The Tale of ISIS and the Problematique of the Islamists

     The Tale of ISIS; the Islamists`Problematique                                                   By 
                   Dr. Michael Sakbani

Al Qayda in Afghanistan moves into Iraq 

The origins of ISIS are indeed murky. As far as one can ascertain the origins hail from al Qayda in Afghanistan, which was created by the US, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia with the help of Israel. A side of this can be seen in the semi documentary film Charlie Wilson`s war. After the fall of the Talibans in 2001, elements of the Jihadis in Afghanistan ran away to both Iran and Pakistan. Some important leaders were hosted by Iran; that is where we know now was Bin- Ladden`s family. 
There have been voices among commentators accusing the USA of being the founder of ISIS. This confuses direct founding as an act with preparing the background that enables the emergence of movements like ISIS. The invasion of Iraq on trumped- up grounds resulted in erasing all its governmental institutions and tearing apart the Iraqi social tissue. The US introduced under Proconsul Paul Bremmer, a sectarian political system which excluded the previous regime millions of supporters and  collaborators (the Baath eradication) and marginalized the Sunni Arabs. The ensuing sectarian Governments, especially under Nouri al Maliki drove Iraq into Civil War and created a whole strata of aggrieved citizens. This furnished an excellent soil for breeding potential recruits for extremest groups which thrive on exploiting vacuums created by discrimination and chaos.   

After the US invasion of Iraq, Iran was interested for obvious reasons to plant controllable resistance elements in Iraq to pressure the US occupiers and so was Syria. Syria had thousands of imprisoned fundamentalist Islamists and a large number of Saddam`s Republicauards officers. In 2005 it released so many of these fundamentalists and put placed Saddam`s officers to lead the resistance to the American invasion of Iraq. Thus, Jihadis started entering Iraq with outside help from Iran and Syria throughout 2005 and 2006. Iranian and the Syrian Intelligence services lent arms and organization to these al Qayeda  remnants to use them against the US. In a short time, al Qayda in Iraq became operational in 2005 under the name " Bands of the Righteous People" and that is when Abu Musaab al Zarkawi emerged as its leader. Zarkawi and his outfit, which later became known as al Qayda in Iraq were a major challenge to the USA and they edged Iraq in 2006 towards a sectarian civil  war .

General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, succeeded in 2007-2008 in drafting the Arab Sunni tribes to fight al Qaeda. This was done by putting many Arab Sunnis, especially tribal chiefs, on US`payrolls and making some other promises regarding their future in Iraq. The phenomena therein were known as al Sahawat. The Arab tribes indeed, defeated al Qayda by 2008. The idea of General Petraeus was to merge these forces after the defeat of al Qayda with the Iraqi security forces. However, being Sunnis, the Iraqi sectarian Shitte politicians, led by Nuri al Maliki, and naturally backed by Iran, did not want that. Even more, Maliki cut off their salaries and put many of them in prison, leaving many of them as non- protected targets for al Qayda. The US was feeble in its objections to what Maliki did and Petraeus, the father of the idea, was transferred back to the US.

Radicalization in camp Bucca

The Iraqi prisons were notorious for their ill treatment, and after the scandal of Abu- Gharib, the US decided to establish a new prison for political detainees compatible with civilized norms This was called camp Bucca. Camp Bucca was the place where the US put the Iraqi prisoners transferred from Abugharib and other detainees imprisoned by Maliki. The vast majority of the detainees were Arab Sunnis thrown into jail by arbitrary arrests and sometimes without evidence of wrong doing. During a couple of years, Sunni prisoners in the camp mingled with the imprisoned remnants of al Qayda in Iraq and both got indoctrinated by the likes of Abubakre al Baghdadi, who was authorized by the USA to teach religion to the camp prisoners. Camp Bucca was in a sense a radicalization laboratory. Many of its prisoners were gradually released and those that were not were involved in the prison escape of 2012 during the post- US `s rule of Mr. Maliki.

In 2008-2011, Maliki`s sectarian policies reached their peak. He had his own secret prisons where thousands were imprisoned without legal warrants, hundreds were tortured and scores killed and disappeared. This was in addition to overt discrimination in jobs, opportunities and public services. The 30 % Arab Sunnis of the population began to think of open rebellion against Baghdad. In 2012 huge demonstrations took place in the six majority Arab Sunni provinces of Iraq. The Kurds, another 16.5 %, of whom 90% are Sunnis, plus the Sunni Turkomans (Another 3.5 %) boycotted Baghdad. Maliki responded with brutal armed suppression and massive arrests of men and women. Thus, when it arrived on the scene, ISIS found receptive grounds for a militant Sunni action.

It should be recalled that the remnants of Saddam`s Baath were present throughout Iraq, especially in the Northern areas. Around Mosul, many of the cadre of officers of the old Iraqi army were unemployed and living under constant security chase. Maliki`s government inflicted abject discrimination upon the Sunni Arab population in these areas, and, like in the rest of Iraq, provided no basic services. When ISIS showed up the choice between it and Maliki was for all a Hobsian choice.

An Islamist outfit as an objective ally of Assad.  

By 2012, after the eruption of the Syrian revolution, Iran and its ally, Maliki, were eager to form fighting forces to support Assad. And it took no genius to think of the remnants of al Qayda in Iraq as candidates, Maliki further staged a prison escape of some 2500 Jihadis from Camp Bucca in what was perhaps the biggest staged prison evasion in history. In addition, the Syrian securities had thousands of imprisoned Jihadis and several hundreds of Saddam`s Republican Guards ex officers who fled to and were given refuge in Syria. The Syrian security forces, with Iraqi help, merged all these disparate elements into a fighting force now called “the Islamic State in al Sham”, ISIL. Assad had a genuine interest in implanting a terrorist organization in the midst of the Syrian revolution. It would bolster his claims that he was facing terrorists and not a Syrian revolution and would split further his opposition and provides him with inside information. In fact, Assad publicly acknowledged to the newspaper al Quds -al -Arabi, in June 2013, that he has agents planted among the armed oppositions. 

Armed and supported by the Syrian intelligence, the new outfit started its activities by attacking the Syrian opposition i.e., the Syrian Free Army`s liberated areas in northern Syria. For a whole year, this pattern continued and there was not a single reported attack on the regime`s units. In perfect symmetry, the regime did not once hit their positions. In short order, this group, attacked and captured Raqqa and expanded in North East Syria without any regime resistance. In 2013, it spilled into Iraq. In their conquest, ISIL began to absorb in their ranks, more of the old Iraqi army officers and many disgruntled other Jihadis from Islamists defunct groups as well as disaffected Sunnis from everywhere in the world.

Saddam`s officers gave ISILa professional military leadership and helped redefine their aims and tactics. From an outfit fashioned by the intelligence services, ISIL morphed into an Islamist independent fighting force capable of attracting thousands of Jihadis from all over the world. Western intelligence estimated their number in mid-2014 at 20,000 to 30,000. Thousands of them came through Turkey, which up to 2014, looked the other way. The guilt in unleashing ISIL is shared by the Gulf States, the US, Turkey and the Syrian regime. In 2014 the name changed to ISIS, DAISH in Arabic.

Al Qayda v. ISIS: the Islamists`Problematique

ISIS ideology has the same Salafist- Wahabi fundamentalist roots as does al Qayda. and both of these movements are ideologically related to the ideology of the Jihdists among the followers of Muslim Brothers. While the MB appeared in the 1990`s to accept democratic alteration, the movement in its present condition is far from cohesive and its organizational structure permits a wide spectrum of views including violent Jihadism. Both ISIS and al Qayda are essentially evolved products of MB. However ISIS differs from al Qayda in many respects. Al Qayda ideology is an austere Wahabi Islam not contaminated by the historical and sociological developments of the different Muslim communities. In its drastic historical simplicity it attempts to purge Islam of all cultural and other influences subsequent to its first 40 years under the four successors, Khalifs, of the Prophet. The Salafist understanding of Islam is textual and literal and it takes selective elements of the text regardless of the time and place they addressed. So, there is a dominance of the "Madina" Soras even though they have often a specific and limited relevance. On the intellectual side, the Salafist intellectual base took the political Islamist thinking of the Pakistani Abualaa al Maududi, which rejects democracy and the concept of a civil state and advocates a Shariia- based state. These thoughts of al Maudoudi were held at the time of struggle in British India to establish Pakistan. Later on after Pakistan was founded, he changed some of his old advocacies. Ironically, his Egyptian followers, Sayed Qutb and AR Yasin, advocated Maudoudi`s ideas in the Arab context where the societies were essentially Muslim societies The Islamists adopted the takfeeri ideas of the Qotb, who advocated violence and disfranchising from Islam of anyone who has a different interpretation than his and he further legalized their killing. 

The Salafist thinking suffers many epistemological flaws. In the first place, it mixes up between the biographical virtues of the “righteous predecessors” and their epoch. That the purity and sincerity of those early followers of Islam is admirable, does not in any way furnish grounds to bestow the same admiration upon their period. That period in human history was, of necessity, less developed and less enlightened than our era. In the second place, what we know about their period are tales whose veracity is suspect. The historians of that epoch did not have under belt, the rigorous standards of historical investigation that we have now. Thus, our knowledge of the historical example set by the epoch is rather mythical and infused with imaginative details. Even if we accept the proposed narrative, that era was troubled and flawed. Three of the four righteous Khalifs were assassinated and the community of believers at the time was not one with exulted history. In the third place, overlooking 1350 years of subsequent evolution in various countries and continents of Muslims is ignoring sociological realities by which we must judge pragmatic phenomena. There is no system of jurisprudence known to man, including that of the Islamic Sharia, that does not take sociological realities as one of the sources of law. Thus, the drastic purification of Islam from its attendant transformations, is irrational and deficient in historic logic. In the fourth place, invoking this restricted period as a historical example of success to emulate in our current period is an exercise in pragmatic irrelevance; it is a fantasy to think that we can recreate that epoch and re-establish its circumstances at present. To give one example, re-establishing the “Khilafat” for 1.6 billion Muslims living on five continents with different backgrounds, languages and cultures is a fantasy, a fiction at best. Finally, all Islamists, including Salafists, morph religion, which is a settled belief system, into the pragmatic conditions of  the state which are changing all the time. The economic, scientific, juridical and societal realities are never a part of a belief system, they are dynamic changing conditions. This stand of merging religion with the state, a  hallmark of Islamists thought, appears in Islam under the Shiite doctorin of Willayatul Faqih, and in instances of political exigencies such as those that faced Ibin Taymieh at his time and Maudoudi in Britich India. Indeed there is nothing in the Quran or the time and deeds of the Prophet that calls for this merger. When the Prophet esablished his state in Madinah, he addressed two basic proclamations, one to Muslims and the other to non Muslims laying down the basic law of a joint, non discriminatory state. A state with equal citizenry and state neutrality in respect of religion, is the essence of moderate secularism.
 In all countries where the Islamists governed, they showed that they have no programs and no expertise in governing. The records of Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Afghanistan, Tunisia and Sudan ate ample proofs on that.  
     Al Qayda`s international posture is anti-Western, in particular anti-US, on the belief that the West has been aggressing the Islamic World. It does not seek to convert the West, rather avoids its influence and aggression. Bin Ladin actually offered in January 2006 a truce if the West quits Muslim countries and stops its aggression. Al Qayda did not conquer territory and never faced the problems of running a society. 

ISIS, in contrast, is an international project for establishing an Islamic World Order. It recognizes no boundaries and does not respect any national separation, hence its latest name IS, the Islamic State. ISIS` behavior, is more savage than that of al Qayda and it has a more developed know-how of media and its use. It has also a developed commercial sense of doing business through religion. The organization uses Islam as a recruiting platform for those looking for a spiritual and psychological refuge. In fact, so many of its practices like self martyrdom and spilling the blood of innocents, violate the basic tenants of Islam, the recruits of ISIS are on the whole thinly educated and most do not even speak Arabic and hardly know much about Islam. 

Many of the recruits are from West Europe, some researchers put that at a majority of the total Europeans of 6000. The profile of these recruits, according to intelligence sources are social marginal with police records for various minor crimes. Some (e.g. the terrorists of Paris and Brussels attacks) had been drug dealers and owners of bars selling liquor. Unlike those from the Arab world, their known profiles show that they frequent no mosques or other public institutions and drift at the margin of their communities. In contrast, the Arab jihads in ISIS, are largely unemployed victims of economic poverty and above all blocked futures. The officers and leaders are overwhelmingly Iraqi with many drawn from the ranks of Saddam`s army. Naturally, there are some exceptions to this norm in the presence of some Europeans from non- deprived backgrounds who are revolted by the materialism of their society and equally enraged by the brutality of the Assad regime. In conclusion, ISIS is not populated by religious fundamentalists but also alienated social marginals, and young Arabs for whom the future holds neither economic nor personal prospects. 
Unlike al Qayda, ISIS is not led from the top, it is decentralized enough to be considered more populist. Thus in its controlled territory, it has a decentralized structure. These differences are revealed by their operational modes. While the al Qayda`s affiliate in Syria, Jabhatul Nusra, is willing to fight under the umbrella of the SFA for the purpose of deposing the Syrian regime, ISIS brooks no such alliance and has an Agenda distinct from that of the Syrian revolution and is in complicity with the Syrian regeme. Moreover, Jabhatul Nusra is overwhelmingly composed of Syrians, whereas ISIS has a vast majority of non-Syrians.

 In a short period after it came upon the scene, ISIS secured independent revenues from Gulf Donors, from levies imposed on local populations and from selling oil after capturing oil wells in Syria and later on in Iraq. Among its black market customers was the Syrian regime itself as well as Turkish contractors operating with partners in Iraqi Kurdistan and using the Turkish ports to export the oil to third countries, among whom is Israel. 
       In June 2014, Mosul was attacked and the Iraqi army led by Malikis`political officers and largely manned by former Shiite militias ran away leaving their arms and supplies. Now, the ragtag elements had arms, money and larger numbers. With imparted discipline from Saddam`s officers, they started a rampage in northern Syria and Iraq displaying frightening and unprecedented savagery and killing hundreds of people from all groups, including Sunnis. They culminated this rampage by proclaiming Baghdadi as their Khalif. 

The cascade of events conferred on ISIS new dynamics; it started to feel its own wings for flying independently and developed its own agenda, which cut into both the Iranian and Assad`s plans. When ISIS swept through the Kurdish lines and threatened the survival of the Iraqi Kurdish region, Israel and the US woke up. They realized the uncontrollable character of ISIS and took a measure of its barbarian savagery and danger to their Kurdish allies.

As a new terrorist Islamist outfit, ISIS was exploited by Assad to refurbish his credentials as a state force on the ground opposing Islamists. Iran, the other initial sponsor, now felt that these ragtag forces began to bite into its schemes in Iraq and acquired independence in their action. Each of the initial God.-fathers, now offered their services to combat ISIS: Iran to lubricate its nuclear negotiations and Assad to refurbish his credentials.

The US quickly built up an international coalition against ISIS, Many Arab countries as well as Turkey and Iran joined up, even though they have different and contradictory agendas. General John Allen was appointed Coordinator for this 61 -country alliance.

The muddled up US`coalition

The Coalition started to bomb ISIS in Iraq and much later -on added Syria to the target list. After more than a year of aerial bombardments, ISIS is still in occupation of 35 % of Syria and Iraq. To be sure, its thrust into Iraqi Kurdistan was blunted, and it was stopped north of Baghdad, but its hold on the Anbar province and the Mousil areas continues. As to Syria,, with the notable exception of Kobani, ISIS has not been rolled back in any way.

Several factors explain this unsatisfactory situation. The first is the failure of Iraq to have a trained and experienced armed forces capable of carrying the fight to ISIS. Mr. Maliki replaced the old Iraqi army with a new one led by inexperienced officers and manned largely by former Shiite militias, not a force that can produce results. Furthermore, the mobilization ordered by the top Shiite cleric in Iraq of thousands of Shiite Militias to fight alongside the army has brought into the scene a sectarian and undisciplined force, which has since committed many aggressions and exaction on the Sunni population whose cooperation is indispensable for any success. Mr. Abadi, the new Prime Minister, has proven so far to be a timid reformer still beholding to the sectarian power structure of his Daawa party and the dominance therein of Mr. Maliki. Despite the full support of the public and the Shiite leadership in Najaf, he has implemented very few reforms. He has also shied away from effecting real conciliation with the Sunnis and has steadfastly refused to arm them while giving reign to the Shitte militias. He has however moved on reforming the Army and the security forces with American help..

 The US has depended on the contribution of the Kurds in Iraq and, especially in Syria, to fight on the ground. But the Iraqi Kurds seem to be only interested in guarding their areas and liberating from ISIS the disputed territories they covet like Kirkuk and not pursuing ISIS beyond that. In Syria, the PKKs affiliate, the “ Kurdish Protection Forces”, headed by Salih Muslem, used US aerial backing to capture and ethnically cleans Syrian territory in their chauvinistic quest to consolidate an exclusive Kurdish area. The confusion ran also into other coalition members, such as France, which under lobbying pressures of Christian supporters, gave aid to the Kurds. France, according to the military commander of the Syrian Kurds, has trained and equipped 450 Syrian Kurdish fighters. Backing the Syrian Kurds, who are scattered geographically in small mixed areas, introduces another complication in the Syrian scene and further strengthens terrorist activities. This clearly raises legitimate security concerns for Turkey in as much as the Syrian Kurds are an extension of the Turkish PKK and their consolidation of territory is a further step in the PKK^s project of independence. This further dissuades Turkey from giving emphasis to fighting ISIS. Without Turkey, it is hard to see which sizable force will fight on the ground.

In Syria, ISIS has behaved as an objective ally of the regime; in close to two years, it has engaged the revolutionary opposition and conquered areas from the Free Syrian Army only. A flagrant demonstration of this objective alliance is ISIS’marche on Palmyra over 400 km. of open land without any Syrian or Allied air force opposition. Moreover, the regime has voluntarily handed over to both ISIS and the Syrian Kurds many areas in the North East and the Center. Despite ISIS opposition to the regime in principle, there seems to be a de facto alliances between them against the other opposition. In the northern areas of Aleppo, the minute, the opposition progressed against the regime, ISIS opened fronts against the FSA.

The US strategy about ISIS seems to be deeply flawed. The US makes a theoretical  connection between fighting ISIS and the broader aspects of the Syrian problem. However, for a year now, its policy concentrates on fighting ISIS only and not on deposing the Syrian regime. On the evidence, there is hardly any state except Iran and Russia, which agrees with this single prong approach. The US also found out that no Syrians can be lured into such one prong-approach. As President Holland of France, said in his Press Conference of 7 September, 2015, “ISIS has filled a vacuum created by the Syrian regime and recruited its fighters because of what the regime has done to Syria”. Failing to see this connection is a serious strategic error. This is becoming quite evident as the Syrian refugees pour into Europe. The Europeans are beginning to see that the war in Syria- along with Libya- is the source of the instability and the reason for the influx of the refugees and that the effective way of solving this problem is to put an end to the civil war in Syria. Indeed, press interviews with the refugees show that two thirds are fleeing from the regime killing and destruction and the rest from the terror of ISIS. This is a duality that juxtaposes two vectors: the terror of the regime with that of ISIS leaving the moderate forces in between. It would seem that the viable solution is to create or strengthen these moderate forces which have no international agenda and who are willing to accept a political settlement to create a civil pluralistic and democratic Syria. It is only such a Syria that can defeat and eliminate ISIS. The Syrians have suffered for so long from the two sided terror of Assad and ISIS and now they suffer the muddle and indifference of the international community.   

While the US fights ISIS in Syria and acknowledges Assad`s responsibility in its rise, it has not supported the FSA, which was the only moderate force fighting ISIS. This refusal to choose an ally, or barring that, to form an acceptable force in opposition to Assad, has been the hallmark of the US approach and it is perhaps one major reason why General John Allen resigned the coalition Coordinator- ship recently and Ambassador Robert Ford quit being responsible for the Syrian desk in the State Department. The US wants Assad out but has not found an acceptable alternative to him in its view and in the view of Israel. 

Turkey, supported by all the Gulf countries, sees the Syrian regime as the facilitator to ISIS and thus argues for targeting both with the same priority. Turkey`s long standing proposal to build safe zones in Syria is, in our view, the most sensible devise to stop ISIS, strengthen the moderate Syrian opposition, secure the lives of refugees and reduce their burden on the hosts. The US objections which, ironically, lines up with ISIS objections, seem to this writer unfathomable. A flagrant example of the absence of a US strategy, is the training of its recruited moderate opposition, one of the declared pillars of the US strategy. US vetting of these volunteers included signing a pledge to fight only ISIS. After more than a year and 500 millions of spent dollars, 54 graduated two months ago, and when they entered Syria, al Nusra Front immediately captured and killed all but four of them.

The Coalition poses other problems to the Arab States and to Turkey. Its target is a terrorist Sunni organization, which nobody condones and all are willing to fight. But totally missing from the Alliance mission, are the Shiite militias, numbering dozens in Iraq in addition to the biggest Shiite militia of all, the Lebanese Hizbulah, which is fighting for Assad in Syria. Therefore, the question arises as to what is the pay-off for the Sunni states, including Turkey, in fighting for the Coalition; is not wiping out Sunni terrorists an advantage to Shiite terrorists sponsored by Iran operating in the same zones? Is not it entirely sensible to take aim at all the terrorists and their militias without distinction? 

The US`dance of hesitation

President Obama`s opposition to US interventions after the disastrous US adventure in Iraq, is like a personal post- trauma syndrome. It paralyzes the US policies and explains the lack of strategy. But that is surely inappropriate for a world power and irrelevant to the situation on hand in Syria. The US recognizes the ISIS- Assad nexuses in theory, but refuses to act upon it. ISIS did not exist three years ago and without the US invasion of Iraq it would have probably never existed. The Assad regime and its savagery is the objective reason for ISIS and the principal motive offered in its recruiting propaganda. The US fully knows this objective connection but has followed policies of containing ISIS and managing the Syrian conundrum rather than solving it. The US repeatedly said, the Syrian problem can only be solved politically. But the regime refuses any transition and still believes it can win militarily. This refusal to negotiate was obvious in Geneva II to all and got more emboldened after the Russian intervention. It is obvious that the US advocacy of a political solution cannot be brought about unless the balance of forces on the ground convinces the regime and its allies, Russia and Iran, as well as the opposition that neither of them can win militarily. Russia and Iran have militarily and financially supported Assad, while the US has supported the moderate opposition essentially in rhetoric. There is a need for balancing this unequal intervention for a political solution to be possible.

 This action suspension of the US is, in our view, not a strategy fit for a world superpower with vital economic and security interests in the region and a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. It is an escape from action to sign over the problem to Russia without having leverage on Mr. Putin whose aims in Syria of supporting the Assad regime and thwarting the revolution are flat opposite of the US objectives. To this author, President Obama`s Syrian policy, if any, is a big puzzle.

Geneva, 10 /9/2015.