ISIS advance in Iraq poses threat to regional instability
ISIS, the al-Qaeda affiliated extremist group sweeping through Iraq on its way to the capital, Bagdhad, is a coalition of the willing, writes a World Review guest expert.
They are ideologically-dominated Islamist extremists and disgruntled former Sunni Iraqi army officers who lost their jobs and privileges when they were disbanded by the United States. These Saddam-era forces are highly trained, very experienced, battle-hardened and thoroughly disciplined.
It was a grave error to dismiss ISIS - the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant - as a mere al-Qaeda affiliate or another local manifestation of a global terrorist group which could be contained locally.
The military men in ISIS are not necessarily fanatic religionists, but are generally Arab nationalists in ideology and strongly Sunni Muslim in sentiment and religion, imbibed with the spirit of pan Arab unity and pride.
The former Sunni Iraqi army officers lost their jobs after the American Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority of Iraq - the de facto head of state post-occupation in 2003-2004 - disbanded the Iraqi Armed Forces.
Their coalition with extreme jihadist terrorists will last for as long as Iraq has no effective and inclusive government, and for as long as Iraq’s government - and regional and Western powers - continue to pretend that ignoring the wishes of Iraq's Sunni population will have little impact on regional security and stability.
The underlying cause for ISIS's strength lies, to some degree, in the fact that this disgruntled group has found no meaningful role in the post-2003 political life in Iraq. They have been marginalised and sought any incubator which allowed them to martial such resentment into organised armed action.
Short of real and effective political power-sharing in Iraq, this group is unlikely to be pacified. Continued political sectarianism by the Shia government will only exasperate the extremist threat with the possibility that Iraq will splinter into three regions.
ISIS and Sunni militant forces have seized a series of towns and cities in the north and west, including border crossings, since an offensive took control of Iraq’s second city, Mosul, on June 4, 2014. The capture of key border crossings could help ISIS transport weapons and equipment into Iraq.
More than 1,000 people, most of them civilians, have died in the violence in June 2014, according to United Nations monitors.
ISIS took control of Iraq’s main oil refinery at Baiji on June 24, 2014. It is Iraq’s largest refinery producing a third of its oil.
ISIS aims to establish an Islamic caliphate across Iraq and the Levant. Its capture of a swathe of territory seems unstoppable.
ISIS has effectively created a cohesive and continuous territorial arc from the Iraqi-Syrian-Turkish border to the north of Iraq to the Iraqi-Syrian-Jordanian border to the west.
Whether ISIS will be able to push towards the great prize of Kirkuk, where a good deal of Iraq's oil and refining capacity exists, is unlikely.
The most likely scenario is that, on balance, Europe and the US will conclude that the post-ISIS situation does not breach the threshold of what may be termed 'tolerable pain' for their strategic interests.
There will be consequences, particularly in terms of an increased threat of terrorism, regional instability and possibly limited disruption to the flow of oil. The most likely scenario is that there will be no strategic redeployment of forces or renewed military intervention.
US President Barack Obama’s decision to deploy 300 military advisers in Iraq is unlikely to lead to 'mission creep'. The protagonists are likely to fight in a replay of the 2006 eruption of the Iraqi civil war regardless of any last-minute concessions from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to grant Sunnis real political power - or even if he leaves office.
An ISIS victory would be regionally destabilising as a large, strategically important tract of territory will be considered 'ungovernable space' for purposes of conventional diplomacy, politics and state craft. The Syrian civil war would become more vicious as ISIS would be emboldened and its new-found territory would provide a strategic military and logistical depth to its Syrian operations.
This new ungovernable space would produce more global security threats by training jihadists who return to their home countries after being radicalised and battle-hardened during their stints fighting with ISIS in Syria and Iraq. These people, born and bred in Western countries, are then sent home to commit terrorist acts. This could prove to be the most serious security threat to European countries over the next couple of years.
