Islamic State Is Not al-Qaida

Several conservative sectors in the United States are spreading the erroneous idea that the Islamic State is a terrorist organization that can be destroyed by military means.

Thus far, the Islamic State has responded to every U.S. military action with an increase in violence or a terrorist act. The current path is clearly heading toward escalation. After the public decapitation of two U.S. journalists and one British peace worker, those conservative sectors are now calling out for the return of troops to Iraq.

That militaristic rhetoric, spouted by Republican and Democratic congressmen alike, tries to present the Islamic State as an extension of al-Qaida — only more brutal, more dangerous, and more appealing to combatants worldwide. This could not be further from the truth. The Islamic State and al-Qaida have very little in common, except for some failed attempts at unification.

Unlike al-Qaida, which is designed as a secret network that seeks to win the hearts and minds of Arabs through terrorist actions of a political scope, the Islamic State intends to increase its influence in the jihadi ranks through tactical terrorist actions concentrated in Iraq and Syria.

In fact, the Islamic State and al-Qaida are currently involved in a dispute concerning the leadership of the jihadi brigades around the world. Al-Qaida, with its global attitude, encourages its sympathizing cells to commit well-planned, large-scale terrorist actions that, in turn, inspire other cells to commit attacks of similar or greater magnitude. The Islamic State seeks rapid actions, without intermediaries, and is attracting terrorist cells from Arab countries.

The Islamic State is formed of an open, insurgent organization that controls territory, has the support of a regular army and seeks to create an Islamic state. In a matter of months, from the beginning of its spread throughout eastern Syria and into northern Iraq, the Islamic State has taken control of Mosul, the second largest city in the country, freed the prisoners of three prisons, and confiscated the arsenals of a fleet of U.S. military helicopters.

Far from al-Qaida’s vision of global combat, the Islamic State prefers to focus its forces in Iraq, confront the government, defeat it quickly, and employ terrorism as a tactical resource to destroy the moral of its adversaries. As it continues to take over territories, the Islamic State looks to become a profitable state by organizing public services, permitting the return of public officials, charging taxes, indoctrinating the public, and extorting and threatening whoever dares to defy it.

If a U.S. military campaign, backed by the United Kingdom and France, succeeds in recuperating the territories controlled by the Islamic State through aerial bombing campaigns and the support of Kurdish combatants and Syrian rebels, the subsequent peace could turn out to be temporary and unstable.

Without a solid national dialogue, Iraq will continue on the brink of civil war, with enormous difficulties around reconstructing its institutions and resolving its population’s political and religious differences. Syria will undergo an internal struggle to get rid of a government accused of committing war crimes against its population. Islamic State sympathizers, trained in Iraq, will return to their countries to build other armies and other Islamic states in other parts of the world.

Maybe it is time to think of non-military answers. Campaigns for education, health, institution building and religious respect could pave the way for a real, long-lasting solution, even if the process is slow.