Republican and Democratic presidential candidates should be able to agree on one stark foreign policy reality: The tide has not turned in the war against Islamic State (IS). In the 18 months that the US has been working to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the group, it has grown to become a global force that can strike targets in Europe, Asia, Africa and the US.
The self-declared “caliphate” that in June 2014 was localised in Iraq and Syria now has nearly 50 affiliates or supporting groups in 21 countries. It has declared 33 “official provinces” in 11 of those countries. Though it has lost about 25 percent of the territory it held at its peak in Iraq and Syria, it has meanwhile established an international presence, on the ground and in cyberspace.
“Follow ISIS and you will see the huge momentum that the group has harnessed across the globe,” says Rita Katz, co-founder of the SITE Intelligence Group, using a common shorthand for Islamic State. “The government’s first step in fighting IS must be to stop dismissively characterising the jihadists as a mere gang of guys in pickup trucks. It should be called what it is: a threat to global security.”
President Obama and his advisers have talked in recent weeks of stepping up US actions, but intelligence and military officials say the additional steps are limited. The Pentagon has announced a capture/kill Special Operations force of about 200 soldiers, based in Iraq. But that is a small fraction of the Joint Special Operations Command force that was deployed there a decade ago to deal with a far smaller insurgent threat from al-Qaeda in Iraq.
What seems to engage Obama most is countering the jihadists’ narrative that this is a war between Islam and the west. He made an eloquent presentation of his case for tolerance in a speech this week at a mosque in suburban Baltimore. But there is little evidence that this message of outreach to Muslims is checking IS’ growth.
Libya and Indonesia illustrate the group’s new, far-flung reach and the difficulty for the US-led coalition in containing the growing threat to Europe and Asia. In Libya, IS has doubled its presence over the past year to between 5,000 and 6,500 fighters, according to a report Thursday in The New York Times. Opposition forces that might challenge the jihadists are “unreliable, unaccountable, poorly organised and divided by region and tribe,” according to the Times. Similar problems have plagued US efforts to build a strong Sunni opposition in Syria and Iraq.
Secretary of State John F Kerry warned this week of the danger to oil-rich areas of Libya: “The last thing in the world you want is a false caliphate with access to billions of dollars of oil revenue.” But despite several years of growing US concern about Libya, the US response so far has been feeble.
In Indonesia, IS mounted a Paris-style terrorist operation on January 14. Fighters in Jakarta assaulted a traffic post on a busy downtown street, with bomb blasts occurring in multiple locations near a popular Starbucks. Eight people were killed, and more than 20 were wounded.
Asian security officials say the Jakarta attack demonstrates IS’ appeal in normally quiescent Muslim populations, in such nations as Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Indeed, the Indonesian affiliate was the first to swear allegiance after Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed the caliphate in late June 2014 and changed its official name to IS. The pace of IS operations, and its propaganda skill, are illustrated by the daily dispatches of its Al-Bayan online news service. Each day this week, Al-Bayan announced attacks in at least six “wilayats,” or regions, of the self-declared state. This week’s announced operations stretched across four countries. Often the targets were Muslim rivals or local security services.
IS brags about its ability to strike the US, too, in the opening pages of the latest issue of its slick online magazine, Dabiq. Lauding the San Bernardino, California bombers who “caught the US off-guard,” the magazine warned: “As the American-led crusaders continue waging war against the [caliphate], more and more Muslims continue demonstrating their willingness to sacrifice everything precious to them.”
How should the US and its allies combat IS wisely, without getting bogged down in an endless global land war? That is the biggest foreign policy issue facing the country. The political discussion so far has been mostly sound bites and speeches, rather than analysis that would lead to sustainable actions. This problem is not going away; it is getting worse.
A version of this article appeared in The Washington Post
on February 4, 2016