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Chaturanga

~ statecraft, strategy, society, and Σοφíα

Chaturanga

Tag Archives: Bashar al-Assad

Humanitarian Farce

29 Sat Apr 2017

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in Book Review

≈ Comments Off on Humanitarian Farce

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Antonio Gramsci, Bashar al-Assad, Benjamin Netanyahu, Britain, diplomacy, France, Hardeep Singh Puri, hegemony, India, Iraq, Libya, machtpolitik, matsya nyaya, media, mindfare, Muammar Gaddafi, Paul Wolfowitz, Perilous Interventions, R2P, Right To Protect, Russia, Saddam Hussein, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Syria, terrorism, think tank, Ukraine, United Nations Security Council, United States, veto, Yemen

Perilous InterventionsPuri, Hardeep Singh. Perilous Interventions: The Security Council and the Politics of Chaos. Noida: HarperCollins Publishers, 2016. 280 pp.

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” Marcellus tells Horatio in the opening act of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Former diplomat Hardeep Singh Puri probably could not have put it better about the United Nations Security Council and the existing global order. Through his book, Perilous Interventions: The Security Council and the Politics of Chaos, a devastating indictment of Western hypocrisy in international governance, India’s former permanent representative to the United Nations gives readers a ringside seat to some of the discussions that went on in the Security Council during some of the major crises of the past decade. Puri lambasts the existing system and warns that without reforms, faith in multilateralism will soon fade.

Disregarding the advice of German chancellor Otto von Bismarck about the making of sausages and laws, Puri details the discussions within the Security Council on the question of whether the international community should intervene in Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction in 2003. Yet long before then, Iraq had attracted the attention of certain American strategists such as Paul Wolfowitz. They had argued as early as the early 1970s, Puri reminds us, that the removal of Saddam Hussein from power could potentially result in a domino effect of democratisation in the region and with it better partners for the United States. Two other candidates for regime change to accelerate this region-wide democratic revolution were Iran and Iran. Revolution in the former in 1979 and the subsequent Iran-Iraq war extinguished all such thoughts from the White House.

However, they were not forgotten. In Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of the US Congress in 2002, the former and future Israeli prime minister reiterated this same idea. American fears about Iraqi ABCs – atomic, biological, and chemical weapons – rang his message sweeter to Washington. Looking to their own careers, CIA officials funnelled intelligence reports they knew would be prefered by the High Command rather than those undermining the public narrative of state sponsorship of terrorism and WMDs. The United States went to war in Iraq soon afterwards and the Middle East began to unravel – not in a manner either Wolfowitz, Netanyahu, or anyone else had envisioned.

Narrow national interests coloured the deliberations of the Security Council over Libya as well. Puri recounts how Britain, Germany, and especially France, more than the United States, were interested in deposing strongman Muammar Gaddafi from the beginning. Libya’s relations with Western governments had been slowly improving since 2003 when Tripoli reached out through the United Nations to make amends for its role in several acts of terrorism in the late 1980s. That, however, was not the public face of relations between Libya and the Western bloc. The Arab Spring protests gave the West, probably hoping for a quick success, the opportunity required to oust Gaddafi.

Under the guise of humanitarian intervention and R2P – the Right to Protect – Western nations placed onerous conditions upon Tripoli. Puri narrates the arguments over the language of Resolution 1970 and how, through wording that was loose at best and deceptive at worst, the Western powers tried to gain international sanction to bring Gaddafi to heel using “all necessary means to protect civilians and make available humanitarian assistance.” As Libyan government forces started to turn the tide against the rebels in the civil war that had devolved out of earlier protests, France, buoyed by an Arab League resolution calling upon the United Nations to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, pushed through Resolution 1973 that was sufficiently lax in its formulation to allow military action. NATO, led by France and supported by the United States went to war in Libya. Puri strenuously makes the point that this was in complete violation of the spirit of the discussions in the Security Council but the West did not wait until even the inl was dry before invding Libya.

Everything has conequences, and the Western sleight of hand over Libya had got Russia’s back up over Syria. As a result, when the Security Council started deliberating on Bashar al-Assad’s civil war, Moscow was implacable in their opposition to any sort of intervention. It is also possible, Puri admits, that this was due to greater Russian interest in Syria – a naval and ar force base – or because there had been a change in power in Moscow from Dmitry Medvedev to Vladimir Putin. It is also possible that there was no appetite for yet another war in the Middle East in Washington during an election year. Yet the pattern of Western behaviour was similar: hollow humanitarian claims supported by regional powers with vested interests against the incumbent authority. Predictably, the results were also similar: chaos, instability, wanton destruction of life and infrastructure, the rise of private militias, and terrorism – all at the cost of the region. Any chance for an early peace was stymied by unrealistic preconditions such as the abdication of Assad. Furthermore, Washington’s too clever by half notion of ‘good terrorist’ and ‘bad terrorist’ helped spawn its own nemesis – something American politicians, despite several repetitions, are yet to learn from.

Perilous Interventions also describes the paralysis of the Security Council owing to its veto provisions over the crisis in Ukraine caused by the secession of Crimea and its return to Russia. The author stops short of excusing Russian behaviour as he lambasts European and American ambition in seeking to pry Ukraine out of the Russian sphere of influence. From the beginning, military force was out of the question in Ukraine for two reasons: Russia maintained a veto in the Security Council, and it was a major nuclear power that could not be trifled with as the likes of Iraq or Libya. The Western strategy, then, was to try and isolate Russia through economic sanctions. These may have worked partially but were doomed to fail eventually without the support of Moscow’s BRICS partners.

Yemen saw similar inaction from the Security Council. The country, already a regular on the UN body’s agenda even before civil war broke out, has experienced more death and destruction in five months than even Syria after four long years of fighting. Impoverished Yemen has for long been Saudi Arabia’s bete noire: fearful of foreign intervention – Egypt in the 1960s and Iran since the 1980s – in a country bordering its own restive Shia population, Riyadh has been quick and ruthless in its involvement in Yemen. The Saudi campaign, Puri reminds us, has received complete support from the United States and other Western powers despite the horrendous loss of civilian life due to the callousness of Riyadh’s military tactics that ranged from the use of missiles to indiscriminate bombing, which in one case even destroyed a Medecins sans Frontieres hospital.

Puri is not unfair in targetting only Western nations. He has a few choice words for the Indian debacle in Sri Lanka in the late 1980s too. However, the reader may surmise from the tone that the author is more understanding of Delhi’s compulsions than he is with Washington, London, or Paris. Furthermore, India’s reasons for getting involved in its southern neighbour’s affairs are a far more convoluted cocktail of domestic political considerations rather than the relatively straight-forward rapacious realpolitik of the West. The narrative also feels more restrained about the human cost of the tragedy in Sri Lanka compared to Iraq, Libya, Syria, or Yemen – but that may also be because the South Asian island has suffered far less despite a longer lasting conflict.

In each of the chapters is detailed a series of operational blunders that fed on each other and led to the present quagmire. From the insane notion of good and bad terrorism to the arming of certain rebel factions, from an utter disregard of historical follies to an almost stubborn refusal to accept intelligence from the ground, from giving ground to less informed commentators over professionals to cherry-picking intelligence, Puri’s rap sheet of Western political myopia and ideological blindness makes for a discomforting read – each of these mistakes, as we disapssionately read them, cost tens of thousands of lives.

Although Perilous Interventions is an excellent exposition of Great Power hypocrisy and the weakness of the United Nations in both, curbing the predatory instincts of some of its members and the oppressive nature of other members, it does not offer more insight on the crises of the past decade and half than a discerning reader could have gleaned from the regular perusal of the daily newspaper over the years. Why would a seasoned and distinguished diplomat be surprised by an unremarkable display of matsya nyaya?

The real punch of Perilous Interventions comes from its author’s assertion that this behaviour of the Western powers was given intellectual cover by their think tanks and media. In fact, Puri explicitly states that the push towards intervention in Libya came from the Western media over the inclination of a hesitant diplomatic corps. Gaddafi was portrayed negatively, incompletely, and even falsely – he had not, for example, threatened civilians with retaliation – in the tabloids to the extent that it was difficult for him to even get hotel rooms in New York during a 2012 visit. These observations by Puri only cement the cautious view of Western organisations in the rest of the world. They can no longer be seen as sources of intellectually rigorous, methodologically sound, and unbiased information. In fact, reading Puri between the lines, think tanks and media have become a new front for the West to propagate their hegemony through ‘mindfare’ – the war for opinions and minds throughout the world – true hegemony as described by Antonio Gramsci.

Perhaps the only criticism of Perilous Interventions is the author’s discordantly Pollyanna-ish view that India played a positive role during the deliberations over these crises. The Indian stance has always been distant, unhelpful, and predictable – urge a cessation of hostilities, encourage negotiations, and plead for an arms embargo on the region. Although these are perfectly rational recommendations, it is similarly irrational to expect that the agitated actors in a conflict that has already spilled over to violence wish to listen to sense. Consider, for example, the Indian response to international calls for restraint during its wars with Pakistan.

Furthermore, Puri’s suggestion that the permanent members of the Security Council volunatrily give up their veto powers – de facto if not de jure – is laughable. Such largesse may be expected only from foreign policy neophytes of the kind India has been blessed with but not anywhere else. Yet even if the Permanent Five were to surrender their veto powers, the question then arises as to who will bell the cat. Is the international community truly willing or capable of conducting a military intervention in China, for example, for any reason?

Perilous Interventions will certainly feed those who are already deeply sceptical of the West and subliminally hostile to it. However, rather than adding ghee to the fire of conspiracy theories, Puri records in detail, with evidence, genuine cases of opportunism and hypocrisy. His call for reforms in the United Nations is likely to go unheeded for the same reasons he gives for the crises of the past decade and half – machtpolitik and opportunism. As a result, Puri’s admonition that the Security Council and multilateralism will lose credibility may indeed come true.

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The Quest for Democracy in Syria

01 Tue Dec 2015

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in Middle East

≈ Comments Off on The Quest for Democracy in Syria

Tags

Ahrar al-Sham, Arab Spring, Bashar al-Assad, Da'esh, democracy, FSA, Iraq, ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, Jaish al-Islam, Martti Ahtisaari, minorities, Northern Free Syrian Army, peshmerga, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Southern Front of the Free Syrian Army, Syria, Turkey, United States, Vitaly Churkin

In the March of 2011, the turbulence of the Arab Spring reached Syria. What began as agitated demonstrations quickly escalated into a civil war that has now claimed some 340,000 lives, displaced over seven and a half million people, and involves nearly a dozen countries. After almost five years of fighting, the situation still appears bleak and has become even more complex. Yet could this conflict have been resolved earlier before the various factions had become set in their demands? This is a dangerous yet tantalising counterfactual: if the Western powers had not been so insistent upon using the revolution to remove Bashar al-Assad from power, would Syria have turned into such a quagmire?

When the Arab Spring hit Syria, many wondered at what would replace the Ba’athist tyranny. Quick on the revolutionary bandwagon, Western leaders salivated at the chance of finally removing a pro-Russian government from power. The fall of Saddam Hussein had inadvertently promoted Iran up the ranks of regional powerdom and with Iraq still tottering on the brink of viability, the opportunity for a friendly if not necessarily pro-Western government in Syria was welcome. It is in the pursuit of this goal that the United States and its European allies constructed a narrative of bringing democracy to Syria. Assad must go for any peace to come to Syria, they argued, because it was the democratic will of the people. Years of bitter fighting has now changed this rosy view.

Had it merely been press statements and patronising editorials, Western policy could have been dismissed as the usual blend of naïveté and realpolitik. Unfortunately for the Syrian people, it has come at a far greater cost. What has been almost forgotten in recent commentaries on Syria is that Russia had approached the West with a peace deal in February 2012, when casualties stood around 7,500. According to Former Finnish president and Nobel peace prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, had approached him with a three-point plan. The Russian plan was simple and what the United States and Europe have come around to accepting only a couple of months ago as the best alternative. As Ahtisaari recalls, Churkin said, “Martti, sit down and I’ll tell you what we should do. One – we should not give arms to the opposition. Two – we should get a dialogue going between the opposition and Assad straight away. Three – we should find an elegant way for Assad to step aside.” Ahtisaari took this message to the American, British, and French delegations at the UN but they ignored the proposal, convinced that Assad was going to be booted out in a matter of weeks.

To be clear, Assad is no boy scout. He is a typical Arab authoritarian leader like Saddam Hussein was and the House of Saud is. Despite the trouble brewing in his neighbourhood all through 2010, he refused, just weeks before the unrest started, to relax his hold on the government. There would be no political pluralism, diversity of ideas, or greater tolerance on expression. During the civil war, Assad has been indiscriminate in his use of force in population centres, used heavy weapons such as cluster bombs, barrel bombs, thermobaric weapons, chemical weapons, and even Scud missiles against the rebels. Such behaviour has encouraged recruits into the ranks of ISIS, analysts point out. On a purely humanitarian basis, it is not difficult to see why anyone would wish Assad away.

However, it remains unclear as to what other options exist that are in any way better than Assad. Defeating ISIS, it is said in Western capitals, can only happen in conjunction with the removal of Assad from power. Yet the Syrian opposition gives little reason for confidence. Most of them are almost as conservative as Da’esh, albeit more restrained in their implementation of Islamic law. The West has always harped on moderate elements among the Syrian opposition but what that means in the Syrian context may not be entirely savoury. There is also this to be considered: can the moderate factions bring stability to Syria after Assad is gone and ISIS has been eliminated? Or will we see a bloodier version of Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, with sectarian strife ripping the country apart?

Other than Assad’s forces and ISIS, one of the strongest orgainsations in Syria is the Jabhat al-Nusra. The group is essentially the al-Qa’ida front in Syria with the explicit near-term aim of overthrowing the Assad government and bringing Syria under Islamic law. However, the Nusra Front has pursued a smart long-term strategy focused on embedding itself into Syrian society. They have shown restraint in their application of the harsher tenets of sharia and have portrayed themselves more as nationalists than as Islamists to garner support of the Syrian people. For example, the Nusra Front is immediately more concerned with the ouster of Assad than global jihad. As a result, the group has become popular despite having an ideology almost as vicious as that of ISIS. The Nusra Front is also loyal to its parent organisation; over the years, Turkey and Qatar have repeatedly tried to bring the group out of the al-Qa’ida fold to make them more acceptable to the West as potential successors to the Assad regime but to no avail.

Another powerful group in the anti-Assad coalition is the Ahrar al-Sham, arguably the strongest faction in Syria both politically and militarily. The secret of its success lies in sustained backing from Turkey and Qatar, with even Saudi Arabia showing some interest of late. Again, the group is avowedly Islamist with loose ties to al-Qa’ida in the past but it is, like the Nusra Front, committed to ejecting Assad from power. Ahrar al-Sham also benefits from excellent organisation, which, according to Charles Lister, a senior consultant to the Shaikh Group and involved in Syria Track II dialogues, has allowed it to survive major losses such as the gutting of its leadership in September 2014. This administrative acumen indicates an able pool of people to run a post-Assad Syria but their ideology is just as unpalatable as the Nusra Front and the US Central Intelligence Agency has declined providing the Ahra al-Sham with training and weapons.

A third group worth mentioning as contending for a role in a new Syria is the Jaish al-Islam. The result of a merger of fifty or so smaller Damascene groups in September 2013, the Jaish al-Islam is a powerful militia in the conservative Islamist fold that is backed by Saudi Arabia. There have been consistent rumours that Riyadh has not only extended financial assistance to the group but also recruited instructors from Pakistan to provide them training, primarily because the Saudis were afraid that the Nusra Front had become too dominant a force in Syrian politics. Curiously, however, the ideology of the Jaish al-Islam is also Islamist in the al-Qa’ida mould, with the group’s leader, Zahran Alloush, calling Nusra Front fighters as his brothers and addressing Osama bin Laden with honorifics such as rahimahu Allah. However, the Jaish al-Islam is as devotedly anti-ISIS as it is anti-Assad and has released several videos that show the mass execution of captured ISIS fighters. Its battle strategy is as gruesome as that of ISIS, oftentimes using civilians as human shields to evade Allied air strikes. While their ideologies do not align perfectly, Jaish al-Islam has in fact cooperated with the Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham on the battlefield in the past.

Groups like the Jaish al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham hold a reluctant interest for the West because they have been extremely effective against ISIS, more so than the more publicised Kurdish peshmerga. Furthermore, despite their unequivocally anti-ISIS and anti-Islamist stance, the Kurdish factions pose a problem in the long run because their Arab neighbours are wary that the price of Kurdish assistance against ISIS would be independence or at least autonomy. Interestingly, the one thing that unites everyone in Syria, from Assad to the Syria-focused Islamists, is the unity of the country. At a recent seminar in London organised by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Lister stated that in his two and half years of close talks with the Syrian opposition, the overwhelming consensus – 90 to 95 per cent – was that Syria must stay as a single and unified state. Unfortunately for the West, the only groups who seem to be capable of holding a post-Assad Syria together are staunchly Islamist.

These prominent Islamist factions pose a more immediate problem too: they are Sunni extremists and as such, virulently against Syria’s several minority groups such as the Shia, Alawi, Druze, and Christians. Any anti-Assad coalition that includes groups like the Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, and Jaish al-Islam will never gain the acceptance of minorities that have steadfastly remained loyal to Assad. In their opinion, a secular dictator is supremely preferable to a religious tyrant; they see little difference between the massacre of Yazidis around Sinjar by ISIS in August 2014 and the massacre of minorities in Adra by the Nusra Front and the Islamic Front, in December 2013. Any suggestion of incorporating Islamist groups into a Syrian political settlement is a non-starter while keeping the Islamists out would mean a long, bloody and protracted civil war.

There are, to be sure, scores of moderate, nationalist factions in the Syrian civil war too. Judging from the assessment made by the British Joint Intelligence Committee, this segment numbers about 75,000 fighters divided between 105 to 100 groups. The largest two, the Southern Front of the Free Syrian Army and the Northern Free Syrian Army, comprise 58 factions fielding 25,000 fighters and 14 factions fielding 20,000 fighters respectively. Both these groups have been amenable to a political settlement to the civil war but again, to the West’s misfortune, these groups have proven ineffective against Assad’s forces. In September 2015, the secretive US Military Operations Command in Amman withdrew support to the Southern Front after a string of battlefield failures against the Syrian Army. This has led to signs of splintering in the group, with some elements allegedly reaching out to more successful yet Islamist groups such as the Ahrar al-Sham.

With a lack of feasible anti-Assad options on the field of battle, there is also this to be considered: are Syrians capable of democracy, that too one with multicultural hues? Such questions are usually summarily dismissed as racist but it is worth bearing in mind that a democratic system is the embodiment of values already present in the people. Thus can be explained, for example, the institutional failure and weak democracy of India. The successful implantation of a democratic framework in West Germany and Japan after World War II can easily be countered by the failed democracies of over a dozen postcolonial African states, Pakistan, and Iraq. Hussein and Assad, little Stalins that they have been, may not nourish the lofty ideals of free expression and political freedom but at least they saved their countries from descending into sectarian bloodbaths. The hypocrisy of the West in demanding a perfect solution to the Syrian question can be seen among its regional allies in Saudi Arabia, a state that many have compared to ISIS unfavourably. The Western pursuit of democracy, or realpolitik, in the Middle East has unlocked an enormous wave of human tragedy.

Had the proposal that came to Ahtisaari in February 2012 been pursued, the Syrian tragedy might have been averted. Assad’s own infractions may have been responded to, at least partially, via sanctions and diplomatic pressure. Given that the country is surrounded by US allies, this would not have been too difficult. However, some diplomats from the P3 (Britain, France, United States) have alleged that no such proposal existed, or if it did, it was not serious. If this is true, it would still have been worth considering a future of Syria in which Assad had a role, at least temporarily. After all, a nationalist dictator might make for an uneasy region but a global jihadist ideology is inherently expansionist and an international ulcer. This latter event has been the cost of the Western pursuit of “democracy” in Syria.


This article first appeared in the December 2015 print edition of Swarajya.

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A Sudden Churning

12 Thu Jun 2014

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in Middle East

≈ Comments Off on A Sudden Churning

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Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, al-Qa'ida in Iraq, AQI, Baiji, Bashar al-Assad, Diyarbakir, Esmail Ahmadi Moghaddam, Ghassem Suleimani, Hassakah, Hewler, Iran, Iraq, ISIS, Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra, Jordan, KRG, Kurdistan, Kurdistan Regional Government, Mahdi Army, Moqtada al-Sadr, Mosul, Nouri al-Maliki, peshmerga, Quds Force, Raqqa, sharia, Shia, Sunni, Supreme National Security Council, Syria, Tikrit, Turkey, United States, Yekineyen Parastina Gel, YPG

On June 11, Middle East observers were stunned at the sudden breakthrough of militants belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) against Iraqi forces opposing them in Anbar and Nineveh. ISIS stormed through Mosul, Tikrit, and Baiji as the Iraqi army melted away so quickly that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki termed it a conspiracy. A report by the International Organization for Migration says an estimated 500,000 people, including 99% of its Christian population, have fled Mosul since hostilities began Saturday morning. The militants seized huge stores of American-supplied arms, ammunition and vehicles, including six Black Hawk helicopters and approximately $420 million in cash.

ISIS surgeAdmittedly, Mosul is not ISIS’ first scalp – they have captured and held Falluja since January 2014, put pressure on Ramadi and Samarra, and regularly target the Iraqi capital Baghdad with bombs. However, Mosul is Iraq’s third-largest city and an important hub of commercial activity; by way of comparison, Bangalore is India’s third-largest city. As such, its capture is symbolic and a huge morale boost for ISIS. It demonstrates a strong command and control and a high degree of internal coordination and cohesion within ISIS to be able to capture a city. Run by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has a doctorate in education from the University of Baghdad, ISIS is estimated to command some 6,000 fighters in Iraq and another 3,000 in Syria; the United States has placed a $10 million bounty on al-Baghdadi, surpassed only, so far, by the $25 million reward for al-Qa’ida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Equally worrisome is the disintegration of the Iraqi army. In many areas, soldiers doffed their uniforms and disappeared into the civilian population; in others, they were willing to lay down their arms without offering any resistance if they were guaranteed safe passage. Immediate blame may fall upon the failure of the United States to supply Iraq with weaponry in a timely manner or raise doubts about its training of Iraqi troops but the problem goes deeper than that – al-Maliki’ and his government was not able to build a state to which the average Iraqi felt much loyalty.

ISIS started out as al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI), a militant group that opposed the US occupation of Iraq. The group was decimated but not completely eliminated by the US during the 2007 surge. However, the incompetence of the Iraqi government and the civil war in Syria led to its resurrection in 2012. For example, al-Maliki purged Sunni Muslims from government posts; he also went back on his promise to integrate Sunni militias known as Sahwa into the regular army. It was these brigades that the US had used to fight and defeat AQI earlier. The release of al-Qa’ida prisoners by the United States also provided what Michael Knights, the Lafer Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, calls “an unprecedented infusion of skilled, networked terrorist manpower” into the region. The series of massive prison breaks across Iraq in 2013 also contributed to the swelling of ISIS ranks. Disturbingly, ISIS was expelled from the al-Qa’ida fraternity in February 2014 for unnecessarily killing civilians and being too vicious!

The collapse of the Iraq-Syria border will aid ISIS in its fight in Iraq as well as against Bashar al-Assad. They can take refuge from one side in the territory of the other and enjoy internal lines of communication. The civil war in Syria has improved the fighting capability of ISIS and as many US military observers are saying, this is no longer a terrorist threat but a small army on the move. ISIS is moving south against Baghdad, and the Shia holy cities of Karbala and Najaf may very well be next for the Sunni extremists. The group’s twitter account said it had taken Mosul as part of a plan “to conquer the entire state and cleanse it from the apostates.” The organisation’s goal, as it has often stated, is to re-establish the Islamic Caliphate from the Mediterranean to the Zagros under sharia law.

There have been reports that ISIS may extend its domain beyond Iraq and Syria into Jordan, but in all likelihood, the focus will be on consolidating the gains in Iraq and protecting the rear by gaining the upper hand against arch-rival Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria. Al-Nusra has pushed ISIS out of Aleppo and Idlib as well as the northern provinces in Syria and offered strong resistance in Deir Ezzor. Furthermore, Syrian forces are starting to attack ISIS strongholds in Raqqa and Hassakah.

In response to the ISIS surge, the Iraqi government has requested that the United States conduct air strikes against key militant positions across northern Iraq. Ironically, Washington sees the use of drones against ISIS as a step too far and has refused to act so far. In some ways, the United States is torn between supporting or standing idly by as ISIS fights Assad and acting against it in defence of its Iraqi client while incidentally helping the Syrian regime. However, events seem to have overtaken Washington and it will be forced to act. Ground troops are not an option for the US, but the fear of Iran increasing its footprint in Iraq will propel Washington to conduct airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq if not Syria.

The only group that is currently capable of fighting ISIS in the region is the Kurdish Regional Government and its brethren in Rojava. The peshmerga and the Yekineyen Parastina Gel (YPG) are also battle-hardened and fairly well-equipped after decades of fighting Iranians, Arabs, and Turks for Kurdish autonomy. Nonetheless, there is no love lost between Hewler and Baghdad. Kurdish forces have so far taken Kirkuk but made no move against ISIS yet. It remains to be seen whether they remain neutral or join the fight on the side of their nemesis, Baghdad. There is temptation in Hewler to sit on the sidelines but ISIS is unlikely to view Kurdistan favorably once it establishes its caliphate; the KRG would be making a grave mistake if it allowed ISIS to consolidate its power, or on the contrary, the militant threat is defeated and Hewler is seen as opportunistically neutral.

The march on Shia shrines and the brutal massacres of Shia in ISIS-held territory has evinced a response from Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The cleric has said that he is willing to raise the Mahdi Army he had disbanded in 2008 to provide for the security of Shia and Christians in Iraq. The obvious Shia power that has remained quiet so far is Iran. Though most officials have been silenced by a gag order from the top, Iran’s police chief Esmail Ahmadi Moghaddam revealed that the Supreme National Security Council intervene in Iraq if Shia were explicitly targeted.

Iran has been troubled by rising Sunni extremism in its neighbourhood; in August 1998, the Taliban stormed Mazar-e Sharif and massacred Shia pilgrims in neighbouring Afghanistan. According to the memoirs of former diplomat Hossein Mousavian, it was only the veto of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that stopped Iran from going to war. Iran is already involved in the Syrian conflagration in favour of Assad and this new ISIS threat in Iraq could be catastrophic. Said Ghassem Suleimani, leader of the Quds Force, Iran’s rage at the destruction of religious sites it holds dear would be enormous and all options would be on the table – “battles, attacks, raids, massacre.” The Quds Force, however, is thought to have been operating in Iraq in an unofficial capacity for a while now. At the time of writing, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has just announced that he would deploy the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to Iraq to fight the terrorists.

ISIS’ rapid success has made many enemies. Turkey had so far opposed the Assad regime and had turned a lazy eye towards foreign fighters streaming into Syria to fight the Syrian regime. Recent geopolitics, however, has made Ankara change its mind on Syria and the rebels. The storming of the Turkish consulate in Mosul and the taking some 80 Turkish citizens as hostages comes at an awkward time, domestically speaking, for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Reconnaissance flights over Mosul out of Diyarbakir have already been conducted in consultation with Baghdad and Ankara has issued a stern warning to ISIS over any harm befalling the Turkish hostages. Turkey is unlikely to conduct military operations against ISIS just yet unless ISIS kills the hostages, a very unlikely event. Ankara, however, will maintain its new policy of keeping its borders closed and make it more difficult for foreign fighters to drift in as before.

It is unlikely that ISIS will take on so many foes at once. However, if the group settles into a holding pattern, it may lose support of the people in the territory it controls. The massive exodus from Mosul is an indication that people have little faith in organisation’s governance abilities. ISIS has already made a powerful negative image for itself by persecuting minorities and brutally crushing even the slightest dissent in lands it has held. If ISIS slows down now, or if a loose and reluctant coalition of Turks, Iranians, Kurds, and US-supplied Iraqis manages to slow them down, they may be the reason of their own unravelling.

The phrase, “May you live in interesting times” is usually taken to be an ancient Chinese blessing. It is, in fact, neither ancient nor Chinese nor a blessing. It appears in the opening remarks of Frederic Coudert at the Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in 1939…and was meant as a curse. These are interesting times indeed.

Incidentally, Iraq is – was – India’s second-largest oil supplier.


This post appeared on Daily News & Analysis on June 13, 2014.

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