Obama and His Anti-Islamic State Strategy

In 2001, the U.S. Congress gave the president of the United States authorization to conduct a global war against al-Qaida. In 2002, the same Congress authorized the same president to expand his offensive and intervene in Iraq. Some years later, it was necessary to accept that those strategies had not been effective. Firstly, because the supposed ties between the terrorist groups and the governments which were said to finance them were weak, nonexistent or insignificant for the survival of those groups. Secondly, because the use of terrorist strategies against civilians never lessened but rather increased drastically, especially in the invaded territories. And finally, because al-Qaida had transformed into a system of organizations unlike its original format, which meant fighting it became much more complicated than what was initially expected.

Thirteen years later, a new U.S. president sent a bill to Congress, this time asking for authorization to fight a terrorist group called the Islamic State. In fact, this action is nothing but the formalization of a strategy that the country has been implementing for months. However, the proposal is very important because, essentially, it formally recognizes various facts, some more explicitly, others less so: (1) from the start, requesting permission to fight the Islamic State group acknowledges that the conflict will last several years and, at the very least, will extend into the next administration; (2) soliciting authorization to fight, without restriction, groups or people associated with the Islamic State group affirms that from Australia to Canada to Europe, there is no geographic limit to the places where the U.S. government believes the Islamic State group could permeate, regardless of whether or not it reduces its positions in Iraq and Syria; (3) essentially, requesting this permission is the recognition that subduing the Islamic State group, a group that originated in Iraq and now threatens the existence of the Iraqi and Syrian governments, is not a task that the Iraqi security forces can perform by themselves; (4) therefore, by asking for permission to return and “save” Iraq, the president implicitly agrees that the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, after eight years of intervention, was either premature, poorly planned, or poorly implemented. This admission vindicates those like Sen. McCain, who argued that the withdrawal should have happened much more slowly; and (5) finally, 13 years after requesting extensive authorization to terminate al-Qaida, the new offensive against the Islamic State group indicates that despite investing countless years, material resources and human lives, the fight against this organization has been inefficient or, at the very least, insufficient.

It could be said that Obama´s strategy recognizes and corrects past errors, but that would not be true. According to research on terrorism, this type of strategy might be able to contain the advance of groups like the Islamic State group, reduce their positions and their strength and even damage their leadership, but it would not be able to reduce the use of terrorist tactics and would perhaps even produce schisms and mutations within those terrorist organizations.

Strictly speaking, the Islamic State group is not a new group but rather a kind of al-Qaida 2.0. The Islamic State group belonged to al-Qaida in Iraq until 2014, when it separated from its source to become the leader of global jihad. So, we could say that the United States continues, 13 years later, to fight al-Qaida; only now, it fights a different version, better trained in communicating horror and violence with psychological tactics, and, unfortunately, much more accomplished in terms of attracting hard and soft followers all over the world. The Islamic State group feeds off of two conflicts: Iraq and Syria. The plan to fight the Islamic State group from the air with limited support from the ground requires the assistance of militias and various local groups in Syria as well as Iraq. Today, many of those groups find themselves in the middle of a civil war, and some even fight among themselves. To assume that these groups make up a unified, anti-Islamic State group body or, in any case, to assume that each one has the ability to fight the Islamic State group, is either a miscalculation or a political solution in the absence of a real one.

It is possible that this strategy will help control the advance of the Islamic State group and retake various positions that it holds today. However, if the Islamic State group retains its positions, continues to commit grave acts of terrorism against the civilian population — like those that occurred in Baghdad this week — and continues to spread terror through kidnappings, gruesome videos and other tactics of mass communication, then, over time, it could create the sense that the aerial campaign is not achieving its desired effect. Thus, many people in Washington will begin to suggest increasing the number of U.S. troops on the ground, and the superpower will return to its familiar tricks.

The main issue is that the contention and combat strategies against the Islamic State group are not accompanied by an integral solution to the problem that underlines the birth, reproduction and transformation of al-Qaida into the Islamic State group; in other words, what is missing is a plan to address the roots of the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts. Since the conflicts are not only local but also fed by powers outside the region, only the international community will be effective in terms of negotiating treaties and implementing actions to generate peaceful conditions in Iraq and Syria. The alternative is to continue the eternal cycle of creating, recreating, nurturing and reproducing this type of violence that kills without mercy, worse and worse each time.