Paul Scharre over at War on the Rocks has an excellent post on U.S. options for combating ISIS in Syria and Iraq. After running through the many reasons why the U.S. doesn’t want to team up with the likes of Assad and Iran to neutralize the threat, he eventually concludes that the best solution is strengthening and arming a moderate Sunni opposition – a suggestion we’ve heard many times with reference to Syria but not (at least recently) in Iraq. The money quote:
Sunni local forces that can fight against ISIL are needed if Sunni-dominated regions of Iraq are to be turned back against the threat…While arming Sunni Iraqis directly does empower yet another non-state group with Iraq, Sunni Iraqis are far less likely to be able to launch a successful bid for independence than Iraqi Kurds. In an ideal situation, arms would be supplied through the Iraqi government, increasing the ties between Sunni tribes and the central government. If this is not possible, then supporting Sunni tribes through covert action authorities, but with the knowledge of the Iraqi government, as the United States did for the Kurdish peshmerga, is an alternative. A stronger hand for Iraqi Sunnis may accelerate the centrifugal forces pulling Iraq apart, or may force the central government to give Sunnis a larger voice in the state. In either case, whether Iraq is doomed as a unified state or only sliding toward a more decentralized structure, the United States would do well to have direct ties to Iraqi Sunnis to prevent the return of ISIL.
The model is based on past US experience in Iraq, where it successfully marginalized ISIS’s precursor, the Islamic State in Iraq, by partnering with local Sunni tribes in the Awakening (Arabic: sahwa). In fact, it certainly seems the most likely, if not the only, way out of this mess.
But there are several hurdles to be overcome that might prove insurmountable.
First, there’s no firm indication (despite what Obama said in his speech last night) that the current Iraqi political system will be more inclusive toward Sunnis. Nouri al-Maliki’s sectarian government systematically excluded Sunnis from the Iraqi political system, moderate or not. The new government under Haidar al-Abadi is hardly less sectarian than Maliki’s thus far, as evidenced by the effort earlier this week to install Hadi al-Amiri, the head of the Badr Brigades, as interior minister. It remains to be seen if its promises to build a more inclusive political order will be carried out, but healthy skepticism is warranted.
Second, it’s not clear whether the Sunni tribes with whom we would supposedly partner would actually oppose ISIS at our behest. It would be hard to imagine that the Awakening has not been discredited to some extent after its failure to lead to any meaningful political gains for Sunnis within the Iraqi political system. This is reflected in ISIS’s propaganda strategy since the beginning of its involvement in Syria, which has been to label moderate rebels as “Sahwa”. Tribes may be more hesitant to sign on to a second Awakening after the bitter fruit of the first.
Third, it’s no certain matter that our regional allies would support a moderate, secular coalition. In Syria, Qatar’s association with Jabhat al-Nusra, and Saudi Arabia’s support for the (now greatly weakened) Ahrar al-Sham and Islamic Front – also hard-line Islamist groups with ideologies not far removed from the likes of Al Qaeda – suggests that these countries are no more interested in inclusive government than their regional adversaries in Baghdad, Tehran and Damascus.
In short, the success of the strategy laid out by Mr. Scharre is contingent on regional and local players realizing that a full-blown, regional sectarian war isn’t in their favor, and changing course. It’s made all the more difficult because of past, failed US policies in the region. But there aren’t really any better options.
