Daily Times

Islamic State (IS) has firmly held onto the large territories that it has seized in Iraq and Syria for a year. In May, the group seized Tadmur and the ruins of Palmyra in Syria and Ramadi, Iraq, which makes the claims of the weakening of IS seem self-deceptive. Through social media, IS is attracting youth from Europe and spreading its appeal to Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics. The influence of IS in Afghanistan would mean difficulties for Pakistan. The IS fighters are gaining influence in strife-ridden Libya and Yemen. It has been trying to form alliances in Algeria through Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran militant, who was supposedly killed in an airstrike. News reports from the Middle East do not give the impression that the war against IS is being won.
As IS seizes more territories and increases its influence globally, the prospect of the formation of a joint strategy to defeat IS by various countries in the Middle East, seems far away. Each regional power has its own perception of the enemy and each sees the enemy differently, in the context of its political and cultural reality. Turkey and Saudi Arabia perceive President Bashar al-Assad as a more imminent threat than the IS. Turkey is unenthusiastic about supporting the Syrian Kurds fighting an increasingly successful battle against IS. Turkey dislikes the US air strikes in support of the Syrian Kurds. Iran will support President Bashar “to the end”. Russia would like to see President Bashar continue because Syria is an ally from the Soviet Union and Cold War eras. Saudi Arabia and Turkey’s proxies in Syria have weakened the Syrian army. The civil war in Syria has strengthened IS immensely, which was able to establish Raqqa, Syria, as its headquarters.
Recent gains by IS in Syria, like the capture of Palmyra and the Yarmouk refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus, shows that IS is preparing to strike Damascus. The Arab Spring of 2011 aimed to remove President Assad, but has now evolved into a fierce civil war. Since 2011, an estimated 190,000 Syrians have lost their lives and five million are refugees, mostly in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. The west and the Middle East should have weighed all options before supporting the Syrian Arab Spring. Perhaps they did not realise that the events could become uncontrollable and that the support of militancy would create extremist forces far more oppressive than President Assad.
Pathetically, the events in the Middle East have not received a response appropriate to the seriousness of the problem. Most significantly, the growth of IS went unnoticed. This gives a good insight into the working of Middle Eastern countries that spend billions on military budgets and their intelligence agencies. By 2013, US intelligence agencies did not foresee “the stunning success of IS forces” or the “catastrophic collapse” of the Iraqi Army. Ominous signs of IS fighters crossing into Iraq in 2013 to capture Falluja and parts of Ramadi, were not considered a serious threat. Above all, the intelligence agencies were unable to accurately judge the Iraqi Army’s dilapidated condition and lack of will to fight. In January 2014, the Iraqi army silently withdrew from Falluja on the arrival of IS fighters. In spring 2014, former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki requested US troops, which were denied.
The US has again undertaken to train and equip the Iraqi army, in spite of its multiple failures over the last two years. President Obama intends to send 450 military personnel to Iraq to train the Iraqi army and loyal Sunni tribes from Anbar province. Fifty of the personnel will be actual trainers, the others will be part of the protection team. The decision to place the US training personnel in the Taqaddum military base in Anbar province does not seem very convincing. Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, was seized by IS in May and is only 15 kilometres away from Taqaddum. The protection of US military trainers will in itself be a problem, in an area where IS has a strong influence. This deployment will give a target to IS and pose a serious challenge to the US.
The utility of this training programme appears to be doubtful. In the past two years, the Iraqi army has already surrendered large quantities of arms to IS. After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Iraqi army was equipped and trained by the US, at a cost of $ 35 billion. Last June, two divisions of the same Iraqi army simply ran from a few thousand IS fighters, abandoning US-supplied equipment, arms and transport, later captured by the IS. In just ten days, IS overran large territories in Iraq. On June 10, 2014, IS captured the second largest city of Iraq, Mosul, without much of a fight.
This May again, the Iraqi army retreated from Ramadi, abandoning the US equipment to be conveniently captured by IS. US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter rightly commented that the Iraqi forces do not have the “will to fight”. How will the retrained Iraqi army be any different from the existing units? There has to be a candid assessment, devoid of all self-deceptions, before committing to costly battles. Building up and training the Iraqi army to make it a winning force might be nearly impossible under the current Iraqi set up. Training Sunni tribes to fight IS is equally faulty. In 2014, the US-backed Sunni tribes in Anbar were disowned by the sectarian government of Prime Minister Maliki. Short of ammunition and supplies, these tribes were left to fend for themselves against IS’s war machine. The massacre of Al-bu Nimr, a powerful Sunni tribe of Anbar, followed in November 2014.
It is quite incomprehensible how the Middle Eastern countries intend to counter or contain IS. There is no integrated strategy or will to fight IS. After the fall of Palmyra, President Obama stated that the US does not have a “complete strategy” to help Iraq regain territory from IS. Even retrieving major cities like Mosul now seems to be a remote possibility and is not a priority of the Iraqi government. IS’s capturing of important oil producing areas and the falling oil revenues have further increased the difficulties of the Iraqi government, which is now increasingly looking to the US for financial help.
What should be worrisome for the governments in the Middle East is the absence of a consensus on a workable strategy to contain militancy. Political and cultural considerations hinder the formulation of realistic priorities and the governments find it difficult to bring about a change. The governments are losing initiative and the war against extremism seems never-ending. Falling oil prices, rapidly growing populations and increasing militancy will further aggravate strife and more people will be pushed to extremism. The political leadership of the Middle East must realise the gravity of the situation and initiate political and economic reforms that engage with the people in an honest, meaningful and purposeful way. The Middle East has reached this state due to poor governance for almost the entire 20th century. Now, there are very few options left and even less time for them to act.

The writer is a former member of the police service of Pakistan. He can be reached at humayunshafi@gmail.com