by Jack Murphy
As stated, a U.S.-led war against ISIS will not look like the Special Operations missions that General Stanley McChrystal led as JSOC commander in Iraq in years past. However, as in any military campaign, killing or capturing enemy leaders will still be a component of the over all operation.
Hostage Rescue Missions
The first propaganda film, featuring the murder of journalist James Foley by a British ISIS fighter, carried the threat of more to come. Videos followed, showing the beheadings of Steven Sotloff, another freelance journalist; David Cawthorne Haines, a former British soldier who did security work for aid organizations; French mountain climber Hervé Gourdel; and Alan Henning, a British taxi driver who volunteered to deliver aid to Syrian citizens. The pattern seems to be that every several weeks another hostage is executed.
ISIS is attempting to use these Western hostages as collateral, threatening and carrying out the killings if U.S. air strikes against ISIS continue, a signal by the terrorist organization to hijack U.S. foreign policy via asymmetrical means. As the world’s only remaining superpower, with the ability to project military force around the globe, the United States is a hard target to deter. Perhaps no nation in the world can square off against America with conventional military forces. However, terrorism exploits America’s weak spots. By kidnapping Americans and holding them hostage on the world stage, terrorists can also hold U.S. foreign policy hostage.
This form of political terrorism was in full swing during the ’1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. Terrorists would hijack an aircraft filled with civilians and then demand the release of prisoners, a withdrawal of occupational forces, or whatever other political ends they wanted to achieve. In SOFREP’s interview with Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, a national security adviser during the Reagan administration, he stated he believes that our counterterrorism tactics at that time were particularly aggressive and successfully mitigated the threat of this form of terrorism. But with that success, terrorist organizations changed their tactics as well.
Political terrorism transformed into religious terrorism. No longer were hostages taken and demands made. Instead, suicide attacks were launched. This included suicide bombings, most notably the 9/11 attacks. Al Qaeda and its offshoot organizations, such as the Islamic State of Iraq, took hostages but made no demands. They beheaded the hostages and made snuff videos of the executions to intimidate people.
The reality is that political terrorism never truly went away and the threat has persisted. Every execution of American (or any) hostages is ultimately a political act, but these executions did not come with policy demands, did not involve a ticking clock or ransom money, and they were not prolonged events that took place in front of the media, as did aircraft hijackings and the Iran hostage crisis. Nonetheless, Americans being taken hostage for whatever purpose is a profound asymmetrical threat to the United States, and in order to combat it the units that make up JSOC conduct extensive training as well as performing actual hostage rescue operations throughout the Global War on Terror. The failed mission to rescue James Foley is the most recent example.
Dalton Fury provides a fictional example in his novel Black Site, where captured Delta Force operators are held hostage by Al Qaeda in Pakistan. The hostages are moved around to deter the CIA’s drone strike program; in essence, the American prisoners are used as human shields in a manner that manipulates how the CIA assassinates Al Qaeda leaders. With the release of pictures, we know that Bowe Bergdahl was, at least for a short time, with Badruddin Haqqani, senior commander of the Haqqani network, an insurgency group in Afghanistan with ties to Al Qaeda. Was Bergdahl used in the manner that Fury describes in his fiction? There is no way to know, but the opportunity to manipulate American foreign policy and military force is always present. What we can be certain of is that in our negotiations to recover Bergdahl, the United States must have sacrificed significant political capital in order to secure his release.
ISIS’s horrifying execution videos clearly demonstrate that ISIS is using American hostages differently from Al Qaeda, ISI, AQI, and a number of other groups. Unlike religious terrorism, which uses vicious executions to intimidate overseas Muslims and Americans alike, ISIS is attempting to use them as political leverage. If this continues over the long term, which we expect, it will create a political and military crisis for the United States, as well as for other countries whose citizens are murdered.
As the beheadings continue, the U.S. government will only be further humiliated and the situation is about to get even uglier. One of the other Americans reported to us held by ISIS is a young female aid worker who has not been publicly named.
What does this mean for America, in particular the Special Operations community, when and if we go to war with ISIS? Our two units prepared for hostage rescues in denied environments, SEAL Team 6 and Delta Force, won’t be hurting for work even as our war in Afghanistan dwindles and eventually ends.
Postwar Considerations
America often laments its own short attention span and comments on how our postgame follow-up is woefully deficient. After we withdrew from South Vietnam, the Communists took over. After we shut down our covert operations in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the country descended into chaos and eventually the Taliban took control. After we withdrew from Iraq, the Maliki government’s ineptness and corruption practically handed much of the country to ISIS on a silver platter.
Before embarking on any new military adventure, the U.S. government needs to devote at least as much time planning for the postwar environment as they do for the war itself. This is the lesson we should have learned a long time ago, but instead we keep repeating the same mistakes. Military planners, the CIA, the State Department, and other agencies need to ask themselves not only what postwar Iraq and Syria will look like but also what they would like them to look like. A new way of thinking and a definitive approach are needed.
Players whom we want running these countries should be moved around the chessboard before, during, and after the military campaign. Humanitarian aid should be planned and budgeted for, because ISIS has wreaked havoc upon the regions under its control. The U.S. government also needs to consider the wider geopolitical picture. If we go in and smash ISIS, what power structures will fill the vacuum? The Assad regime? The Iranian Revolutionary Guards? The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)? If we want to avoid Gulf War 4 ten or twenty years down the line, than we need to ensure that reasonable, rational people with actual political experience fill the void left in our wake.
One of the postwar issues that will not go away is the movement toward Kurdish independence from Iraq. Kurdish nationalism has its roots in the Ottoman Empire, and has been gaining strength for more than a century. The government of Iraq has proved itself ineffective and unviable. As hard as America tried to hold Iraq together as an actual state, the reality is that it isn’t a state but rather a collection of tribes and sects that are at each other’s throats. Considering the fact that Kurdistan is, and will be, a great ally in a volatile region, we should consider abandoning the fictional nation of Iraq as it currently exists and work with the Kurds to prepare them for their independence and entry into the United Nations.
Kurdistan (Le Monde Diplomatique)
Although difficult to achieve, the United States should also consider brokering a historic alliance between the Yezidi minority group in northwest Iraq with the Kurds and the ethnic Turkmen in the north. This would go a long way toward achieving stability in this region.
Along with this issue, we must also consider the postwar role of the PKK. Listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department, the Kurdish Workers’ Party has secured a great deal of legitimacy through its active and fierce opposition to ISIS throughout Iraq and Syria. It has fought the enemy tooth and nail, and in once instance, three fighters who were out of ammunition even launched a suicide attack against ISIS tanks, blowing up the tanks along with themselves in the process.
The problem is that the PKK does not see only ISIS as its e
nemy. With war fighting as its source of credibility, it also wants to fight the Assad regime, the government of Kurdistan, the Turkish government and, it seems, nearly anyone else who is not a party member. This will cause serious problems in a postwar Iraq. Bringing the PKK into the political mainstream and incorporating it into the Kurdish government will be difficult if not impossible. Lines of communication should be opened between the U.S. government and the PKK sooner rather than later. Its members may have conducted terrorist attacks in Turkey, but they are political actors, not irrational jihadists, so there may be an opportunity for reconciliation sometime in the future.
The government of Iraq is a mess. One of the biggest contributing factors to the spread of ISIS in Iraq is the ineptitude of the Iraqi government. Every three Iraqis seem to have their own political party, the government in ineffective and corrupt, and has no legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqi people, or in the eyes of the world. Iraqi military forces that were fighting ISIS did not all retreat as they did in Mosul. In fact, many stood their ground until the bitter end. But with the corrupt government failing to provide its own troops with food, water, gasoline, and bullets, they could hold out for only so long.
Frankly, considering the mess that the GOI has created, even a CIA-installed puppet government seems preferable.
Another wild card in all of this is Iran. Will Iran and its proxies sweep in to take advantage of American success against ISIS and fill the power vacuum? Will Iran help ISIS kill American soldiers as they did during previous deployments of U.S. forces to Iraq? What will be Iran’s disposition via its proxies such as Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon after the war is over? This are questions that the Pentagon and the CIA should be seeking to answer now, not the day after the war against ISIS is won.
With that, the United States must also consider what ISIS survivors will do after the war, as well as other Islamist groups. A strategic defeat of ISIS is not a death blow for radical Islam, and there is no reason for us to be surprised if (or, more likely, when) ISIS reemerges in some form or another Islamist group takes center stage and begins conducting terrorist attacks against whatever government or governments are put into place in the liberated regions. This is the same conundrum U.S. forces faced after the “liberation” of Iraq in 2003. This time around, it is critical that we do not repeat the same mistake. America must have a plan for a post-ISIS Iraq and Syria in order to consolidate gains.
Chapter 5. Our Conclusion
ISIS will be defeated by the United States and a multinational coalition. In a worst-case scenario, the Obama administration will stall as long as possible and pass the buck on to the next administration. However, it seems highly unlikely that he will be able to do so, and he is already giving way to the inevitability of America’s need to address the crisis unfolding in Syria and Iraq. More than likely we will be looking at a radically different situation by early 2015, including an overt U.S. military force deployed against ISIS.
Even after ISIS is removed, America will be facing a larger and more difficult problem. Despite our aversion to nation building, and despite our distaste for yet another war in Iraq, the Middle East is a region of the world that the United States has not been able to extricate itself from. Whatever our political views, our military continues to be deployed to this part of the world to fight the battles for American interests.
Because of this, we need to change from short-term reactions and start thinking about long-term strategies. How can we build strong partnerships and an aligned view of the future in the region? Military action has never and will never be enough. Many Americans throw their hands up in the air when discussing the Middle East and suggest that we should just use nuclear weapons turn it into a glass parking lot. Veterans understand where this frustration comes from, but it is just that, frustration, which leads nowhere and is not a realistic policy option.
We might not like the idea of nation building, yet we keep finding ourselves caught up in costly entanglements in the Middle East. Unless we want to fight Gulf Wars 4, 5, and 6, we need to reassess our current approach.
The aftermath of our war against ISIS will leave in its wake a massive humanitarian crisis and a power vacuum that will be ripe for other bad actors in the region to fill if we don’t recognize this now and prepare for it. The long-term solution to ensure that America does not have to continue fighting these wars is a massive economic program rivaling FDR’s New Deal.
Iraq and Syria will need education programs, schools built, and job training. Constructing and staffing these education centers is something that a Western coalition can help with. These education centers will also help counter the propaganda of radical Islam. Graduates of these programs will also need jobs.
Refugees (United Nations)
America and our partners can bring in experts and employ Iraqis to modernize the country’s electrical network, build power plants, construct modern sewage and water systems and desalination plants, and introduce modern agricultural techniques to farmers. The entire economies of Syria and Iraq will have to be overhauled, modernized, and turned into market-driven systems that actually serve their citizens, instead of autocracies that fill the pockets of the rich, politically connected, and corrupt.
The U.S. military, State Department, USAID, and non-governmental organizations will have to partner with the Iraqi people to create a true counterinsurgency campaign, one that not only kills the enemies but also prevents them from having any credibility in the first place. This new campaign will actually siphon away the sources of power, which radical Islam draws from as people begin to see alternatives.
This has been the trap that many Middle Eastern nations have been stuck in since the 1960s. Communism was a failed system, and it failed the Middle East horribly. Without plausible alternatives to communism, the Middle East has been left to stagnate. The human wreckage left in the wake of this disaster has turned radical Islam into a populist movement. The defeat of ISIS will open new venues of opportunity for America, but only if we take an active role in thinking about and designing what the future looks like.
In other words, our victory against ISIS will be another chance to get it right. We can reverse the polarities of terror, but it will be harder than simply defeating a terrorist organization. The old power structures of the Middle East will resist the changes that would sweep in with a U.S.-led economic reform program. The elites of these nations will resent having their power base undermined as the regular men and women are empowered and given their fair shot at having a future.
It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. America’s foreign policy in the Middle East has been inconsistent and schizophrenic for decades. However painful it will be to engage in nation building, the alternatives are far worse. This is our opportunity to reverse the polarities of war and change the Middle East forever.
The following is an excerpt from The Tree of Knowledge. The book is enlightening and powerful.
A story is told of an island somewhere and its inhabitants. The people longed to move to another land where they could have a healthier and better life. The problem was that the practical arts of swimming and sailing had never been developed—or may have been lost long before. For that reason, there were some people who simply refused to think of alternatives to life on the island, whereas others intended to seek a solution to their problems locally, without any thought of crossing the waters [the current state of thinking in America—authors]. From time to time, some islanders reinvented the arts of swimming and sailing. Also from time to time a student would come up to them, and the following exchange would take place:
“I want to swim to another land.”
“For that you have to learn how to swim. Are you ready to learn?”
“Yes, but I want to take with me my ton of cabbages.”
“What cabbages?”
“The food I’ll need on the other side or wherever it is.”
“But what
if there’s food on the other side?”
“I don’t know what you mean. I’m not sure. I have to bring my cabbages with me.”
“But you won’t be able to swim with a ton of cabbages. It’s too much weight.”
“Then I can’t learn how to swim. You call my cabbages weight. I call them my basic food.”
“Suppose this were an allegory and, instead of talking about cabbages we talked about fixed ideas, presuppositions, or certainties?”
“Humm … I’m going to bring my cabbages to someone who understands my needs.”57
Suppose we think about our traditional ideas surrounding American culture and religion as our own “cabbages” that prevent us from new thinking toward the situation in the Middle East. How do we cast off fixed ideas and engage in new thought? Once upon a time, it was unpopular to believe that Earth was round and revolved around the sun; in fact, the church could jail you for thinking this. We would be smart to remember this when thinking about how to deal with the problems of radicalism in the world today—and tomorrow.
Historically, Americans have largely been optimistic in our approach to problems and our shared cultural perspective of the world. As Peter Theil explains in Zero to One, we have shifted away from definite optimism (a definitive and positive view of things) toward something far more destructive, an indefinite view of the world. Social masses in America have become largely uncertain of the future, and many hold false hope that someone else will come along to fix it. As Peter Theil puts it, “We have to find our way back to a definite future, and the Western world needs nothing short of a cultural revolution to do it.”
