The West must lose no time in helping to destroy the Islamic State

Islamic State fighters celebrate the establishment of their ‘caliphate’ with a parade in Syria’s north.

IN May, Barack Obama spoke at the US Military Academy. He was self-congratulatory: “When I first spoke at West Point in 2009, we still had more than 100,000 troops in Iraq.

“We were preparing to surge in Afghanistan. Our counter-terrorism efforts were focused on al-Qa’ida’s core leadership — those who had carried out the 9/11 attacks … Four-and-a- half years later, as you graduate, the landscape has changed. We have removed our troops from Iraq.

“We are winding down our war in Afghanistan. Al-Qa’ida’s leadership on the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been decimated, and Osama bin Laden is no more.”

Two weeks later, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham — not even mentioned in the US President’s speech — seized Mosul, Iraq’s second city, launched a lightning advance to the outskirts of Baghdad and within 30km of Kirkuk, and brought Iraq’s government to the brink of collapse. The Islamic State is now consolidating in Iraq, expanding in Syria’s Aleppo province, fighting in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, and attracting recruits worldwide.

Those who haven’t been paying attention — including war-weary publics and, apparently, political leaders in some Western countries — could be forgiven a sense of whiplash here: what the hell is going on? Didn’t we have al-Qa’ida on the run? Have our sacrifices since 9/11 been in vain? Do we face a jihadist enemy stronger than ever? Are we back to square one? To make sense of this, we can frame it in terms of three key trends: the eclipse of al-Qa’ida central, the rise of the Islamic State and the failure of the Arab Spring.

The killing of bin Laden in 2011 and the Arab Spring (which initially seemed to suggest that peaceful protest could overthrow authoritarian regimes, something al-Qa’ida had always insisted could occur only through armed struggle) plunged al-Qa’ida into a period of turbulence. Al-Qa’ida central continues to exist, with Ayman al-Zawahiri still in charge, but his authority increasingly is questioned. The Islamic State is usurping al-Qa’ida’s role as mother ship of the global jihad, and their rivalry poses the risk of lethal competition between them as to who can do the most damage to Western and local societies.

Globally, the Islamic State is supplanting al-Qa’ida as battlefield success builds its credibility and attracts recruits. Abu Bakar Bashir, head of Jemaah Islamiah — Indonesia’s al-Qa’ida affiliate — last week called for his organisation to shift allegiance to it. A summit in Libya this month is rumoured to have brought leaders from jihadist groups across Africa, to decide whether to join the Islamic State. Some have already declared their support.

Overall, al-Qa’ida central is suppressed but not beaten: drone strikes, counter-terrorism operations and intelligence efforts have damaged the group, but it’s still a force. Events next year will determine its fate: it could recover dramatically if there’s a security collapse in Afghanistan after international forces withdraw in December. Likewise, the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban remain strong and allied with al-Qa'ida. A vacuum in Afghanistan could allow these groups to expand as dramatically as the Islamic State.

This rise of the latter is the second key trend. It’s no exaggeration to say it poses the greatest global terrorism threat since 9/11. Besides its 10,000 fighters — with their rockets, artillery and heavy armour — the Islamic State has hundreds of billions of dollars in seized government funds, helping it pay its fighters and support networks. The cities it controls and the taxes it levies make it self-­resourcing, with revenue of more than $1 million a day. Its capture of Mosul Dam gives it control of water and electricity across northern Iraq, and poses flooding risks for key cities. The Islamic State controls oil and gas in Syria, holds a third of Iraq’s territory and dominates northern and eastern Syria.

It appoints governors in the cities it controls. They’re building roads, taxing businesses, distributing bread, running hospitals, schools and courts — and conducting regular public beheadings and crucifixions of anyone who steps out of line. The group’s ideology — more extreme even than al-Qa'ida’s — combines with savvy public relations, battlefield success and thorough administration. The Islamic State has the brutality of al-Qa'ida, the administrative capacity of Hezbollah, and what amounts to a proto-state in the heart of the Middle East.

Its momentum is pulling in thousands of foreign fighters — including hundreds of American, Australian and European nationals with no previous jihadist connections, who pose a continuing threat to their countries of origin. Syria’s land border with Turkey lets fighters come and go easily from Europe. Instability in Africa allows recruits to flow freely from Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria, and as far afield as Morocco, Mali and Mauritania.

Though focused on Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State maintains global ambitions and a desire to strike the West. The first edition of its English-language journal, Dabiq, issued last month, announced a global caliphate, claimed allegiance from all Muslims and proclaimed an intention to “fight the Crusader armies until (the West) burns”. Last week its declared they would raise their flag in the White House. The notion of a global caliphate once sounded ridiculously far-fetched; it seems somewhat less so today.

The Islamic State is one of 14 groups fighting in western Iraq. Baathists under Saddam Hus­sein’s former deputy Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, along with Sufi militias, Anbari tribes and Sunni nationalists, have played significant roles, as shown by the fact three former Baathist generals were appointed to govern captured cities. Some Baathist and tribal elders have claimed they will “clean house” against the Islamic State once they control Iraq; this is doubtful at best, as the group’s strength grows as long as its string of military victories persists.

How did this come about? There are two ways to think about the rise of the Islamic State: as a successor to the war in Iraq, and as an extension of the Syrian war. In Iraq, after the premature and complete departure of coalition forces in 2011, the Maliki government betrayed Sunni communities that the West had won over in 2007 during the surge. Simultaneously, al-Qa’ida in Iraq, forerunner to the Islamic State, was decimated in 2007-09 and fled to Yemen and Syria. The Syrian civil war gave AQI room to recover, regain territory and equipment, rebuild credibility and ultimately break back into Iraq, where Sunni grievances gave it fertile ground.

Tactically, the Islamic State operates in the open, in daylight, using light cavalry “swarming” tactics, with technicals (four-wheel-drives carrying heavy weapons and fighters who dismount for combat), tanks and artillery. It mounts combined arms assaults, supported by irregular terrorists and guerillas who operate ahead, and on the flanks, of its main columns. These are classic “war of movement” tactics that have been highly successful against a demoralised Iraqi army, but they make the group extremely vulnerable to air power or determined ground resistance. US airstrikes have already prompted a change in tactics, with fighters moving into cities to hide among civilians. Airstrikes may slow down the group’s expansion, but air power alone cannot roll it back, and neither Kurdish peshmerga nor Iraqi troops are strong enough to do so without external help.

Operationally, some analysts believe the Islamic State is attempting to repeat the “Baghdad belts” strategy of AQI leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in 2006, by surrounding Baghdad, destabilising it through terrorist attacks, and cutting it off from external support. But it’s unlikely it can seize Baghdad or Shia-majority areas of Iraq: indeed, the group is probably already at its high-water mark of territorial control, though it can inflict severe violence across a wider area, and continues to push hard into Kurdistan.

The final trend is the failure of the Arab Spring. Instability in Libya, authoritarianism in Egypt, the Syrian war, and conflict in Yemen and North Africa have reinforced al-Qa’ida’s claim — at first seemingly contradicted by the success of “people power” in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya — that armed struggle (under its leadership, of course) was the only strategy for opposing apostate regimes in the Muslim world.

Egypt came closest to disproving al-Qa’ida’s argument with the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak by a largely unarmed, democratic movement in 2011. But this early promise dissipated as the rush to elections favoured established political groupings — the Muslim Brotherhood and authoritarian parties — and sidelined emerging secular democrats. The 2012 elections brought Mohammed Morsi and the Brotherhood to power, beginning a drift to a u thoritarianism.

Morsi cracked down on democracy groups, alienating many Egyptians. His overthrow by the military in July last year prompted an even more severe crackdown. The military’s suppression of the Brotherhood, and its general authoritarianism, is fuelling a new insurgency in the Sinai and the Nile Delta, as well as an urban subversive underground.

In Libya, NATO intervention helped overthrow Muammar Gaddafi but the provisional government that succeeded him proved unable to unify the country, and much-needed international support failed to materialise. As of mid-year, intensifying violence between militias at Tripoli airport and between jihadists and ex-military groups in Benghazi underlines the functional collapse of the Libyan state. Oil production (the key to Libya’s economy) has dropped off and international companies, Western diplomats and aid agencies are evacuating.

Gaddafi’s fall released a flood of weapons and fighters into northwest Africa. This contributed to the loss of northern Mali to Ansar al-Dine and al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb, prompting the fall of Mali’s government to a military coup in 2012, and a French-led intervention last year.

AQIM has been expelled from parts of the region, but it’s now regenerating: Mauritanian leaders are replacing the original leadership and are targeting Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania and Mali. Algerian terrorist Mokhtar Belmokhtar, former head of AQIM, now based in Libya, has formed a new group, al-Murabitoun, that is growing in strength.

In Somalia, al-Shabab is hanging on despite setbacks at the hands of African Union peacekeepers, and has demonstrated its ability to strike in Kenya and Uganda. In Yemen, violence in the south — and the presence of a strong al-Qa’ida affiliate, al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula, gives little hope for future stability.

In Nigeria, al-Qa’ida ally Boko Haram is running rings around Nigerian forces, using its kidnapping of more than 250 schoolgirls from Chibok to distract from its other operations, including attacks in Abuja and Lagos, and spreading into Cameroon. Things probably won’t improve in Nigeria anytime soon — indeed, they will probably grow worse.

In short, the early promise of the Arab Spring has not only failed but the combination of state collapse, regional insurgency and civil war that followed has destabilised an entire region, creating opportunities for al-Qa’ida franchises — formerly under control of the core group — to strike out on their own. These groups may be moving towards an alliance with the Islamic State in Iraq.

What is to be done? This is a dark picture. Western strategy — the success of which Obama was touting only a few weeks ago — now seems in disarray, the whole position in the Middle East and Africa is in danger and there’s a cascading sense of doom. What to do? Three things are urgently needed, for a start.

First, we need a thoroughgoing, non-partisan rethink of strategy on Iraq. So much political baggage is associated with the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, and to pull out completely in 2011, that it’s hard for politicians to think honestly about the issues. Invading Iraq was a terrible strategic blunder, but clearly so was withdrawing precipitately in 2011. So was failing to support Iraqis, hold Baghdad to its agreements with Kurds and Sunnis, support secular Syrian democrats and deal with the Islamic State. There’s plenty of blame to go around. Let’s acknowledge that and concentrate on what to do next. Clearly, the narrow focus on al-Qa’ida central has helped suppress it, but excluding the broader Middle East and North Africa helped the Islamic State rise.

Second, we need to hit the Islamic State now, and hard, before it’s too late. This doesn’t imply a ground invasion or anything approaching the reoccupation of Iraq, though it will take a small number of specialised troops — Special Forces, trainers, advisers, air controllers, intelligence and targeting personnel — on the ground. It also demands diplomatic re-engagement with Iraqis, ­dramatically increased military support for the Kurds, enhanced assistance to anti-Islamic State rebel groups in Syria, and an air campaign — on about the scale of Kosovo or Libya — to smash the group. This could resemble the initial campaign in Afghanistan in 2001, where Western air power and advisers helped local ground forces defeat a terrorist enemy that operated in a remarkably similar way to the Islamic State today. This isn’t risk-free — nothing is — but we must weigh those risks against the horrific humanitarian consequences of inaction, visible today in Syria and Iraq.

Finally, we need to stop the rot in Afghanistan. This is the hardest but most important task right now — to set aside our strategic tunnel vision, think beyond the immediate crisis in Iraq, and realise that our trajectory in Afghanistan is taking us to exactly the same crisis, a year or two from now.

This week, while the world has focused on Mount Sinjar, the political process in Afghanistan has quietly collapsed, with one presidential candidate rejecting a power-sharing deal and the other’s supporters threatening bloodshed unless he’s declared the winner. Afghanistan has no clear path to a stable government, yet NATO continues its drawdown, the Taliban continues its offensive, and Afghan forces fight on with little assistance, little prospect of a government worth fighting for, and no clarity on future support — as, until a new government is in place, there can be no status of forces agreement for co-operation between Afghanistan and the international community after next year. If the main military effort is in Iraq, the main diplomatic effort needs to be in Afghanistan, and on getting political arrangements in place to stop al-Qa’ida and the Taliban from resurging in Afghanistan as the Islamic State has done in Iraq.

After 13 years of war, thousands of Western military deaths — and vastly more local civilian casualties — it’s dispiriting to think that we may need yet another effort in this long war. But it is what it is. Given the trajectory of the Islamic State, the longer we wait, the worse things will get. Action now — military, diplomatic and humanitarian — could turn out to be by far the lesser evil.

David Kilcullen is a US-based counter-insurgency analyst and author, and a former adviser to General David Petraeus when he was the commander of US forces in Iraq.