International
A Plan to Defeat ISIS by Joudy Sarraj
Photo credit: James Corbett (Wikipedia)
ISIS weighs heavily on the world’s
consciousness; an existential threat to peace and security. In September of 2015, the Roman columns of Palmyra which once adorned the Syrian dessert were destroyed by an ISIS offensive. Photos of what remained of the heritage sight were boastfully posted online by insurgents. A few weeks later, a Russian plane exploded midair over the Sinai Peninsula, killing more than two hundred passengers. The carnage continued in Beirut, with an attack that killed at least forty-three, and at the Bataclan in Paris, the following day. With the world transfixed on this horrific pattern of terror, President Francois Hollande of France declared war on the Islamic State. Rationalizing the threat that is ISIS, and devising a strategy in response, is a difficult task. ISIS conducts its battles with foreign fighters, articulates its brutal message through vast technological networks, and maintains its stronghold thanks to the geopolitical chaos and sectarian strife of the Middle East. It is no surprise, then, that the international response to ISIS is a reluctant and disjointed one. While Hollande has vowed to destroy the group, intensifying airstrikes on Raqqa only days after the Paris attacks, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently announced the withdrawal of Canada’s CF-18 jets from the region. Though Canada’s absence from the US-led air coalition will have little impact on the mission’s aerial efforts, the Trudeau government’s decision is certainly a symbolic one. In the wake of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, Canadian foreign policy decisions concerning ISIS are made cautiously, cloaked in a fear of repeating past mistakes. Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan recalled Afghanistan in a recasting of the government’s position on ISIS, remarking that “coalition
partners in Afghanistan helped create the corruption that fuelled the insurgency.” It is in the same spirit that President Obama has embraced a strategy of constraint: one that seeks to “degrade, dismantle and defeat” ISIS from afar. If the international community hopes to find any success in the fight against ISIS, states must consolidate their forces and devise a multilateral solution. Trudeau’s plan to open up Canada’s borders to refugees, and strengthen support for those displaced internally in Syria, is negligible if not integrated into a larger strategy. The same is true of President Obama’s airstrikes. Let us consider, first, why such a multi-national coalition is essential to defeating ISIS. And, second, let us consider what it would take to unite those actors with considerable interest in the region — the United States, European Union, Syrian rebels, Kurdish Peshmerga, Russia and Iran, to name a few. A proxy war is being fought in Syria between these actors. For progress to be achieved, their collective input is necessary in a Syria first strategy, aimed at pacifying the conflict which led to the emergence and now continued existence of ISIS. Before the start of the revolution in Syria, ISIS was nothing but a flailing branch of Al-Qaeda. ISIS’ first recruits came from amongst a disenchanted populous seeking a forceful opposition with which to challenge Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Assad’s brutality, and his agenda of collective punishment, legitimizes ISIS in the eyes of many. Yet, concurrently, Russia and Iran expect the West to concede that Assad is the lesser of two evils, the other being Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS’ so-called “Caliph”. A Syria first strategy, which sees the suggested coalition driven by a humanitarian imperative, will deliver a severe
blow to ISIS. The coalition’s objective should be twofold: to terminate the ability of the Assad regime to kill large numbers of civilians, with government barrel bombs and shelling; and to command the Assad regime to lift sieges that deny food and medical care to its people, as it has done in Madaya. Political leadership in Tehran and Moscow has the power to compel Assad to comply with these humanitarian demands. In Eastern Syria, where threats to civilians now come mainly from ISIS — and not the Assad regime —
ISIS, instead of fighting a two front war. Despite the lack of political will, brokering an international deal is not impossible. Recall that the Bosnian-Serbian-Croatian civil — which killed 100,000 people and involved several regional and global powers — was resolved by the 1995 Dayton Agreement, which brought an end to fighting. The Dayton Agreement was an imperfect peace deal, based on exhaustion and impasse rather than justice. However, its terms stabilized the Balkan region, insert-
“If the international community hopes to find any success in the fight against ISIS, states must consolidate their forces and devise a multilateral solution.” it is the absence of capable ground forces that inhibits the success of an anti-ISIS military campaign. An air campaign alone cannot produce decisive results. Moreover, Kurdish military men on the ground are too few; and they remain too focused on creating and maintaining a contiguous ethnic zone of their own in northern Syria. Furthermore, ISIS’ military capabilities are currently bolstered by the Iraqi government’s weaponry, which insurgents picked up after they were left behind by fleeing Iraqi soldiers. The international community can train troops to fight ISIS in a number of ways: deploying extra special operations forces, sending conventional forces to conduct training, expanding support of the Iraqi and Kurdish forces to include police training or medical support, or devising a NATO mission to lead training work in Jordan or Turkey. Even if the coalition is not robust or united enough to agree to one of these options, simply checking Assad’s power through a humanitarian mission means that moderate Sunnis can focus their attention on
ed human rights norms, facilitated transitional political arrangements, and secured refugee resettlement in the midst of the fog of war. Similarly, the fight against ISIS involves a large number of international players and local militias, with many of the latter being religiously motivated. In the terror-ridden world created by ISIS, GOP presidential candidates have recommended courses of action such as an escalated air campaign, with a higher tolerance for civilian casualties. However, an escalated response can happen in a measured and carefully negotiated way, one that accounts for shared interests and involves co-operation. An attempt at achieving a cohesive partnership may, perhaps, drive leaders to a place where they can begin to repair their own frayed relationships. This is a goal worth working towards - international consensus and a global coalition ready to respond to the current military and humanitarian catastrophe.
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