The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant Megathread

[CountDeMoney]

Speaking of air strikes, as that seems to be Today's Special on the menu...From Foreign Policy...

Voice
When All You've Got Is an F-16...
Why is bombing the only option in Washington's policy toolkit?
by Micah Zenko


Just two days after the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) captured territory and military installations in Iraq, Washington foreign policy commentators and policymakers are considering options for responding. And unsurprisingly, the scope of the debate about what to do in Iraq has broken down into bombing, or not bombing. Sen. Lindsey Graham declared on the Senate floor, "I think American airpower is the only hope to change the battlefield equation in Iraq." President Barack Obama later said "I don't rule out anything," to which White House Press Secretary Jay Carney later explained, "We are not contemplating ground troops. The president was answering a question specifically about air strikes." The debate shrinks immediately around whether and how to use the tactic of force.

Though it is commonly referred to as Maslow's Hammer, the concept of privileging the tool at hand, irrespective of its appropriate fit to solving a problem, originated with the philosopher Abraham Kaplan. In his 1964 classic, The Conduct of Inquiry: Methodology for Behavioral Science, Kaplan discussed the issue of the abstract nature of techniques, particularly the scientific method, used by scientists, whether conducting surveys, doing statistical analysis, or deciphering foreign language inscriptions. He worried that, since "the pressures of fad and fashion are as great in science, for all its logic, as in other areas of culture," certain preferred techniques in which a scientist finds him or herself particularly skilled could predominate over all others. As Kaplan described this phenomenon:

    "I call it the law of the instrument, and it may be formulated as follows: Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding. It comes as no particular surprise to discover that a scientist formulates problems in a way which requires for their solution just those techniques in which he himself is especially skilled."

Kaplan's fuller context for the hammer attributed to Abraham Maslow -- who just re-packaged the idea two years later -- was worth bearing in mind during President Barack Obama's speech last week, which was primarily a defense for the contexts in which he applies military force. As Obama noted, "Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail." Though Obama's speech provided no additional information about his thinking, it was useful because it reinforced the singular conception of what foreign policy entails for many in Washington: military force.

Somewhere along the line, in many influential schools of punditry and analysis, the totality of U.S. foreign policy has been reduced to whether presidents bomb some country or adversary, and the alleged impressions that this decision leaves on other countries. The binary construction employed by these pundits and analysts is that a president either demonstrates strength and engagement with air strikes, or fecklessness and detachment in their absence.

Today, the U.S. military has over 400,000 troops stationed or deployed in 182 countries around the world -- primarily conducting force protection, training, or security cooperation missions, but these troops do not factor into this equation. The binary choice is either bombs, or isolationism. Of course, the activities of the State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, Treasury Department, or any other government agency and entity working abroad are wholly disregarded or given short shrift at promoting and implementing foreign policy objectives.

This vast overestimation of what military force can plausibly achieve runs totally contrary to what the past dozen years have demonstrated, at tremendous cost and sacrifice. The interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya show that the use of force as the primary instrument did not sustainably secure U.S. interests in those countries over time, nor assure U.S. allies of its mutual defense obligations, and had no latent capacity to deter potential adversaries. Nobody on earth today is scared of America because it put 170,000 troops in Iraq, 100,000 in Afghanistan, and led a seven-month air campaign over Libya. If anything, the resulting instability or outright chaos led most to reach the opposite conclusion. Yet, somehow pundits continue to think and argue that sending troops or bombs into another country today will achieve this in the future. Op-ed militarism never dies, even as its underlying logic repeatedly does.

While "the pressures of fad and fashion" apparently compel pundits and analysts to demand the use of force to address unstable or threatening situations, it is rarely accompanied with a definable or measurable military or political objective that it is intended to achieve within the targeted country. You rarely hear such pundits state explicitly what exactly military force is supposed to accomplish. Rather, it is a mindless demand to apply some military tactic to elicit some feeling -- presumably fear and awe -- among third-party witnesses. The most remarkable characteristic of this school of thought is that those within it also claim to be transcontinental mind-readers capable of knowing what specific U.S. instrument of power will change the calculus of potential adversaries. Unsurprisingly, it is always military force.

Though never referred to by proponents of militarism, there is an actual joint planning process and universal task list that the military uses when planning and conducting operations. These documents provide the common reference points and actions that all affected service members are supposed to know. Nowhere in U.S. military planning documents can you find missions like "demonstrating resolve," "exhibiting strength," or "retaining superpower status." It is impossible to make other countries think of you what you would like. Their impressions are highly situationally dependent, and the result of the power and interests that surround a discrete country or issue. Their opinions of the United States are not merely based upon whether the president decided to bomb someone or not.

It is unfortunate that military force -- the most lethal, destructive, and consequential foreign action that the United States can undertake -- suffers from such a dismal and imprecise discourse. It contains meaningless and empty metaphors characterized by crude gardening references, all options forever "on the table," "setting the bar" higher, and Obama vowing to "take very tough actions." Military force is about blowing things up and killing people. Trying to ascribe virtues to its nature, or magical powers to its effects, is misleading and imprudent. Much of Washington does not see force as the solution to the world's problems because the U.S. military has the best hammer, but rather because of the influence and supremacy that it falsely ascribes to it.

[Zanza]

That's an interesting article from a German perspective because we have the exact opposite discussion in our country. No one ever suggests use of military force as a possible means to conduct foreign policy. Our president just recently said again that the public must come terms with the fact that it might be necessary to deploy combat troops abroad.

[mongers]

Following on from what I said earlier about Ba'athists being in a shaky coalition with ISIS:

Iraq conflict: 'We are stronger than ISIS'

Divisions between the groups fighting to topple Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are emerging.

Much of the attention from the current insurgency has focused on ISIS - the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, but it is only one of a number of militia groups fighting.

Former General Muzhir al Qaisi is a spokesman for the General Military Council of the Iraqi Revolutionaries, which entered Mosul alongside ISIS and is taking part in the campaign. He told the BBC's Middle East correspondent Jim Muir that Mosul was too big a city for ISIS to have taken alone.

He also stressed the differences between the two groups, describing ISIS as "barbarians".

Video interview:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27853362

[CountDeMoney]

That's an interesting article from a German perspective because we have the exact opposite discussion in our country. No one ever suggests use of military force as a possible means to conduct foreign policy. Our president just recently said again that the public must come terms with the fact that it might be necessary to deploy combat troops abroad.

That's because the US has more often than not been very successful with achieving short-term policy goals with the specific application of air power.  It all started with Reagan and Libya in 1986.

Air power as a policy device is quick, clean, provides a sense of accomplishment and immediate gratification, makes America feel better about itself and causes everybody else to realize how far behind they are in air combat theory and air defense technology.

[Ed Anger]

Looks like ISIS might have spent their momentum. Allahu Ackbar

[Sheilbh]

Reports Suleimani's in Baghdas basically leading the Iraqi military now.

[The Brain]

Magnificent.

[CountDeMoney]

   I hate you so much sometimes, Brain.

[Sheilbh]

ISIS have apparently taken a major supply base north of Baghdad.

[Ed Anger]

I guess I was wrong. ISIS is still getting column shifts on the CRT.

[Sheilbh]

I think Joshua Landis's take is interesting:

The Future of ISIS and the Sectarian Response: ISIS has Picked a Fight it Cannot Win
Posted by Joshua on Sunday, June 15th, 2014
The Future of ISIS in Iraq and the Sectarian Response – by Joshua Landis

A Washington policy analyst asked me what chances I gave to the possibility that Prime Minister Maliki will try to divide Sunnis and isolate ISIS by teaming up with moderate Sunnis. He raised the possibility of Maliki creating a government of national unity with greater power sharing.

My answer:

1. I doubt ISIS will get a foothold in Baghdad. Already, Shiite mobilization in the face of the ISIS advances are fierce and panicky.  I think Shiite religious mobilization now taking place in Iraq will mean very bad things for Sunnis in general. ISIS has picked a fight it can't win and unleashed the inner Shi'a in their adversary. And it's not as though Maliki, like Assad, lacks powerful friends with a serious stake in the outcome of the battle.

Rather than Maliki teaming up with "moderate" Sunnis, such as the US did in arming the tribes and cultivating the Sahwa, Iraq's Prime Minister is likely to respond by using religion as his prime mobilizer. Of course, he will not abandon "Iraq" or nationalism, just as Assad has not.  But just as Sistani has used the sanctity of Shiite shrines as his primary "national" motivator, Maliki is likely to follow suit. He will largely define the nation in sectarian terms. That is what ISIS has done, as well. Sunnis have scared the pants off of Shiites. The photos of mass shootings of Shiite young men dooms a non-sectarian response, I would imagine. What is more, the gathering storm of sectarian mobilization has already reached furious levels in the entire region. The demonization of Shiites as "rejectors" and "Majous" or pagans who are considered both non-Muslim and non-Arab, has spread to such an extent that it has taken on a life of its own. The counter demonization of Sunnis, within the Shiite world, as terrorists, takfiris, and Wahhabi inspired agents is well entrenched.

2. I would not be shocked to see significant ethnic cleansing of Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad should ISIS attack and give the Iraqi Army a run for its money. After all, the Iraqi army is large, has helicopters, sophisticated intelligence capabilities, tanks, artillery and all the rest. They were caught napping and without esprit de corps, much as the Syrian army was. But capable officers will emerge who will strip down the "power-sharing" fat that the US built and rebuild it based on loyalty to Maliki and Shiism, if most of that has not been done already. This is what happened in Syria, when we saw the Syrian Army unravel at the base during the first year of the Sunni uprising. The Syrian military was quickly rebuilt along sectarian and regional lines to make it much stronger and more loyal, with locally recruited Iranian style National Defense Forces modeled on the Islamic Guard. If Sunnis choose to form such local militias and ally with the Shiite regime, so much the better. If they do not and choose to lay low until they figure out whether ISIS can win in their regions, the Shiites will go it alone and assume all Sunnis are a fifth column. That is how the Turks dealt with the Christians during WWI and the war with the Greeks. The 20% Christians in Anatolia of 1914 were cleansed. Jews in Palestine dealt with Muslims in a manner not altogether dissimilar. It didn't turn out well for Christians in Anatolia or Muslims in Palestine.

3. We are not witnessing power-sharing or the emergence of nationalism in the region. We are witnessing the breakdown of nationalist ideology along religious lines in Syria, Lebanon, and now – I would argue – Iraq. Palestine is a bit of an exception with the new coalition government, but not much of one.

My advice to Obama would be to lay low. This sectarian process has been boiling up for a more than a century. It should be seen as part of the breakdown of the Ottoman order and emergence of nationalism. I compare what is going on in the Levant today to Central Europe during WWII. In Central Europe, the great powers drew national borders after WWI, carving up the lands of the defeated empires without rearranging the peoples to fit them. Thus Poland was on 64% Polish before WWII and Czechoslovakia was 23% minorities. WWII was the "great sorting out." (Read: http://qifanabki.com/2013/12/18/landis-ethnicity/ ) Over the war years, the peoples of central Europe were rearranged according to the WWI borders. By the end of WWII, Poland and Czechoslovakia had been reduced to their core Polish and Czechoslovak peoples. They got rid of their unwanted (Jews) or guilty (think the 12 million Germans of central Europe) minorities, along with many others. It was a nasty and brutal nation-building process.

Of course, in the Middle East, the emergence of national identities is bedeviled by competing religious identities, which seem to be stronger than both "Arabism" or "Iraqism."

I doubt we will see high degrees of Shiite-Sunni cooperation in the coming months. If we stick our long oar into this mess, we will end up with a broken oar. It seems possible that within the next two years, ISIS will largely be destroyed by the concerted action of both Iraqi and Syrian forces with help from Iran and possibly the U.S. Sunnis will not be pacified so long as they receive scant justice and no political role, but ISIS cannot represent their needs in the long run.

[jimmy olsen]

ISIS has apparently massacred as many as 1700 air force recruits in Tikrit

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/iraq-turmoil/iraqi-terrorists-appear-show-troop-massacre-bloody-photos-n131731

[CountDeMoney]

Emails must've bounced back.

[Admiral Yi]

How did all those knuckleheads let themselves be captured? 

[jimmy olsen]

Apparently their assets are now in excess of $2 billion.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/15/iraq-isis-arrest-jihadists-wealth-power

Two days before Mosul fell to the Islamic insurgent group Isis (the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), Iraqi commanders stood eyeballing its most trusted messenger. The man, known within the extremist group as Abu Hajjar, had finally cracked after a fortnight of interrogation and given up the head of Isis's military council.

"He said to us, 'you don't realise what you have done'," an intelligence official recalled. "Then he said: 'Mosul will be an inferno this week'.'

Several hours later, the man he had served as a courier and been attempting to protect, Abdulrahman al-Bilawi, lay dead in his hideout near Mosul. From the home of the dead man and the captive, Iraqi forces hoovered up more than 160 computer flash sticks which contained the most detailed information yet known about the terror group.

The treasure trove included names and noms de guerre of all foreign fighters, senior leaders and their code words, initials of sources inside ministries and full accounts of the group's finances.

"We were all amazed and so were the Americans," a senior intelligence official told the Guardian. "None of us had known most of this information."

Officials, including CIA officers, were still decrypting and analysing the flash sticks when Abu Hajjar's prophecy was realised. Isis swept through much of northern and central Iraq over three stunning days, seizing control of Mosul and Tikrit and threatening Kirkuk as three divisions of the Iraqi army shed their uniforms and fled.

The capitulation of the military and the rapid advances of the insurgents have dramatically changed the balance of power in Iraq, crippled prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, allowed Kurdish forces to seize control of the disputed city of Kirkuk and galvanised a Shia fightback along sectarian lines, posing a serious threat to the region's fragile geopolitics. On Sunday Isis published photographs that appeared to show it capturing and killing dozens of Iraqi soldiers.

"By the end of the week, we soon realised that we had to do some accounting for them," said the official flippantly. "Before Mosul, their total cash and assets were $875m [£515m]. Afterwards, with the money they robbed from banks and the value of the military supplies they looted, they could add another $1.5bn to that."

Laid bare were a series of staggering numbers that would be the pride of any major enterprise, let alone an organisation that was a startup three years ago.

The group's leaders had been meticulously chosen. Many of those who reported to the top tier – all battle-hardened veterans of the insurgency against US forces nearly a decade ago – did not know the names of their colleagues. The strategic acumen of Isis was impressive – so too its attention to detail. "They had itemised everything," the source said. "Down to the smallest detail."

Over the past year, foreign intelligence officials had learned that Isis secured massive cashflows from the oilfields of eastern Syria, which it had commandeered in late 2012, and some of which it had sold back to the Syrian regime. It was also known to have reaped windfalls from smuggling all manner of raw materials pillaged from the crumbling state, as well as priceless antiquities from archaeological digs.

But here before them in extraordinary detail were accounts that would have breezed past forensic accountants, giving a full reckoning of a war effort. It soon became clear that in less than three years, Isis had grown from a ragtag band of extremists to perhaps the most cash-rich and capable terror group in the world.

"They had taken $36m from al-Nabuk alone [an area in the Qalamoun mountains west of Damascus]. The antiquities there are up to 8,000 years old," the intelligence official said. "Before this, the western officials had been asking us where they had gotten some of their money from, $50,000 here, or $20,000 there. It was peanuts. Now they know and we know. They had done this all themselves. There was no state actor at all behind them, which we had long known. They don't need one."

The scale of Isis's resources seems to have prepared it for the improbable. But even by its ruthless standards, occupying two major cities in Iraq in three days, holding on to parts of Falluja and Ramadi, and menacing Kirkuk and Samara, was quite an accomplishment.

Social media postings throughout last week revealed the group's shock at its successes. Some posting showed extremists weeping with joy as dozens of Iraqi army humvess were driven through a sand berm on the border into Syria.

Foreign jihadists, many from Europe, were among those who stormed into Mosul and have spread through central Iraq ever since. Most of their names were already known to the intelligence agencies which had tried to track their movements after they arrived in Turkey, then disappeared, initially across the Syrian border. But noms de guerre given to the new arrivals had left their trails cold. Now officials had details of next of kin, and often phone numbers and emails.

Whether the intelligence haul can do much to reel in Isis after the fact seems a moot point, with the group having already wrought so much carnage in such a short time. "We will eventually find them," said the Iraqi official. "We knew they had infiltrated the ministries and the most frustrating thing about that flash [stick] was it only had initials. We are focusing on the initials that had the annotation 'valuable' next to them."

Other names were clearly of lesser use, he said. They were marked with "lazy", "undecided" or "needs monitoring".

More than ever before is now known about how Isis has gathered steam. The past week has also been an advanced education in its capabilities and ambitions. "Now we have to catch up with them," the official said.