The "do something stupid" part of the title is a steal from a letter to the editor I wrote recently. Here's a link to it: http://blogs.seattletimes.com/northwestvoices/2014/06/14/iraq-wait-dont-do-something-stupid/. A lot of people have weighed in on ISIS/ISIL since it became a hot topic back in June. I accused them of being stupid then and unfortunately they have remained stuck in the same rut. The details have changed a little. But most bloviating on the subject still translates to "President Obama is wrong, wrong, wrong". In spite of the many mistakes Obama has supposedly made things are actually somewhat improved, not than anyone has noticed. So let's review.
In June ISIS (there was no argument at the time as to what it should be called) had just taken control of a large chunk of Iraq, mostly in Anbar province. "They are unstoppable" was taken as gospel at the time. The countdown clocks were started for how long it was going to take them to sweep in and take control of Baghdad. Would it be weeks or only days? But since then ISIS has in fact been stopped. The Baghdad offensive never materialized. ISIS has racked up some gains but it has suffered more losses. In fact, the conventional wisdom now has it that they are on the defensive.
Between then and now we have had the Yazidi rescue. The Yazidis are a religious minority that lived in an area that ISIS was able to gain control of. A large number of them fled to Mt. Sinjar. All the initial reporting and analysis indicated that they were doomed and that the world was in for another instance of genocide. But the story has a happy ending. The Yazidis were rescued in a complex coordinated effort. There has been exactly zero praise of the President for pulling this off. And so it goes.
The problem is that the media likes "bang bang". Gun camera footage of a missile strike is very popular and is played endlessly on TV. There were some missile strikes in the Yazidi rescue so that's what the media has focused on. They were helpful but by themselves they would have been completely ineffective. Let me focus on the immediate Yazidi rescue and then pull back and take a look at the broader situation.
At the beginning of the incident, and by this I mean the beginning of the U.S. public's introduction to the incident, you had 50,000 Yazidis stuck on Mt. Sinjar. They were surrounded by bloodthirsty and unstoppable ISIS troops and their complete destruction was just days away. So what happened? Well, the first thing that happened is that the U.S. launched some airstrikes from drones and manned aircraft. This took out some ISIS artillery and put ISIS troops on notice that they would not be allowed a free hand.
Next, the U.S. airdropped some supplies -- food, water, medicine. It wasn't enough to take care of 50,000 people but it put the Yazidis on notice that someone was paying attention. The airdrops and missile attacks continued. A rescue mission was flown in and a small number of Yazidis were evacuated. Shortly thereafter Kurdish troops were able to move into the area and make contact with the Yazidis. The Kurds opened a safe corridor along which the Yazidis were able to evacuate. Everyone who wanted to leave the mountain was able to do so. Finally, the number of Yazidis turned out to be substantially less than 50,000. I believe that there are still people living on Mt. Sinjar but they are the people who have always lived there. I also believe that ISIS has now lost interest in Mt. Sinjar. That sounds like a big win for the good guys. And the President can legitimately be given credit for a good chunk of this good news. But the silence, as they say, has been deafening. Now let's pull back and look at a wider context. I am going to start by only pulling back far enough to look at Iraq.
So how did we, and by "we" I actually mean Iraq, get into this mess? Iraq is a fantasy country. It was brought into existence in the 1920s as the result of the collapse of the Ottomon empire and the machinations of the British and the French. It is a mash up of a bunch of political, religious, and ethnic groups that suited the British and the French at the time but did not take into account any facts on the ground. So it has no natural coherence. That doesn't mean it can't be successful anyhow. It hung together reasonably well until 2003 when we invaded it. But it mostly hung together due to iron fisted domination by a small group of people at the top. The last in this line was Saddam Hussein. When the U.S. invaded they toppled the Hussein government and Iraq has been spiraling out of control since. All the tensions Hussein had been keeping bottled up now were now able to escape.
And you had outside forces aiding and abetting this. The Iranians favored the Shiites. Saudi Arabia and others favored the Sunnis. The long oppressed Kurdish minority saw an opportunity to finally gain some autonomy. The U.S. acting from outside tried to exert some force to counteract this tendency to fragment. But the Iraqis saw their chance to get control of their own affairs and took it. Al Maliki was then able to operate independently. He implemented policies favoring Shiites and Iran and tried (fairly successfully) to weaken his opponents. The Kurds were able to fend him off to a considerable extent but the Sunnis, particularly those in Anbar province, weren't.
ISIS is at bottom a Sunni movement. As such it has received a considerable amount of support from the Sunni Arab world. It has also been lucky in that its local opponents have been weak. It started out in Syria where it has been fighting the Assad regime. There has been a full fledged civil war going on in Syria for more than three years now. Sunnis in Syria see ISIS as fighting the Assad regime effectively on their behalf. Syria is like Iraq in the sense that it is governed by a small minority. Syria has large Sunni and Kurd populations both of whom have been oppressed. ISIS has been able to leverage its position as "the Sunni savior" into effective control of a significant percentage of Syria. At the moment the Assad regime is not in a position to do much about this.
Then early this year ISIS mounted an offensive into Iraq. Theoretically Iraq has a large, well equipped, and well trained army. But the problem is that The U.S. has insisted on a balanced force consisting of Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, etc., all mixed together. If it had worked this would be a good thing. It is a key to the long term success of the Iraq that the U.S. envisions. This Iraq would have its historic boundaries and would have all of its factions and minorities living together in peace and harmony. But that is not the path Iraq seems to be on, no matter how fervently the U.S. wishes it were. In the actual Iraq of today there is tremendous mistrust and a lot of jockeying for advantage. In the Iraq of today the army is a hollow shell.
ISIS is not a hollow shell. Their military forces are disciplined and effective. ISIS was able to capture large swatches of Iraqi territory because they stuck to the Sunni areas where they received a friendly reception. And they were opposed by a paper Iraqi army that dissolved under the slightest pressure. The Kurds might have been able to effectively oppose ISIS. But the al Maliki government had starved Kurd military forces of supplies and equipment. Why? Because al Maliki did not want an effective and possibly hostile military force on his Northeastern flank. So the Sunnis saw ISIS as liberators from the Shiite oppression of al Maliki. The Shiites were defended by a hollow military force, the Iraqi Army. And the Kurds had the will to fight but not the equipment and supplies. It is not surprising that ISIS was able to rack up such impressive wins in the early days. So what has happened since?
Lots. The first thing that happened was that the Shiites had the pants scared off them. Al Maliki had been involved in a nasty political fight for control of the official government of Iraq. As "his guy" the Shiites were supporting him as were the Iranians. So it looked like he would win in the end. To the Shiites and the Iranians al Maliki was a good bet as a skilled inside fighter in the hard ball politics of Baghdad. But the tactics he was using assumed that there was no serious outside threat. With no serious outside threat it was ok to screw over the Sunnis and the Kurds and have an ineffective army. But ISIS quickly convinced everyone in Baghdad that it was a serious outside threat. That changed everything.
All of a sudden Baghdad was facilitating not impeding the flow of supplies and equipment to the Kurds. And al Maliki stopped relying on the army. Instead he turned to the all Shiite militias, many of whom had been trained and supported by the Iranians. It was now more important to win military battles than political ones. As a side effect of all this it looks like al Maliki is out. With adequate supplies and equipment the fighting ability of the Kurds has miraculously increased immensely over night. They were able (and willing) to organize the rescue of the Yazidis. They have retaken territory from ISIS. And it looks like they can retake even more. The U.S. has continued to pitch in with intelligence and the odd airstrike. And the airstrikes have continued to help. But that is because there are boots on the ground to back them up.
Now let me back up even further. There is a dirty little secret behind Arab extremism. Most of it has been funded for decades by our "ally" Saudi Arabia. The country is run by the House of Saud, the extended family of Ibn Saud, the first King of Saudi Arabia. Back in the day the Saud family did a deal with the Wahhabi sect of Islam. The family of Ibn Saud would be given a free hand to run the country. In exchange the Wahhabis would be given control of the educational system and various "cultural components" of the government. Specifically, they run the "religious police", who make sure that public behavior confirms to Wahhabi standards . It will come as no surprise that the Wahhabis want to spread their ideas as broadly as possible. They use their political power to do this. They also encourage wealthy and/or powerful Saudis to donate money to advance the cause. This has resulted in them being able to build and operate hundreds of Madrasas all over the world. The Madrassas espouse Wahhabi ideas. In a lot of the world the only way poor parents can get their children any education is to send them to one of these Wahhabi Madrassas.
The Wahhabis are very fundamentalist. Perhaps their most well known adherent is Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden's philosophy is well outside mainstream Islam but broadly compatible with Wahhabi beliefs. So one of the big reasons that fundamentalism is widespread in the Arab world is the influence of the Wahhabi strain. The Wahhabi strain has so much influence because it is so powerful within Saudi Arabia. But we can't criticize Saudi Arabia because we depend on Saudi oil so heavily. And it's not just Saudi Arabia. This "buying off the religious people" tactic is practiced in a number of other oil rich Arab countries. So we see Qatar and others doing the same kinds of things. Qatar is another example of a tightly controlled government sitting on top of a country with a small population and a lot of oil. You do what you have to do to stay in power. So a dirty little secret of the ISIS magic formula is that it has been receiving a lot of support (usually quietly) from the Arab world.
So how do we deal with ISIS? Step one is to stop listening to the "experts" on TV. The rest of the plan comes straight out of the Obama play book, you know the one that the "experts" say doesn't exist. Obama spent his first term repairing relationships with the rest of the world. This is not always apparent because "take pot shots at the U.S." has been a popular pastime around the world for more than 50 years. But the rest of the world knows they can deal with the Obama Administration. The problem is that when things are going well it is usually more beneficial to give the U.S. grief. But ISIS has changed the calculus.
ISIS represents a real threat. So scoring a minor cheap shot off the U.S. is now counterproductive. We have seen this most clearly with the Iraqis. They have been giving the U.S. grief since Obama got into office. If there is no down side then there is every reason to do it. But now ISIS is knocking on the doors of Baghdad and threatening the flow of money, I mean oil, and threatening critical infrastructure like the Mosul dam. So the Iraqi government is now cooperating with the U.S. and helping the Kurds out. But we are also not getting any grief from Saudi Arabia or Qatar or any of the other Arab states. ISIS is good because its Sunni. But that was before it started slaughtering people in large numbers, enslaving people, and cutting people's heads off on the Internet. Now it looks bad even to people like the Saudis
We have had an off and on relationship with Turkey. Turkey would like to be seen as the political and cultural leader of the Arab world. One way to do this is to be seen as the defender of all things Arab against western encroachment. And the encroacher in chief is the U.S. Getting too close to the U.S. is a bad for your image in the Arab world. Turkey is no friend of the Assad regime. But when it was deciding who to back against him it had lots of "rebel factions" to choose from. I think ISIS was on its list of factions worth backing. I don't think ISIS still is. And Turkey has a large restive Kurdish population. Turkey has been shedding blood for decades trying to keep these Kurds in line. So it seemed like a bad idea to do anything nice to the Kurds in Iraq. But now it doesn't. Why? ISIS. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. All of a sudden the Kurds look down right friendly.
So since I have been bad mouthing what the "experts" have had to say, what do I think is the right thing? First of all, most of the "right thing" is not stuff that generates "bang bang" footage. It is the hard slog of diplomacy, of consensus building, of finding common ground, and building long term relationships. That's what the Obama Administration has been doing and it is paying off. What was not possible a few months ago is now possible. And, if we keep our powder dry, even more may be possible in the future.
The key to our success is the bad behavior of ISIS. The conventional wisdom as demonstrated by the media is that we are smart and thoughtful and caring and the rest of the world is a bunch of dim witted cretins. This is in spite of the mountain of evidence of stupidity, ignorance, and cretinous behavior on display within our borders on a daily basis. We have figured out that the ISIS people are bad people. The rest of the world is coming around to the same opinion. Give them a little more time. And in particular, give the people who live in ISIS controlled territory a little time to figure this out too.
Anbar used to ride high back in the day. Saddam did a good job taking care of them. He was a Sunni and they were Sunnis. Then they ended up on the wrong side of the U.S. invasion. We backed the Shiite majority. So they reacted badly. That put them in close contact with al-Queda in Iraq. Initially this seemed like a good thing. But over time the relationship soured and we had the Sunni Awakening. Then the U.S. left Iraq and al Maliki started putting his boot on the neck of the Sunnis. So ISIS initially looked pretty good. But that will not last long.
These is a big problem here. So far recent history has not presented the Anbar Sunnis with good options. The key to cracking the ISIS nut is to give them a good non-ISIS option. The same is true, by the way for the Syrian Sunnis. So the long term goal is to get to a place where the Sunnis in the territory now controlled by ISIS are well governed. By this I mean competently governed by local Sunnis. It is not clear to me how to reach this objective. But U.S. boots on the ground is nowhere on the path. Here is a way forward that I can see happening.
Iraq gets partitioned into a Shiite state and a Kurdish state. Syria gets partitioned into multiple states too. I see no reason not to create a state consisting of eastern Syria and western Iraq, roughly the territory controlled by ISIS. If you change the ISIS government for a moderate Sunni government you are home and done. But what I am suggesting is not possible at the moment. For various reasons it is critical at this time that the U.S. not support the partitioning of either Syria or Iraq. So for the moment we need to continue to play the hand we have been dealt.
We need to do this or the Baghdad government will interfere with not facilitate the flow of aid to the Kurds. Turkey is also informally cooperating with the Kurds but I don't think they are yet ready to go further. Handled badly they could quickly go backward (a more hostile position toward the Kurds) as could the Iraqis. Unfortunately this means that a bunch of Syrians and probably a goodly number of Iraqis are going to get killed, wounded, displaced, etc. There are things that the U.S. could do that could theoretically mitigate the situation. But those same things could also make things worse, much worse. And it is important that everyone in the U.S. understand a fundamental truth. There is a near unanimous belief in the area that we have interfered too much in the region.
We have a large debit balance in Iraq according to Iraqis. We tend to look at how many Americans died and how much money we spent. Iraqis tend to look at the fact that we went where we were not invited and then made a big mess. Iraq was laid waste. Delicate balances were upset. Many thousands of Iraqis were killed. Millions were displaced. Whether we like it or not al Maliki was seen as "our man in Baghdad". So we get the blame, whether we deserve it or not, for a lot of his actions. We have built up some credit here and there in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world. But we are still deep in the hole. The best way to be seen as digging the hole deeper is to be seen as either going it alone or going against the wishes of the locals.
We must work through the locals. We must be seen as assisting the locals in whatever they want to do. We must be seen as NOT dictating. Dictating is heavy handed. The Bush administration gave the region and the world far more heavy handed than it wanted to deal with. Obama has mitigated some of the damage. But we are not even back to dead even yet in the region or the world.
The trick is to let events come to us, not the other way around. Bad behavior by ISIS creates opportunities for us. If we are seen to be continuing to work through Baghdad and the Kurds and the Turks then many things become possible. Then we work behind the scenes through the locals. That means we are limited to actions that the locals are ok with. Ultimately, that disciplines us in a good way. It's a frustrating and slow way to work. It will cause talking heads to continue to heap scorn on President Obama in spite of the successes he achieves. But it will eventually yield the best results.
Do you think ISIS will continue to misbehave? So do I. That will open up more possibilities if we are just patient. Currently Baghdad is opposed to a partition of Iraq. Let's see how things look in a year or so. Currently Baghdad and Turkey and lots of other Arab countries are opposed to an independent Kurdish state. Let's see how things look in a year or so. Currently ISIS is in complete control of its territories. Let's see how things look in a year or so. If the locals decide that a partition of Iraq is a good idea then we can facilitate that. But we can't impose either a united Iraq or a partitioned one from the outside. Continuing to try will result in frustration in the short run and failure in the long run.
I don't know what the state of play is with respect to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc. and their funding of extremists. I mistrust what little coverage of this that I see in the media. Let's see what the state of play is in a year or so. Frankly, the U.S. has never pushed the issue of the funding of fundamentalists with any of the Arab states that do it. That's because oil concerns override everything else. But what if these states decided on their own that it was time to stop? Again, good things that are now not possible become possible. And what if an indigenous Sunni reaction materializes within the ISIS region? It has happened before with the Sunni Awakening. Then we have something to work with. The difference is between trying to bludgeon someone into doing what you want and trying to gently encourage them. People don't like to be bludgeoned. They tend to push back even if they know what you are trying to get them to do is a good thing.
The Arab world has been governed very badly for a very long time. The Arab Spring is a reflection of a realization on the part of the Arab street that this is so. Getting from bad government to good government via revolution is a very hard thing to pull off. We tend to focus on the American Revolution where things went well. But what happens more often looks more like the French Revolution. One of many bad side effects of that experiment is the Napoleonic Wars. France did come out the other end eventually. But it was a very long and painful process for France and for all of Europe. Both Libya and Egypt seem to share more similarities to the French example than the American one. And Iraq may follow the French model too.
At this point someone always wants to bring up Ruanda. There was a large genocide there in the '90s. The feeling now is that if the west had intervened at the proper moment then the genocide could have been avoided. And in the case of Ruanda the feeling is probably correct. But circumstances are always different. In Ruanda the theory is that all that would have been necessary was for the west to make a lot of noise. Little or no actual action would have been required.
The U.S. had good intentions in Iraq and it invested a lot of time, money, and people. It failed anyhow. We made Iraq a mess. The one thing people agree on with respect to Syria is that a lot of time, money, and people would be required to make a big difference. The ISIS territory is surrounded by Arab states. There is no way to get to it without going through one or more of them. Any large unilateral effort by the U.S. is doomed to failure. Not every humanitarian crisis is avoidable.
Since we are doomed to failure without local cooperation why not put local cooperation on the front burner and immediately jettison any idea that sounds like "go it alone"? I have found it a valuable rule of thumb to ask how much cooperation is actually on offer in these situations? If the answer is "lots", as it was in Iraq I, then prospects are good. If the answer is "not much", as it was in Iraq II, then things are very likely to go very wrong. A few months ago there was very little real cooperation on offer in the region. There is now a lot more. By treading carefully and by doing less rather than more the amount of real cooperation on offer looks to keep increasing. This is definitely a case where being late is much better than being early.
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