WHY THE ISIS CONTINUES TO WIN
The
military victories that the ISIS continues to reap are the fruit
of a number of different circumstances, both political and
military in nature.
On the political level, the evaluation of the degree of
dangerousness of the ISIS is influenced by the fact that some of
the countries in the region, such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and
Qatar, see Iran's future hegemonic role in the region - both in
its coming to the rescue of the Alawite regime in Syria and in
supporting the Iraqi regime - as the main threat at hand. This
feeling was reinforced when Teheran managed to reach an agreement
with the USA regarding its nuclear program. It is because of this
fear that Ankara, Riyadh and Doha have decided to increase their
military support for the factions that, albeit radical in nature,
fight against Bashar al Assad's regime. The side effect of this
effort is that both the ISIS and Jabhat al Nusra come out
reinforced from the struggle. The crawling war between Sunni and
Shiites has gained precedence over the jihadist threat, which is –
perhaps not by hazard – of Sunni origin.
Ankara's fears
Turkey fears that the Syrian Kurds could manage to control a
portion of the Syrian territory along the border where, in the
future, they could try to establish their own State. That the
Turkish 'ambiguity' was aimed at preventing such a possibility is
by now a widely accepted truth. The Islamic 'volunteers' of the
ISIS were allowed absolute freedom to enter and leave the Turkish
territory while a guilty silence was kept on their arms traffics
and on the smuggling of the oil coming from the fields controlled
by the Islamic State.
Lately, this approach got worse: Turkey became an active party in
supplying the Jihadists with weapons, making their military
capacity grow exponentially. The dirty job was carried out by the
National Organization of Information, the MIT (Milli Istihbarat
Teskilati), the Turkish intelligence agency founded in 1965 which,
despite the security precautions taken, was caught right-handed
with a load of weapons hidden among medicinal supplies at the
border with Syria.
Turkey also refused to allow the US to use the aerial facility of
Incirlik to bomb the ISIS, asking that such treatment be reserved
only for Assad's army. It is not a coincidence that, in a recent
interview on the international broadcaster Al Jazeera – controlled
by the Emir of Qatar – the head of al Nusra, Abu Mohamed al
Golani, claimed that their main goal is that of ousting Assad, not
fighting the US. The statement was thought as a reassuring message
aimed at “quieting” Washington which, on the other hand, is more
worried about the advancing Islamic militias rather than the
permanency of Bashar al Assad in Damascus.
The real question is whether the present policy of the main Sunni
countries in the region is valid, seen that the imminent danger –
that of the advancing ISIS army – is underestimated in favor of a
potential future threat: that of the Iranian Shiite hegemony in
the Middle East.
A dangerous game
This is especially true of Saudi Arabia, where recent attacks have
targeted the Shiite minority. The condescending of the Gulf
countries with regards to the ISIS finds its justification in the
confrontation between the Shiites and Sunnis. This is clearly
expressed in the strategy of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. The more
sectarian the struggle and the more it takes on connotations
against heresy or apostasy represented by Shiism (and Alawism),
the more sympathy and following it produces among the Sunni
population. It is not by hazard that the TV channel of the Emir of
Qatar diffused a poll which states that al Baghdadi's Caliphate is
popular with 80% of the Sunni community.
It is still not clear whether the collapse of Assad's regime in
Syria could produce a wave of instability that meets the interests
of those that are trying to cause its fall. If Syria is destroyed
by civil war and in the hands of radical Islamic factions, it
would fuel further instability in a region where tensions are
already strong. It is hard to say how Turkey would benefit from
such a scenario, since it would share its border with a
destabilized country headed by the ISIS. The same is true of the
monarchies in the Gulf, because the Caliphate, in its theological
essence, sees itself legitimized in taking the helm of the Islamic
masses, the “umma”. And in the domino effect that the destruction
of Syria would generate, it would be wise to think of the
consequences on the stability of Jordan, Lebanon and on the
security of Israel.
Saddam Hussein
A heavy legacy
Apart from the short-sighted policies of the Gulf countries, which
underestimate the Jihadist threat and overestimate the Shiite one,
the successes of the ISIS on the ground have other, military,
reasons. Firstly, they are caused by the scarce reliability of the
Iraqi army, which chose to run when faced with the ISIS in Mosul
and Ramadi, leaving an arsenal of weapons and vehicles behind them
for the taking. In substance, the ISIS is favored not by its
military prowess, but by the scarce belligerence of the enemy
troops that it encounters.
The reason for this is rooted in the past: The fall of Saddam
Hussain in 2003 and the consequent disbanding of the Iraqi army –
through a decree of the US administrator at the time, Paul Bremer
- and its successive reconstruction by the Shiites who, until that
day, had been excluded from all things military. In practice, in
2003/2004 the Iraqi army was rebuilt from scratch without the
supervision of qualified cadres with past military experiences.
This bad start was immediately followed by another flawed step:
the Coalition, especially its Anglo-American part, didn't trust
the new armed force and therefore refused to provide them with
adequate weapons and/or training.
From the day of Saddam's ousting until the present, the only
component capable of waging war in Iraq were the Peshmerga from
Kurdistan. Those same Kurds that, because of Turkish
susceptibility and of the threat of an ethnic re-partition of
Iraq, are not receiving heavy weapons from the United States. The
little aid that they receive does not arrive directly; it is made
to pass through Baghdad first. As for the Sunnis who fought for
Saddam Hussain, they have mostly joined the ranks of the ISIS by
now.
Today's Iraqi army is the direct consequence of those
circumstances.
The American stalemate
The above mentioned circumstances explain the beatings suffered by
the Iraqi army and the recent statements by the US Secretary of
Defense, Ashton Carter, who accused the them of not wanting to
fight. The Iraqi PM Haider al Abadi and the US Vice President, Joe
Biden, tried to ease the tension between the parties, but haven't
managed to change the situation.
Before their withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, the US had spent over
25 billion dollars to train and equip the Iraqi army; a financial
effort that hadn't produced the results that they hoped for. US
President Barack Obama was quite clear in a recent public
statement when he said that “If the Iraqis don't have the will to
fight for their own security, we cannot do it in their stead”.
In other words, the US is willing to support the Iraqi government
in its war against the jihadists, but refuses to send their troops
back on the ground, especially now that Abadi's regular troops are
supported by Shiite volunteers, al Hashd al Shaabi (popular
militias), and by Iran. This means that roughly 100 thousand Iraqi
soldiers are currently operating independently.
Presently, there are roughly 3.000 US soldiers in Iraq, 800 of
which are there to protect US structures and personnel, while the
remaining 2.200 are supposed to supply training and logistic
support to the local security forces. The support given to the
Syrian rebels meets the same difficulties because there is a
divergence in principles and interests: the rebels want to fight
Assad, not the ISIS.
Haider al Abadi
A ghost army
The number of soldiers that the Iraqi army has at its disposal is
hard to evaluate. In 2009 they were about 210 thousand; the same
number was confirmed in 2011, when the US left. Today, there are
rumors that the number has decreased to approximately 140 thousand
units, 48 thousand of which are not in fighting conditions. On
paper, there are 14 divisions made up of a total of 263
battalions, but it's just empirical data. Two of these divisions,
made up of approximately 30 thousand men, were the ones that
escaped from Mosul when faced with 1.200 ISIS militiamen. It is
not surprising that the same scene was played out in Ramadi on May
17 last year.
The inefficiency of the Iraqi army has various other origins as
well, regardless of the mistakes made by Bremer in 2003. There is
its ethnic composition: 90% of soldiers are Shiite and the
remaining Sunni portion is reluctant to be employed in Sunni
regions under the command of Shiites. The same is true of the
Shiites employed in Shiite regions. The religious fracture in the
country is so profound that none of the soldiers want to fight
against their own brothers.
The numbers of deserters is also very high, about 2 to 3 hundred
units per day, and the recruitment is slow due to the
aforementioned religious divisions. Then there is the problem of
corruption: the army officers often keep the money destined to the
soldiers, take part of the funds for food and logistical supplies
and produce disaffection among the troops. One striking case was
that of the so-called “ghost soldiers”: nonexistent troops that
were meant to inflate the number of soldiers in the roster so that
the officers could pocket their salaries. This phenomenon was
opposed by the present Prime Minister, Abadi, who fired about 40
corrupt officers. In total, the “ghost soldiers” are allegedly 50
thousand; a third of the presumed members of the army.
Then there are organizational issues: logistics don't work,
maintenance is nearly non-existent, there are communication
problems within the chain of command, strategic planning is
superficial at best, access to training is limited and weapons are
lacking.
The inefficient army is sided with inefficient intelligence
services, always because of the same 2003/2004 dismantling of the
existing structures and the subsequent creation of new structures
without qualified personnel in them. The reasons: lack of
capabilities and operative attitude, thus substantial
inefficiency; scarce vigilance over the territory; the designation
of high-ranking officials being based on ethnic-religious criteria
and on political portioning; a lack of coordination between
structures, both on the analysis and operative level; the doubling
up of roles in the technical and administrative milieu; lacking
organizational and technical means; bureaucracy, superficial
training and a scarce tendency to rely on new technologies.
The only line of continuity between the old intelligence services
of Saddam and the new ones is the perdurable abuse of power, the
recourse to torture and the systematic violation of human rights.
Without a way out
In 2013, during the mandate of the former PM Nouri al Maliki, the
figure of a Political Commissioner in the Armed Forces was
created. The promotions in the military were no longer dispensed
based on meritocratic criteria, but on the sole basis of political
loyalty. These circumstances were all inherited by the current PM,
al Abadi, and currently have a very negative bearing on the morale
of the Iraqi army. It is not easy to persuade a Sunni to fight for
his country when most of his brethren live in areas that are
controlled by the ISIS. All of these elements show a clear state
of social dismemberment that Iraq has undergone since the fall of
Saddam Hussein: Sunni and Shiites hate each other, while the Kurds
live in a situation of full independence from the State. Last but
not least, the deployment of Shiite paramilitary units alongside
the regular army in the fight against the ISIS have increased
religious and sectarian differences.
All of this explains why the ISIS controls a third of Iraq and
two-thirds of Syria. The more successes are reaped by the Islamic
militias, the more volunteers join their ranks. Today, according
to Iraqi PM Haider al Abadi, 60% of the ISIS fighters are
foreigners. This also explains the reluctance of the US to provide
sophisticated equipment and weapons for them, since there is a
high risk that these could land into the hands of the ISIS.
