My Blog Space News: The five issues to define the Islamic State war

By Bob Bowker Tuesday 16 September 2014

Photo: Only Arabs can reboot Arab values and the institutions from which the horrors of IS have emerged. (Reuters: Stringer)
It is fitting for Australia to be part of a global effort to battle the Islamic State, but the outcome will depend primarily upon regional actors and five key considerations, writes Bob Bowker.
The deployment of Australian forces to the United Arab Emirates in preparation for use in the campaign against the Islamic State (IS) is justified by the gravity of the threat posed by IS to Australian interests, both security and strategic, and the values we support globally.
There is, however, a need for caution and realism in thinking about the objectives we are seeking to achieve.
For all the concerns we may share with regional countries and allies about the Islamic State, it remains a problem that is situated within the historical, political, social and strategic context of the Persian Gulf.
President Barack Obama has committed the power and prestige of the United States to achieving success in the conflict. That is not to be taken lightly. But the outcome will depend primarily upon the choices, capabilities and political leaderships of regional actors.
There are at least five issues that deserve to be recognised in that regard:

Iran is still a sore point

First, Arab governments in the immediate region of Iraq are concerned that IS should not be allowed to pose a genuine threat to their territory or their sovereignty. There is widespread revulsion at its cruelty - and a shared sense of shame across the Muslim world at its damage to the image of Islam and Muslims.
However, such concerns about IS remain of less importance in most Arab capitals than the determination to prevail in a decades-long contest against Iran, and within that context, to see the removal of the Assad regime in Syria. Consequently, we shall see continuing concern on the part of major Arab states to extract the maximum value from the United States in support of their particular agendas and priorities, especially in Syria.
There will be less enthusiasm for Western approaches that accept, tacitly or otherwise, the fact that Iran will need to be part of any durable solution to the IS challenge.

Suspicion of the West

Second, although their interests are arguably better served by taking a more robust and supportive attitude to the US commitment, Arab governments will be keen to minimise their part in a Western-led intervention against IS.
There is too little mutual respect at either government or popular levels between Arab capitals and Washington since 2001, and too little confidence in estimates of the ultimate outcome, especially where the Iranians are concerned, for Arab leaderships and popular audiences to have an appetite for open engagement of Arab military forces in such a conflict.
Reasonably discreet basing, training, certain special forces operations and intelligence sharing, and some aerial support to Western operations look increasingly likely; but no Arab leader would be willing to fight openly alongside Western forces on the soil of another Arab country when the ultimate beneficiary, in their estimation, would most likely be an Iraqi government beholden to Iran or the United States.
The reasons behind such thinking on the Arab side are simultaneously complex and naïve, calculating, contradictory and emotional.
But above all, they speak to three key themes: an Arab sense of being, for too long, on the receiving end of external agendas in an unequal and mostly conflictual relationship with the Western powers; resentment at being corralled into another US-led effort whose success (in American minds at least) ultimately hinges on addressing deficits of political and social empowerment - notions that make more sense in Washington and among a handful of secular reformist Arab intellectuals than in Arab leadership circles; and a deep sense of insecurity when Arab leaderships contemplate the potential consequences of a resurgent Iran.

Sectarian politics at play

Third, the instrumentalisation of sectarian differences for political purposes within Iraq (as elsewhere in the region) over the past decade means that a genuine rebalancing of political power within Iraq to bring the Sunnis on board against IS will be very difficult.
With US air support and a range of force enablers available to the Iraqi government, the risk of military defeat for the Shiah has lessened. Unfortunately, so too has the incentive in Baghdad to press forward with painful reversals of the disastrous policies of the Maliki government, and to bring about a balanced representation of competent Sunni figures within the military and security services.
The incoming government of prime minister Haidar al-Abadi is no more balanced in its representation of Sunnis than its predecessor. Washington will continue efforts to correct that situation: but the larger problems - giving effect to policies likely to achieve a genuine sense among Sunnis that their interests are being taken into account; containing Kurdish expectations on the possibility of independence; and building up local and national forces while dealing with the mutual mistrust among the players as the IS military threat recedes - will be ongoing challenges.
For its part, IS can be expected to modify its tactics in Iraq to counter US firepower by increasing its asymmetric use of bombings and the targeting of government officials and sympathisers. It is crushing any signs of dissent in areas it controls.
It will hope, in time, to exploit frictions between Kurds and Sunnis and the indiscipline of Shiah militias to retain some degree of Sunni acceptance, perhaps even support, while consolidating its coercive grip on urban environments including Mosul and Tikrit.
Social media will portray damage to civilians and civilian infrastructure as a deliberate targeting of Sunnis by the regime and the United States and its allies.

IS has strategic depth in eastern Syria

Fourth, at least until an agreed Western, Arab and Iranian strategy for dealing with Syria emerges, IS has the strategic depth of eastern Syria at its disposal. The Assad regime has shown it can remain cohesive. It has adapted to the demands of urban warfare, and can fight on several fronts simultaneously. But its main focus has been on reversing the initial gains of non-IS forces in key urban centres and countering the threat to the Alawite heartland, rather than on confronting threats in the east.
IS has consolidated much of its terrain at the expense of other jihadist forces, but it has also shown the ability to concentrate its forces to isolate and overwhelm key regime assets in Raqqa province. It appears unlikely the regime could reassert control over those points it has lost in the east, especially if its last remaining air base there (at Deir ez-Zor) were to fall into IS hands.

Iran still holds a lot of cards

Fifth, and finally, for many years to come Iran will have the largest degree of influence of any external player in regard to the future of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon because, unlike its Arab counterparts and Turkey, it has genuine strategic interests engaged in each of those countries that it is better placed and more determined to defend than any other actor.
It faces complex challenges as well - the politics among the Iraqi Shiah and their views of Iran are exceedingly complicated; it has larger interests at stake in its dealings with the United States than the threat from IS; its policy processes involve multiple competing actors and agendas, and it has resource constraints. But no durable solution will be found to the IS threat, in Iraq or in Syria, unless the Iranians assess it to be to their strategic advantage.
Against that background, we can hope to find IS on the defensive, at least in Iraq, as the military campaign against it gathers momentum in coming months. But it would appear unlikely to be finally defeated in the foreseeable future in the absence of an Iraqi government that is supported by Iran but that can also command the respect, if not the loyalty of Iraqi Sunnis; with the IS urban foothold only at risk if the Iraqi government can put together a force to oppose it in which Sunnis, rather than Shiah militias, are strongly represented; with the Abadi government tempted to choose the expedient option of relying on Shiah militias and Iranian support rather than rebuilding and broadening its political base; and with eastern Syria providing strategic depth to IS forces.
That is not to argue against an Australian commitment to the struggle against IS. It is fitting for Australia to be part of a global effort to address the challenges ahead for the region, so long as we remember that our military contribution needs to be seen as a part of a wider struggle, necessarily within the region itself, to address the issues that have brought us to this point.
It is not a risk-free strategy for Australia and Australians. But the problems outlined above are formidable, not impossible, and problems in the Middle East tend to grow more complex and intractable the longer they are allowed to drift.
Only Arabs can reboot Arab values and the institutions from which the horrors of IS have emerged. Supporting such a process will have its full share of trade-offs, moral ambiguities and unintended consequences, but we can help bring relief to populations that deserve better futures than the barbarity of IS rule.
Bob Bowker is Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Arab & Islamic Studies, Australian National University. He was Australia's ambassador to Syria, 2005 to 2008. View his full profile here.