Smoke raises behind an Islamic State flag after Iraqi security forces and Shiite fighters took control of Saadiya in Diyala province from Islamist State militants, November 24, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Stringer
The Economist: The war against Islamic State: It will be a long haul.
The fight against Islamic State is making some progress, but the jihadists are hardly on the back foot
WNU Editor: Reuters is also reporting the same thing .... Islamic State in Syria seen under strain but far from collapse (Reuters). What is ecven more eye-opening .... and in my opinion accurate .... if Iraq's Sunnis do not turn against the Islamic State .... defeating the Islamic State will be impossible .... UAE sees no defeat of Islamic State without Iraq's Sunnis: Etihad paper (Reuters)
More News On The War Against The Islamic State
U.N. Report: Islamic State Has Buried Children Alive -- WSJ
U.S.-led forces target Islamic State with airstrikes in Iraq, Syria: U.S. military. -- Reuters
Islamic State claims American hostage killed in bombing in Syria -- Washington Post
Jordan rages against Islamic State as military vows to expand airstrikes -- Washington Post
Islamic State punishes cleric who objected to pilot's killing: monitor -- Reuters
Jordan pilot murder: Islamic State deploys asymmetry of fear -- BBC
Defeating the Islamic State is a challenge to unite US and Arab nations -- McClatchy News/Kansas City
How much of a state is the Islamic State? -- Quinn Mecham, Washington Post
4 comments:
I think victory is difficult to define with respect to ISIS. I have said this before, but it is worth repeating.
The bedlam in Syria, Iraq, etc. is really three wars:
1. At bottom, a religious war primarily among Moslems regarding which among them are faithful adherents of Islam. On that war is superimposed
2. A war within nation states among tribes and other groups that identify themselves more as members of their tribe, etc. than as citizens of the nation states. As we all know, Europeans drew the boundaries of Iraq, Syria, etc. and most Middle Eastern countries have a weak sense of national identity. Groups (such as the Alawites in Syria) that control the instruments of the national state use that power to benefit their group. Other groups feel (and are) frozen out. At this level, one can view the war as competition among groups for control of the nation state, or, alternatively, a war to determine whether the state survives as one nation or splits into smaller pieces. We see this in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, etc. On that war is superimposed
3. Interventions by the neighbors. All of the neighbors have their various interests, and intervene to support one faction or another. The conflicts in Syria and Iraq are also proxy wars for conflict among the regional powers.
In this context, the similarity of the conflict in Syria and Iraq to the Thirty Years' War is uncanny. In Germany, the war ended only when four developments happened:
A. In the religious war, all sides agreed that the people of one state need not share the same religion. Religious dissenters could live in peace and not be slain as heretics. An important corollary was: the people need not have the same religion as their ruler.
B. In the war to establish which states would exist and their boundaries, the parties accepted the boundaries pretty much along the lines of whose armies controlled what territory in 1648.
C. The neighbors achieved their respective ends within Germany and, more importantly, the international alignments of the players changed.
D. All sides were exhausted, financially and demographically, by 1648. There were very few German males of fighting age left by 1648.
If the Thirty Years War model is applicable to Syria, Iraq, ISIS, etc., then it seems that we are a very long way removed from having the conditions necessary for peace. None of the parties have settled any of their disputes (religious, tribal, national, regional) so far. Resolution of those disputes seems likely to require at least years, perhaps decades. It is way too early to know how the religious war will end. It is also way too early to know whether Syria, Iraq, etc. will survive at all as states or what their boundaries will be. I think that this war may last through our lifetimes and maybe even through the lifetimes of our children.
With hindsight I wonder if Lebanon and its many wars was a warning to everyone that this is what the Middle East may eventually end up as. Countries within countries .... primarily based on religion, tribe, or ethnic group.
I would like to point out that the politicians in Washington, NATO, UN are so obsessed trying to maintain the status quo in so much of the world that they would resist Publius's points B and C.
Publius,
I don't think the religious war will ever end except possible through annihilation of one side or the other, which given the respective circumstances of the Shias and Sunnis I don't see happening. Also as long as the basic war continues there is little hope for resolution of your two and three points. I don't wnat to be over long about this but you could say "there is just too much there, there" in the Middle East for any mortal to resolve.
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