Understanding that the terrorist attack in Paris is a taunt purposely administered to foster mindless retaliatory action that results in, from the book ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror by Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, “another tactical victory rendered strategically negligible” will go a long way in dealing with the jihadi rebellion. Rather than play along with Al Qaeda’s The Management of Savagery manual to weaken enemy states through “vexation and exhaustion” the western democracies must counter with tension deflating tactics toward a goal to pacify the region.
Daesh, The Islamic State, wants to establish a severe Sunni Caliphate. Its strategy is to develop a state that governs and expands its domain with fear fomenting tactics to dominate and expand its territory. Terror is the tactic used to goad us to mindlessly react and feed the recruiting, fundraising and propagandizing efforts of the caliphate. Because they choose chaos as a weapon then we, The Allies, must counter with order so as not to inflame the region. Because diplomacy at its best seeks to reduce tensions and bring about order the Department of State needs to lead the American participation with holistic rather than just military solutions.
Extremist exist everywhere but in a region of political dysfunction Daesh has coalesced from various elements to flourish. This fight against a renegade state in the making is one for diplomacy to identify, nurture and even create functioning political unions that deliver a modicum of effective governance to fill the vacuums. Justice is a particularly hard good to deliver in federal systems where family, tribe and clan are the primary social ties. The first tension reducing tactic is to embrace a “Balkan-style partition and new regional political order” as mentioned by Ali Khedery in a Foreign Affairs article “Iraq in Pieces: Breaking up to Stay together” to administer primarily at a tribal elder level. To insist on a federal Iraq and Syria that supercede local autonomy is to argue for gross injustice that foments the dysfunction that nurtures Daesh.
For example accepting a fractured Syria would allow for a policy to contain Assad in his Alawite enclave by the sea rather than seek his ouster and leave a political vacuum. Secretary of State John Kerry’s current negotiations in Vienna to formulate from the top a peace accord in Syria which eliminates Assad without delivering a viable political union to govern is a certain disaster similar to George W. Bush’s unilateral intervention in Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein. Containing Assad could be negotiated with Russia and Iran so that his regime is protected as long it does not lash out into Sunni Arab territories where allied air operations will shoot down his barrel bombing helicopters.
Accepting a balkanized Iraq and Syria will assist the nation forming efforts of the Kurds in northeastern Iraq and Syria by giving them full unhindered access to their oil revenues. The current distribution through Baghdad dissipates with corruption the efficient delivery of this public good. That Kurdistan Iraq manages peaceful relations with Iran at its eastern border despite their being Sunni Muslims is an example of moderation deserving our support for their nationhood.
Baghdad and the south of Iraq can use its locally sourced oil revenues to fund and administer the Shia nation they desire. Without the pressure to distribute oil revenues to Sunni Arabs to their west they have little incentive to expand into the oil poor and hated regions occupied by Daesh.
With Shia enclaves to the east and west and Kurdistan to the north the Allies isolate the vexing Sunni Arab cauldron. According to Weiss and Hassan Daesh recognizes a need for and provides rudimentary governance to the people over which they reign. It can be argued what they provide is materially better than the dysfunction they replace and has some grudging local acceptance. If only Daesh were to drop its quest for a caliphate then the Allies could stand down. Unfortunately terrorism is an addiction and it requires military containment and degradation, but not conquest, while a moderate Sunni state forms to replace it; possibly along the southeast border adjacent to Jordan in the Syrian refugee camps.
Conquest without a capable political union to follow was the folly of our unilateral Iraqi invasion of 2003. The recent retaking of Kurdish cities in Iraq and Syria come from a strong political union among Kurds but it is not an imperial force willing to take the fight to Sunni Arab regions. Conquering Daesh requires time and generous funding to develop a moderate Sunni utopia. Enough to attract Syrian Sunni Arabs from regions controlled by Daesh and northern Europe as well. Jordan, also generously funded, would assist the Syrian refugees into southeastern Syria in sufficient numbers to form self governed city states protected by Jordan’s troops and allied air power. The success of this nascent state forming strategy would have the ancillary benefit of deflating Daesh’s jihadi fervor.
The pacifying course outlined above will be needed in other regions as well. Libya, for example, is on the brink of fracturing among its various tribes and oil rich regions. Tunisia, an island of decency that also needs nurture and protection, will provide safe haven for those fleeing the chaos next door and possibly help establish the stable political unions needed to re-enter Libya. Also it’s best to withdraw immediately our alliance with Egypt’s military dictatorship. This boil needs piercing now because it is not a building block for a stable future order in the region. Jihadi rebellion is the challenge of our era. Countering it requires a revision in outlook that tempers the conceit of American exceptionalism and accepts that good governance is to deliver the maximum public good for the least cost. It's a nonjudgmental observation which should be practiced here at home and promoted abroad.
