Obama’s Plan To Destroy the Caliphate

President Barack Obama vowed to destroy the Islamic State. Does his plan have a chance of success?

The quickest answer to this question would probably be that his chances of destroying the Islamic State are considerable, but this process could take any amount of time, from several dozen months to several dozen years. This is because Obama’s plan has two major flaws, namely his two main, far too optimistic assumptions, which are both false at this point and too unpredictable to be certain if or when they come true. Unfortunately, there isn’t a better plan in place.

Much of what Obama has recently said is obvious. The American air forces should hunt the Islamic State group’s leaders and destroy their heavy weapons, as they have been doing during the last 16 months. Western states should share their intelligence to prevent acts of terrorism and make joining the caliphate harder for jihadi supporters. The international community must try to put an end to the civil war in Syria. If the Syrian soldiers and insurgents stop fighting each other, they will be able to fight the caliphate much more efficiently. To make it possible, the international peace plan would require the involvement of those supporting and defending Bashar Assad’s regime, meaning Russia and Iran.

Unfortunately, Putin’s tactics are difficult to predict. This fact constitutes the first flaw in Obama’s plan. Without Russian cooperation, the Syrian civil war might last for another several years.

The second flaw is even more significant. Obama declares, “We will continue to provide training and equipment to tens of thousands of Iraqi and Syrian forces fighting ISIL on the ground so that we take away their safe havens.” This is a pure wish as there are no local forces in Iraq or Syria fighting the Islamic State group and its safe havens.

This is why fanatics succeeded so easily last year in conquering the second largest city in Iraq, Mosul, and almost the entire Anbar province, which borders on the outskirts of Baghdad. The Sunni living on those territories were hostile toward the Shiite authorities in Baghdad (Shia and Sunni are two primary sects of Islam). After the American invasion of Iraq, the Sunni became second-class citizens and victims of growing discrimination. Therefore, they viewed the rise of the Islamic State group, followers of the most radical Sunni Islam, as a change for the better.

On the other hand, authorities in Baghdad came to terms with the new state of affairs. The Shia realized that they don’t need the desert-like Anbar province or Mosul, especially considering the hostility of their residents. After all, the oil deposits are situated in Shia-dominated southern Iraq and — smaller, but still considerable in size — in Kurdish northern Iraq, leaving the territories occupied by the caliphate worthless. This was the main reason Iraqi soldiers fled from them and now are not keen to claim them back.

The situation in Syria is similar. Currently under the caliphate, eastern Syria was also the home of Sunnis, who were treated as second-class citizens in Bashar Assad’s country. With eastern Syria not valuable enough to fight for, and the focus of moderate insurgents on combating Assad, no serious attempt to retake the territory claimed by Islamic State group fanatics has been made.

Only the Kurds combat the Islamic State group, and it is purely in their own defense. With the help of American airstrikes, the Kurds managed to retain their territory that was attacked by the Islamic State group. However, the Kurds don’t intend to, and physically would not be able to go on a crusade against Raqqa and Mosul, the Sunni Arab center of the Islamic State group.

Therefore, the caliphate’s longevity — since one year is a long time for a small, self-appointed state to survive — is not a result of its brilliant organization, but rather of the fact that none of the neighboring states can be bothered or see it as profitable to challenge it.

Since there is no state in the region willing to combat the Islamic State group, should Americans and their European allies invade the caliphate? Recent U.S. public opinion polls show that most Americans support the idea of invasion. Additionally, the number of the Islamic State group militants does not exceed several tens of thousands, which would make it relatively easy for soldiers who are excellently trained and equipped according to the most modern military standards to defeat them.

In fact, this is the only not obvious decision to be made by Americans and their allies. Recently, Obama stated, “We should not be drawn once more into a long and costly ground war in Iraq or Syria.”

Experiences from Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate that it is easy to invade, but much harder to introduce a permanent change in the occupied countries. The U.S. might defeat the caliphate in no time, but it will result in the Islamic State group going underground and Sunni civilians supporting these terrorists. As soon as the U.S. withdraws from the area, the caliphate will come back. A similar scenario occurred in Iraq. After nearly destroying the Iraqi al-Qaida, the U.S. withdrew from the area, and soon enough, the Islamic State group, a mutated version that clashed with the original al-Qaida, emerged.

Should Obama decide to invade the Islamic State group, the caliphate territory would have to stay under American occupation indefinitely. This is why Obama prefers to wait patiently, until the Sunnis living in the caliphate have had enough of it and rebel, thus becoming the “tens of thousands of Iraqi and Syrian forces fighting ISIL.” Only then will the missing link to Obama’s plan be found and lead to success.

How long will it take? The fanatical regime is very oppressive, killing traitors, chopping off the hands of thieves, beating women who are allegedly not modest enough. In theory, people living in the caliphate should have enough of it very quickly, but experience shows that Sunnis who lived in the Anbar province under the al-Qaida regime needed four years from the American invasion to rebel against al-Qaida militants.

We must prepare to wait equally long this time round as well.