Articulating a Strategy to Fight the Islamic State

September 5, 2014

Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel speak at a meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Wales about a unified response to the threat of the Islamic State. [State Department, 9/5/14]

The Obama Administration is cautiously escalating its efforts to defeat the Islamic State, building an international coalition to support ongoing operations that have included advising Iraqi Security Forces and Kurdish Peshmerga and supporting offensives in Iraq against the Islamic State with airstrikes. But as the United States increases its efforts to push back the Islamic State, it is now more critical than ever to frankly assess the threat the organization poses and formulate clear goals and a sustainable strategy for defeating the Islamic State. The United States needs clear goals and a fully-articulated strategy to avoid mission creep and the risk of miring itself in a potentially long, costly, and inconclusive conflict.

The United States needs an honest, clear-eyed assessment of the Islamic State and the threat it poses. The horrific executions of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, amid the Islamic State’s many atrocities, have inflamed rhetoric in the United States, but statements like Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s comment that the Islamic State is “an imminent threat to every interest we have” are unclear. On Wednesday, Matthew Olsen, head of the National Counterterrorism Center, stressed the need for an earnest assessment of the threat. “As dire as this all sounds, from my vantage point it is imperative that we keep this threat in perspective and consider it in the context of the overall terrorist landscape,” Olsen said, and noted that “At this point, we have no credible information that [the Islamic State] is planning to attack the U.S.” and “any threat to the U.S. homeland from these types of extremists is likely to be limited in scope and scale.” Instead, the Islamic State poses a threat to U.S. personnel and partners in the Middle East, from Americans working at the U.S. consulate in Erbil to members of the Iraqi government in Baghdad. Olsen’s circumspect assessment is the type of analysis Paul Pillar called for last month in the National Interest, writing that “The burst of attention to the group over the past week clearly results largely from the grisly killing of a captured American photojournalist. We all abhor that event, and we should. But we also should bear in mind that an emotional reaction to such an incident produces the wrong frame of mind for debate, and cool-headed deliberation, about public policy.” [Matthew Olsen, 9/3/14. Paul Pillar, 8/25/14]

The United States must clearly articulate to the international community and the American people its goals in confronting the Islamic State. President Obama discussed his goals for confronting the Islamic State in his remarks on Wednesday, saying, “Our objective is clear, and that is to degrade and destroy [the Islamic State] so that it’s no longer a threat not just to Iraq but also the region and to the United States.” The President further clarified this, explaining that “As we’ve seen with al Qaeda, there are always going to be remnants that can cause havoc of any of these networks, in part because of the nature of terrorist activities. You get a few individuals, and they may be able to carry out a terrorist act. But what we can do is to make sure that the kind of systemic and broad-based aggression that we’ve seen out of ISIL that terrorizes primarily Muslims, Shia, Sunni – terrorizes Kurds, terrorizes not just Iraqis, but people throughout the region, that that is degraded to the point where it is no longer the kind of factor that we’ve seen it being over the last several months.” [Barack Obama, 9/03/14]

The U.S. strategy for confronting the Islamic State must balance military and political components in order for any successes to be sustainable.

The United States is currently working to build an international coalition while conducting airstrikes and advising partners on the ground. In a meeting at the NATO summit in Wales today, Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel met with “diplomats and defense officials from … Britain, France, Australia, Canada, Germany, Turkey, Italy, Poland and Denmark” – what Hagel called the “core coalition” to fight against the Islamic State. The meeting discussed “a two-pronged strategy: working to bolster allies on the ground in Iraq and Syria, while attacking Sunni militants from the air. They said the goal was to destroy the Islamist militant group, not to contain it,” according to the New York Times. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have also voiced their support for the international collaboration to fight the Islamic State. As the coalition grows, the United States has continued to conduct airstrikes in coordination with Iraqi Security Forces and Kurdish Peshmerga. “To date we’ve conducted more than 120 air strikes in support of Iraqi and Kurdish security forces, and provided the necessary air support to allow these forces to protect and regain key towns and infrastructure,” Olsen said on Wednesday. [New York Times, 9/5/14. Matthew Olsen, 9/3/14]

The success of any rollback of Islamic State forces in Iraq will still depend on the perceived legitimacy of the Baghdad government. The Obama Administration has stressed from the start that the success of any efforts to degrade the Islamic State will be contingent on the Baghdad government’s ability to reassert its legitimacy in the eyes of its Sunni constituents. The reformation of the Baghdad government is now at a critical moment. Last month, divisive Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was ousted in favor of Haider al-Abadi, who is now responsible for establishing an inclusive cabinet. As David Ignatius explains in the Washington Post, “The Iraqis’ official deadline for government formation is next week, but the United States wants them to agree on a basic program – decentralization and reform of the military, oil-revenue sharing, rollback of some harsh de-Baathification rules – before the Cabinet portfolios are allocated. That’s properly putting the horse before the cart.”

Without government and security sector reforms that address the Iraqi Sunni grievances that have fueled the Islamic State’s rise, any gains against the Islamic State will prove unsustainable – regardless of U.S. military action. As Lt. Col. Craig Whiteside (Ret.), a professor at the Naval War College, writes, “The momentum for expanded airstrikes against the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria is increasing, if for no other reason than that the tool is readily available and has low risk for the United States. Unfortunately, the results of such a campaign will be extremely limited if they are not part and parcel of a policy that achieves a stable Iraq.” [David Ignatius, 9/4/14. Craig Whiteside, 9/4/14]

The United States should also be pursuing non-military means to degrade the Islamic State, including cutting its access to financing and undermining its capacity to govern. The Islamic State’s success is largely fueled by its capacity to fund its operations and govern large swaths of Iraq and Syria. According to Olsen, the Islamic State “takes in as much as one million dollars per day from illicit oil sales, smuggling and ransom payments.” In addition to airstrikes on Islamic State fighters, the United States should be working to degrade the Islamic State’s economic network by disrupting its oil extraction and smuggling operations. The United States should also be working to undermine the Islamic State’s capacity to govern by cutting off access to critical infrastructure and resources, including power stations, aquifers, and food supply routes, and working with local stakeholders to ensure continuity of governance after the Islamic State is forced out. The United States could also disrupt the Islamic State’s recruitment and strategic communications by leveraging electronic warfare capabilities. [Matthew Olsen, 9/3/14]