Pronouncements For Defeating ISIS

Pronouncements For Defeating ISIS Dangerously Play Into Grand Strategy.

Dr. Lawrence A. Kuznar is professor of anthropology at IPFW and has advised the US Department of Defense on global terrorism. He wrote this for The Journal Gazette on November 25, 2015.

I have been part of a team of academic and government researchers who, for nearly two years, have been analyzing the rise of the so-called “Islamic State” – ISIS or Daesh, as most of its opponents prefer to call them. We have worked with military personnel to provide a realistic understanding of the threat Daesh presents to us, as well as the best way to counter the threat.

Turkey shot down a Russian fighter Tuesday, potentially bringing NATO and the US into war with Russia. Daesh consciously and patiently created the conditions for this to happen, all to further their apocalyptic cause. Thoughtless reactions to this event only help to advance Daesh’s goal.

Pronouncements to “knock the hell out of,” “bomb the s–t out of,” “take the oil from,” or “strangulate” ISIS are easy to make. However, the reality is not only far more complicated and difficult, but also far more dangerous, and not because of anything ISIS would do to us. It is from what the enemies of Daesh will do to one another.

Daesh is faithfully following a strategy of sowing discord among its more powerful enemies to weaken them and create chaos. Chaos opens an opportunity for Daesh to provide order and recruit disoriented and disillusioned victims. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (killed in 2006) founded the original organization that would eventually become Daesh. He first conceived of this strategy for attacking Shia Muslims back in 1998. A Jihadist strategic manual, The Management of Savagery,” codified the basic elements of this strategy and Daesh, even more than al Qaeda, has put it into practice.

A year ago those of us who argued that Daesh’s strategic goal was to strike the West and create the conditions for their perceived Armageddon were called alarmists. Now, it appears to be accepted as fact. Daesh has explicitly stated that its goal is to bring local factions and major Western powers to the Turkish border near a small Syrian town called Dabiq, their purported location for the final Apocalypse.

Western powers have played directly into their plans. Daesh has successfully brought Western powers, antagonistic to one another (NATO allies and Russia), into close proximity. Tuesday, Turkey (a NATO member) shot down a Russian fighter that, by my rough approximation from a Google map, was less than 15 miles from Dabiq. Are we trying to make Daesh a success? If Turkey invokes Article 5 of NATO, Daesh could potentially get exactly what it wants – World War III.

A day before the Paris attacks, Daesh released perhaps its most technologically sophisticated and most graphic propaganda video yet, entitled, “Soon, Very Soon the Blood Will Spill Like an Ocean,” in which it directly threatened Moscow. And the onslaught against the West ensued.

Daesh has been a genuine threat to the West, our allies and our homeland. Its warriors must be fought; make no mistake that a war has been on for awhile. However, if we fight this war thoughtlessly, we play into Daesh’s hands, just like all of their more powerful local adversaries (the Syrian regime, Hezbollah, al Qaida, the Free Syrian Army, the Sunni tribes, the government of Iraq, Shia militias in Iraq, Iran, Kurdish factions in Iraq andSyria). Daesh should never have gotten this far, but its strategy has served it well, and now it has knowingly sowed discord among Western powers.

The latest issue of Daesh’s online magazine, ominously entitled Dabiq, contains the article, “You Think They Are Together but Their Hearts are Divided” that ends, “May Allah continue to break and shatter the ranks of the kafir (infidel – that means us) coalitions and alliances all over the earth.”

Western powers must unite and Americans must support longer-term strategies to combat jihadist threats that would include diplomatic, informational and local as well as military means. Simply crushing Daesh militarily is tantamount to stepping on a hornet’s nest – the nest is destroyed, but the hornets will scatter and regroup.

Our strategy must be based on support of local forces to degrade and ultimately destroy Daesh and the threat it represents to us, and, frankly, the result will neither be fast nor pretty. We must also plan for the aftermath – the underlying factional conflicts will continue the chaos and likely provide a fertile ground for a Daesh 2.0 to emerge. We need to plan against that as well.

Swaggering pronouncements are easy; real fighting is hard. Are we up to the challenge, or is Daesh right about our weakness? It is time to fight intelligently.