How to Eliminate the ‘Islamic State’!

How to Eliminate the ‘Islamic State’! (KingsOfWar). By Dr. Andreas Krieg, Lecturer Defence Studies Department, King’s College London, Qatar Armed Forces.

Public pressure on US President Obama is mounting. Both Republicans and Democrats urge the President to not just contain the threat of IS but to eliminate an organization that in the hearts and minds of Western publics has become the embodiment of evil. Yet, there are few Western options for bringing down this pseudo-Islamic empire – even fewer military options. But what can the world do to stop this bloodshed?

On the operational level, IS centre of gravity are its lines of communication enabling IS to rely on well-coordinated swarm tactics, i.e. a hybrid of traditional armoured formations supported by suicide bombers. It grants IS a high degree of manoeuvrability and operational flexibility in its rapid advances.

What good, can the West do in targeting these centres of gravity militarily, both on the strategic and operational level? The short answer is: very little. In a complex environment such as Northern Syria and Iraq, air strikes without boots on the ground can only provide cosmetic solutions at best. Even the employment of the Kurdish Peshmerga as Western proxies can only do little more than cracking the organization’s military façade.

Due to its flexible operational approach, Al Baghdadi’s mujahedeen can only be contained by these external military operations, not eliminated. Armour and larger formations of fighters can be destroyed from the air, yet, in an urban environment small groups of mujahedeen become difficult to target. The unlikely alliance of the Unwilling that has opened the front against IS in Northern Iraq, just embarked on a costly and long-lasting war of attrition that will not be won on the battlefield as long as IS’ strategic centres of gravity remain untouched.

The solution to the ‘Islamic State’s’ disintegration, the elimination of its forlorn disciples as well as the burial of its crooked ideology, lies with the Sunni tribes who have provided the organization with the momentum it needed to advance. Winning over these tribesmen who are often in the fight for more autonomy and political self-determination rather than religious fanaticism, would be an approach that could eliminate this cancer from within – yet, it would be a strategy doomed to fail if pursued by the West.

Given the West’s awful record of meddling with Arab and Muslim internal affairs in past decades, this political solution would have to be implemented by those who first, enjoy credibility among Sunni tribes; second, are abundant with resources to support the tribes; and third, enjoy the stability within a disintegrating Middle East to commit to this solution long-term: the six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

Increasingly recognizing the immense threat emanating from IS on its doorstep, the GCC has to overcome its negligible internal differences and assume the leadership role the West groomed it for in the past decade. This means going beyond clamping down on mujahedeen trying to join the ‘Islamic State’ or drying up IS’ increasingly unnecessary external donations. The West, including Turkey, should limit their strategic activities to eliminating the ‘jihadi highway’ and ensuring that IS cannot convert its extorted rents and produced oil into war-sustaining capability.

For the GCC to be able to achieve its strategic objective, the international community in general and the West in particular, would probably have to abandon the idea of Iraq as a unitary nation-state. Accepting the de facto political fragmentation of Mesopotamia might be a prerequisite to dealing with the root cause of the current conflict, which IS has hijacked for its own ideological agenda. Hmmmm.....So far this is the best 'Action plan' i've read, it will only work if all are willing to make it work.Read the full story here.