US policy towards the Islamic State after its seizure of Ramadi and Palmyra

Testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa

AEI, by Michael Rubin, June 3, 2015:

Chairman Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member Deutch, Honorable Members. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on an issue so important to U.S. national security.

On September 10, 2014, against the backdrop of the Islamic State (ISIL, ISIS, Daesh)’s murder of American journalists, President Barack Obama addressed the nation. “Our objective is clear,” he declared, “We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy.”

Recent Islamic State victories in Ramadi, the capital of the al-Anbar province, and in Palmyra, a central Syria town straddling strategic crossroads and home to ancient ruins, show that almost nine months later, the U.S. objective is not on track to being met. Talk of an offensive against Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, common just a few weeks ago, now seems fantastic. Indeed, it seems more likely that the Islamic State will move this summer against Kirkuk, an oil-rich and multi-ethnic city in northern Iraq or try to strike at pilgrims or shrines in the Shi’ite holy city of Karbala, than retreat from Iraq as American policymakers hoped just a few weeks ago.

Clearly, the President’s stated strategy is not working. Questions to consider are why, and what policies could strengthen the fight against the Islamic State.

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A Strategy Based on False Assumptions

First, the theories upon which the White House bases its fight against the Islamic State and other militant Islamist groups are often wrong. False assumption lead to ineffective strategies. In his September 10 address, Obama declared, “Now let’s make two things clear:  ISIL is not ‘Islamic.’  No religion condones the killing of innocents.  And the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim.  And ISIL is certainly not a state.”[1] Secretary of State John Kerry likewise opined that the Islamic State is neither “a state nor truly Islamic.”[2] Both the president and the secretary may seek to deny the religious basis of the Islamic State so as to avoid antagonizing Muslims, but their concern is misplaced and counterproductive. The religious exegesis underpinning the Islamic State’s actions is both real and legitimate, even if it is a minority interpretation which many Muslims eschew. To deny the religious basis for the Islamic State is to ignore the battle of interpretation which underpins Islamic State actions and more moderate Muslims’ efforts to counter such extremism. It is not the place nor is it helpful for any American president, secretary, or diplomat to serve as an arbiter of what true Islam is or is not. For the sake of setting American policy, we must take our adversaries at the word.

Second, the United States wastes time debating terminology. Lt. Gen. James Terry, commander of Combined Joint Task Force- Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S. mission to defeat the Islamic State, declared, “Our partners, at least the ones that I work with, ask us to use [the Arabic acronym Daesh], because they feel that if you use ISIL, that you legitimize a self-declared caliphate.”[3] Put aside that Daesh is simply the Arabic acronym for al-Dawla al-Islamiya al-Iraq al-Sham, literally the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.” There is conceit in such concern. No militant Islamist considers the United States an arbiter of their religion. Debate about what to call the Islamic State does not advance victory. Rather, it is a distraction, one that costs lives by substituting political correctness for progress and bureaucratic machination for battlefield success.

Third, the White House and State Department continue to interpret the rise of the Islamic State through the lens of grievance. With regard to the Islamic State, a center pillar of U.S. policy has been to pressure Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s government to provide Iraq’s Sunni community with greater concessions and power. This may be comforting to diplomats, because if grievance rather than ideology motivates terrorists, then diplomacy can resolve such grievances. But if the reason for the Islamic State’s existence is perceived injustice in Baghdad, then why has the Islamic State spread so rapidly outside of Iraq in Libya, the Sinai Peninsula, and perhaps Yemen as well? Scapegoating former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki or his successor for the current instability suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of what motivates the Islamic State.

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