russia , Europe, China and important participation by Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. All four countries, with their different agendas and varying geopolitical interests, are currently menaced in different degrees by Daesh, al-Qaeda and their ideology. Inviting Turkey and Saudi Arabia (and the related Kingdoms of Qatar, Kuwait, and the Arab Emirates) to participate might encourage them to clamp down more aggressively on the flow of Jihadis (as well as the financial support for them) passing through their borders toward Syria and Iraq. Egypt and its powerful military institutions could also contribute to stability. The most necessary step is to convince Iran to bring the militias sympathetic to it into coordination with Russian, Chinese and US-led coalition forces, under the aegis of the UN. Iran is a powerful presence by its geography, military force, history and civil society’s influence. 

(d)   Supporting the Iraqi government, especially militarily, while pressuring it to move beyond sectarianism and to enact major reforms promoting more inclusiveness. Even though the Iran-linked militias are not now coordinated with the Air Force of the International Coalition led by the US, there is clearly a de facto understanding during such military operations, as shown in the liberated Iraqi city of Amerli. Although a large swath of Iraqi territory including Mosul is still occupied by Daesh, coordination between the Iraqi government and the international actors sooner or later will break the back of the terrorist organization, at least militarily.

Yet the terrorists, if defeated in Iraq, could simply find refuge in Syria, where the civil war makes the situation more complicated. Here, the operations of the US-led coalition are not coordinated with the Syrian regime and the opposition forces are factionalized and fractured, fighting each other internally, which weakness leaves a giant opening for the extremists.

(e)    Negotiations with current Syrian institutions. No one but the Syrians themselves can put an end to their civil war. With the opposition divided and dominated by extremists, and given the risk of Jihadis returning home to wreak havoc in Europe, Russia, the US, China and elsewhere, the immediate priority is general security. Although the current regime’s security apparatus, especially the Army, is ruthless, it nevertheless has established institutions, while the opposition is divided and dominated by factions that are equally barbaric.

The most important actor in Syria is Iran and its related Lebanese (Hezbollah), although Russia also has an important role to play if, working together with European actors, it can resolve the dangerous Ukraine crisis. Here too, therefore, an agreement between the US and Iran could be transformational; success depends for the moment entirely on the political will of president Obama and the Iranian establishment. If an agreement on the Iranian nuclear project is concluded, it could open the way to collaborate on other regional issues.

These steps would serve to degrade Daesh, al-Qaeda and myriad similar groups which threaten the mutual security of Russia and China, as well as Europe and the US. They are tactical actions to stabilize the immediate situation and improve security. However, the long-term cultural/ideological assault on extremism will require additional strategic undertakings:

Some Strategic Plans

(a)    Under the Aegis of International Institutions, Institute Cultural and Democratic Reforms in Arab-Islamic countries, which currently suffer from deep social and economic inequality, and lack an understanding of the historical advantages of a modern state organization. Supporting civil society throughout Arabia means helping a middle class to emerge as the foundation of the rule of law and civil rights. This is possible through pressure on the ruling classes – the aristocracy and the military elite – by helping them to see that the shapeless masses with no prospects for self-betterment become easy prey for extremist religious penetration. People deprived of any prospects on Earth will hope for prosperity in myth. Such hope pervades large parts of Arab-Islamic society throughout the Middle East, North Africa, Central and South East Asia and elsewhere. This is not a clash of civilizations, but a battle within human civilization itself.  Islam is neither a country, nor the politics of a country; it is a religion, and like any other religion, under certain socio-economic circumstances it could be leveraged by terrorists for their own, non-religious ends. As such, Islamophobia serves only to reinforce the ideology of terrorist groups seeking to divide human civilization into sectarian tribes.

(b)   Encourage Turkey to look toward Europe. If the European democracies are not able to accept Turkey, it indicates their tolerance does not extend beyond racial, religious, ethnic, cultural and geographical considerations. If Turkey is not absorbed by Europe and infused with a modern approach to politics, its drowsy neo-Ottoman soul could re-emerge, dreaming of long-lost empire, and look ever more fondly eastward to neo-caliphate ideologies, with their politics of Sectarianism. This is partly the approach of the new Turkish Muslim Brotherhood elite. Turkish adherence to the EU with full participation by the Kurds (a third of its population) in a non-Sectarian manner is the only way to provide long-term stability and security.

Resolution of the Palestine-Israel issue. Until and unless a just and permanent solution is created, the issue remains explosive, and every social-cultural, historical and ethnic dispute in the region is attributed to it in some degree. Palestinians need a viable and secure country, and Israel, a constitution, defined border and security for all its citizens including Palestinians. The international community and the Israeli strategic establishment know that a sectarian state is incompatible with democracy, nor can a democratic state institutionalize discrimination against its citizens. The persistence of the dispute impedes resolution of every other problem, magnetizing all populations of the region towards extremism. It is up to the international community – the US and Europe especially, but also China and Russia – to find a solution, which could possibly be based on assigning the administration of both Israel and Palestine to the EU or the UN.