ISIL, Syrian Civil War & Iraqi Civil War - the Case for Active US Leadership

I. Introduction

Problem Defined

Something has been brewing in the Middle East for a long time.  Out comes ISIL, taking over Syrian and Iraqi territory with the aim of establishing a 7th-century style Islamic "caliphate".  Beheading, sex slavery, oppression, intolerance, genocide in the Middle East. Terrorist attacks across the world, including Paris, Brussels, Istanbul, Beirut, Orlando, and elsewhere.  Caliphate affiliates established in Libya, Sinai, Yemen, Algeria, and elsewhere. How was ISIL able to accumulate power within the contexts of the Syrian and Iraqi civil wars? How to understand the problem and what should be done about it?

Thesis

To defeat ISIL and prevent the rise of such groups requires addressing not only the ISIL caliphate but also the Syrian and Iraqi civil wars which facilitated its rise.  None of these problems can be solved in isolation. Addressing one in a way that lasts requires addressing the others as well.

Only the United States can provide the kind of leadership that will make a decisive difference.  More specifically, the United States should:

1. Work with allies on the ground to militarily eliminate the ISIL caliphate.
2. Lead military and diplomatic efforts with allies to make a decisive push to resolve the Syrian civil war and to help Iraq make a new political fresh start in a way that addresses the civil conflicts and prevents the rise of ISIL in the future.

About This Piece

This is piece is based on open source research and should be considered as an educated opinion.  As well, please keep in mind that this piece was written in the summer of 2016, prior to Russia’s peak involvement in the Syrian Civil War that changed the nature of the conflict and other secondary-effect considerations.

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II. Understanding the Problem

ISIL: Symptom of a Larger Problem

Global Threat

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), is an extremist jihadist group that controls and administers a large contiguous portion of Syrian and Iraqi territory about the size of Pennsylvania.  It terms its area of control a Caliphate, which is the historical term used for Islamic empires in which the head of state is both a civilian and religious authority. It's basically all bad news in terms of how it treats people under its control, its destabilizing influence on Syria and Iraq, and the threat it poses to the region and the wider world.  It has been able to setup affiliates, inspire jihadism, and cause mayhem in Syria, Iraq, the broader Middle East region, and across the globe including France, Turkey, Belgium, Lebanon, Libya, Bangladesh, Russia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, the United States, and many other countries.

Terminology

Due to expanding its area of operation and taking PR seriously, ISIL has undergone several name changes, including:

• ISI: Islamic State in Iraq
• ISIS: Islamic State in Iraq and Syria
• ISIL: Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
• IS: Islamic State (the current ISIL-preferred name which conveys not being bound by any geography)
• Daesh: the derogatory term used by Arab-speaking detractors

For the sake of simplicity and consistency, in this piece we'll use the name ISIL, which is the most widely used term within the popular media and official communication materials.

Caliphate

ISIL aims to recreate a 7th century caliphate in the 21st century.

• Intolerance.  Intolerance of anyone who is not a Sunni Muslim that adheres to strict code of behavior, including ethnic cleansing of Christians, Yazidis, non-compliant Sunni tribes and anyone else who challenges their authority.
• Brutality.  Seeks to have North Korea-type of control over people's bodies and minds with punishments that include beheadings and throwing into acid pools.
• State Administration.  It's more than a terrorist outfit; it's a full on nation-state that doesn't recognize the authority of international organizations like the United Nations.
  • Schools.  Administers schools where little is taught other than religious indoctrination and students are groomed to fight for it.  
  • Justice System.  Maintains courts whose basis of law is an extreme interpretation of Sharia.
  • Public Services.  Maintains a system of public services that includes garbage collection, salaried state employees, maintaining civil records, etc.
  • Raises Revenue.  Collects revenue from various sources including taxes, racketeering, smuggling, kidnapping ransoms, and proceeds from energy extraction industry that came with seized territory.

Origins

• Post-Saddam Iraqi Insurgency.  Has roots in Al-Qaida affiliated jihadist Iraqi insurgency led by al-Zarqawi starting in 2003, which had several names including Al-Qaida in Iraq.
• Almost Defeated.  Was almost wiped out by the US-led "New Way Forward" or "The Surge" in 2007 which was a change in strategy led by General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker that relied on a comprehensive military-civilian effort to isolate non-reconcilable jihadists from the rest of the population via the Sunni Awakening (aka Sons of Iraq) programs and create the space for a political reconciliation in Iraq using both military and diplomatic means.  
• Resurrection.  Reconstituted itself in Iraq after US forces left in 2011 having failed to agree with Iraqi government on a Status of Forces agreement, and largely due to Iranian pressure on Iraq to have the Americans leave combined with the Obama administration’s reluctance to stay anyway.
• Iraqi Sectarianism and Maliki Rule.  Fed on the alienation felt by Sunni population in Iraq from Shia-led sectarian government under the rule of President Maliki.  His authoritarian methods, Iraqi weak and corrupt state institutions, and Iranian foreign influence, all contributed to the Iraqi social fabric to further sort itself by ethnicity and religion.  Rarely is such sorting out conducive to national cohesion. In turn, the ethnic and religious tensions aided Al-Qaida’s goals because it weakened Iraqi institutional ability to fight it and the tribal conflicts exacerbated the religious fervor on which extremist organizations like Al-Qaida feed on for relevance and recruitment.
• Syrian Civil War.  After Syria degenerated into civil war its Sunni areas, which were adjacent to Iraqi Sunni areas, faced a power vacuum which provided an opportunity for Al-Qaida to extend its area of jihadist operations.
• Decision Time.  Once they were operating in both Iraq and Syria, choices needed to be made.
  • Choices
    • Caliphate State vs Underground Network.  Should they establish a caliphate state, with all the implied functions of state administration and provisioning of public services, or continue working as an underground terror network?
    • Single Effort Spanning Syria and Iraq vs Separate Effort For Each.  Continue operating as a single effort spanning both Syria and Iraq, or follow the traditional model of other Al-Qaida affiliates, like Al-Qaida in Yemen or Al-Qaida in India, by keeping the operations regional such that Al-Qaida In Iraq would be separate effort from Al Qaida In Syria?
  • Al-Qaida Central chief, al-Zawahiri, preferred the traditional approach
    • Separate.  Formal separation between Al-Qaida In Iraq to be led by al-Baghdadi from Al-Qaida In Syria to be led by al-Golani.
    • No Caliphate.  Both movements to continue as underground terror network.
    • Subordination.  Both movements to continue as subordinate to Al-Qaida Central led by al-Zawahiri himself
  • Conflict.  Al-Golani was in agreement with al-Zawahiri, but al-Baghdadi was not.
• Split From Al-Qaida
  • ISIL Caliphate.  Al-Baghdadi, against al-Zawahiri's wishes, splits with his supporters from Al-Qaida and establishes the caliphate that spans both Syria and Iraq that will eventually be known as ISIL.
  • Jabhat Al-Nusra.  Al-Golani continues Al-Qaida operations in Syria against the secular Assad regime, while subordinate to al-Zawahiri and Al-Qaida Central, under the name Jabhat Al-Nusra, which translates to The Nusra Front.
  • Reasons for Split
    • Short-Term Vision Differences
      • Al-Qaida's Position
        • Popular Revolt.  Although there is no disagreement about the long term vision of global Islamic rule, establishing the caliphate now is counterproductive because it will alienate the population under control who are not used to living under strict Islamic rules.
        • Easy To Attack.  An above ground operation like a caliphate will be easier to attack by enemies, be they Assad's regime, non-jihadist rebels, Kurds, Iraqi national army, or an international coalition.
      • ISIL's Position: Caliphate Now.  If the opportunity to establish a caliphate arises, then it should be taken in all its jihadist glory regardless of risks.
    • Competition For Global Jihad Leadership.  Establishing a caliphate would be a PR coup for ISIL and would give al-Baghdadi the opportunity to become the new leader of the global jihad movement.
    • Personality Conflict and Internal Politics.  Al-Zawahiri and al-Baghdadi had a history of disputes, so when the opportunity came up to be independent from Al-Qaida, al-Baghdadi took it.

Power Accumulation

How did ISIL accumulate so much power?

• Weak State Institutions.  Took advantage of inept and corrupt Iraqi state institutions.
• Sectarianism.  Took advantage of sectarian tensions in Iraq by using the disaffected Sunni community as a base of operations.
• Alliance With Baathists.  Incorporated former Baathists into its own ranks, especially those that had experience in military, intelligence and mass repression tactics, even though many Baathists weren’t overtly religious.
• Strategy Combined With Fanaticism.  Used both military strategy combined with suicidal fanaticism to deadly effect on the battlefield.
• PR.  Used slick messaging and spiritual appeal to recruit members from local communities and abroad to serve as fighters or to help administer the caliphate.

Long Term Goal: Turn the Whole World Into A Giant Caliphate

• No Recognition for International Norms.  International rules, agreements, or institutions like the United Nations that were not sanctioned by the caliphate are not recognized.
• No Recognition for National Borders.  The border between Syria and Iraq is already not heeded, and neither will any other border that ISIL is able to take over.
• Salafi Islam Imposed on the World.  Fundamentalist Sunni Islam is the only allowed religion, culture and way of life.  People of other cultures and religions are subject to intimidation, extortion, or death.

Context

• Feeds on Instability.  Besides being aided by sympathetic jihadist movements around the world, ISIL’s existence is also facilitated by 2 related conflicts:
  • Syrian civil war
  • Iraqi civil war
• Draining the Swamp.  If Syria and Iraq were stable nation states, there would be no opportunity for the ISIL caliphate to exist in Syria and Iraq. Therefore, to further understand the context within which ISIL operates and what can and should be done about it requires understanding those 2 conflicts, which leads us to the next section.

How to think about the Syrian Civil War?

Bottom-Up Rebellion

• Began As Secular/Moderate Arab Spring Civilian Uprising.  What started as street protests by Syrian civilians in 2011 that were inspired by the wider Arab Spring movement, morphed into an armed rebellion after the Assad regime's brutal crackdown.
• Islamist Influence After Two Years.  
  • Foreign Support.  Outside backers originally supported the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (National Coalition or NC).  After two years of failing to topple the Assad regime, they spread their support to also include Islamist factions, who at times competed with the moderate FSA factions for influence in the anti-Assad efforts.
  • ISIL.  Although ISIL had roots in Iraqi Sunni regions, it spread into the Syrian theater once the Syrian civil war was under way for some time and its Sunni regions became more amenable to ISIL influence.
• Mostly Secular/Moderate Rebellion.  Taking into account the factions that are moderate and amenable to US support compared to non-ISIL jihadist, the anti-Assad rebellion continues to be more moderate than Islamist in the aggregate.  (Note: this piece was written in the summer of 2016).

Factions

Anti-Assad Opposition

• Goal: topple the Assad regime and make Syria more responsive to its people
• Main Enemy: Assad Regime
• Military Defectors.  When the crackdown on protesters began, many army and security personnel who weren't willing to be brutal to their own citizens defected to the opposition, eventually forming the Free Syrian Army (FSA) -- a loose coalition of rebel partisan formations under the nominal coordination of a military council based in Turkey led by high-level military defectors.  The FSA is a loose coalition of rebel brigades, and as the war went on various rebel brigades joined, left and rejoined under the FSA umbrella depending on events on the ground.
• Political Opposition In Exile.  Once the fighting was in full swing, a political opposition coalesced around a group of people that included exiled personalities, intellectuals, business elites that ran afoul of the regime, and regime politicians that defected to the opposition, eventually forming the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (National Coalition or NC).
• Highly Motivated, But Lack Coordination And Support.  Rebels are highly motivated, but are often hampered by lack of supplies, money, equipment, intelligence and ability to coordinate beyond the immediate battle fronts.  This messiness is due to:
  • Bottom-Up Nature of Rebellion.  The anti-Assad effort didn't commence as a coup or intrigue by a small number of players who planned their actions in advance, but was the rejection of the regime by a large part of the country's population in many places at once.
  • Opposition Leadership Formation Was a Response to, Not Driver of, the Rebellion.  The political opposition is a plural collection of anti-Assad actors who, despite being rather modern, democratic and inclusive in sensibilities, nevertheless have challenges coordinating their efforts.  They were not a single unified group, but came together after the rebellion was already under way. There have been changes in leadership of both the FSA and NC during the multi-year conflict as the nature of the situation on the ground unfolded.
  • Geographical Distance Between Leadership And Front Lines.  The FSA and NC are a leadership-in-exile as opposed to being present on the front lines which, given shortages of fighting materiel, presents challenges to leading and coordinating a credible effort against Assad.
  • Foreign Support Haphazard.  Some of the foreign backers, like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, put conditions and restrictions on their support that resulted in some FSA factions competing with each other for their support because of Saudi and Qatari competition vis-a-vis each other in the wider region.  That support sometimes involved not only for the rebels to grow beards and assume a more Islamist style to be shown on YouTube videos for the PR benefit of their backers, but also led some anti-Assad factions to not coordinate with each other when fighting Assad's forces.  Such conditions resulted not only in unhelpful Islamist influence within the anti-Assad effort, but also reduced the anti-Assad effort’s overall operational effectiveness. It was almost like the left foot and the right foot weren’t marching in sync because of wider regional agendas beyond the Syrian context.
• Mostly Secular/Moderate, Though Includes Some Islamists; Ideologically Opportunistic Based On Who Provides Support.  Although the anti-Assad rebellion started as mostly secular or moderate in character, eventually Islamist elements wound their way into the conflict, including ISIL and Al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat Al-Nusra (JAN).  Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar started to support Islamists, as well as the moderate rebels, in order to put additional pressure on Assad. A big portion of the Islamist rebels that are not part of ISIL or JAN are most likely opportunists who took on an Islamist character in order to secure better arms, pay, and supplies from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who encourage such overt Islamist character for their own domestic and regional agenda purposes.
• Upside Capacity.  FSA/NC's being able to take and hold large parts of Syrian territory from Assad's regime, despite the messiness of their efforts and pressure from both Assad and ISIL, is a testament of their will to fight despite the odds and indicative of how much better they can perform given the right support.

Assad Regime

• Goal: prevent the downfall of its own regime and regain control over all Syrian areas
• Main Enemy: Anti-Assad Opposition
• Military and Security Forces.  This is the Syrian armed forces, including army, navy, air force, and the security structures like the domestic intelligence services and the secret police.  These forces have suffered large rates of defections to the opposition, especially among the Sunnis. In response, Assad's regime has had to resort to killing families and friends of defected soldiers as punishment, keep some close members hostage or in jails for those soldiers who are suspected to be at risk of defection, in order to disincentivize switching sides to the opposition.
• Domestic Militias.  Given the manpower shortages, the regime and its foreign backers have resorted to forming militias from among the population that is under the regime's control.  The level of loyalty of these militias to the regime varies greatly.
  • Fear of Islamists.  Some joined the pro-Assad effort in order to protect their non-Sunni or non-Kurdish minority communities (usually Alawite, Christian, Druze, Ismaili, and others) from fear of anti-Assad Islamists.  
  • Fear of Anti-Alawite Backlash. Alawite militias fear a general backlash against their community if Assad's regime, which is led by an Alawite family and has promoted Alawites to many positions of power at the expense of non-Alawites, is toppled and anti-Alawite reprisals ensue.
  • Criminality.  Some militias sprang up with the regime's encouragement in order to maintain control over areas under the regime's control using banditry, racketeering, smuggling and the like, while staying loyal to the Assad regime that enables them.
• Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Quds Force and Hezbollah.  In order to prevent Assad's regime, which is Iran's client and facilitator of Iranian support in the region via Hezbollah, from being toppled, Iran has had to deploy its Revolutionary Guard and Quds Force, as well as Hezbollah fighters, directly in the fight on Assad's side.  It also provides support that includes training, militia formation and coordination, economic aid and sending hundreds of tons of food every day.
• Russian Military Support.  As Assad's regime was facing a real risk of being toppled by the opposition, Russia began a multi-month air bombing campaign on top of the support it was already providing in terms of intelligence, arms, supplies and economic aid.  Marketing the bombing campaign as an effort against terrorists and ISIL, data has shown that the vast majority of the bombs were dropped on anti-Assad opposition on the front lines between the areas controlled by the opposition and Assad respectively, and not on the ISIL caliphate.
• Tacit Neutrality with ISIL and Kurds/SDF
  • ISIL.  Although Assad and ISIL are not allies, and have fought tactical battles against each other, they are not currently each other’s' main enemies and have developed tacit cooperation in order to  facilitate each other's more pressing interests.
    • Military.  When in close proximity near battle lines that includes FSA, Assad's forces and ISIL both tend to pressure FSA more than each other.  Russia's bombing campaign is a case in point. At times there has also been active cooperation.
    • Economic trade.  ISIL has sold oil to Assad's regime from the oil wells that it controlled within its caliphate, and facilitated smuggling activities.  So even though the Assad regime and ISIL are supposed to be opposing each other on paper, in reality they both see the FSA/NC as their main enemy and not each other, and therefore tacitly cooperate against them.
  • Kurds/SDF.  See next section.

Kurds/SDF

• Goal: protect the interests of the Kurdish community in the north areas of Syria, called Rojava
• Main Enemy: ISIL and other jihadist groups
• Internal Kurdish Politics.  After various internal factional competitions, the Kurdish party that came out on top in Rojava is the Democratic Union Party (PYD) with its militia called People's Protection Units (YPG).  Not all Kurds are happy with that outcome and the methods by which PYD/YPG maintain support, including association with the terrorist Kurdish organization Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), is taken as a threat by Turkey.  But given PYD/YPG secular character and ability to effectively fight for Kurdish community’s interests against ISIL, it's considered as a viable, albeit only, representative of the Rojava region within the Syrian civil war.
• Secular.  Both military and political leadership is secular.  In fact, much of SDF's political MO is based on the wider regional Kurdish nationalist movement, which includes aspects of Socialism, gender equality (relatively to the rest of the region), and other aspects rarely associated with religious/traditional movements. 
• Inclusive, But Up To A Point.  SDF includes non-Kurdish subgroups, but in large part due to American encouragement and/or pressure instead of any natural alignment of interests.  Despite the American efforts to make SDF as broadly representative of Syria as possible, it's still mostly a Kurdish-oriented effort.
• Tricky Relationship With Anti-Assad Opposition
  • Was in negotiations with National Coalition (NC) regarding unifications of their respective efforts, but they could not agree on the extent of future autonomy for Rojava in the hypothetical post-Assad Syria.  Although the YPG had fought against the FSA in isolated instances, it also cooperated with the FSA in other battles.
  • Given recent efforts to include more non-Kurds in its militia, seems to be on balance getting closer to the anti-Assad opposition, albeit slowly.
• More Unified Than FSA/NC
  • Existed Prior to the Conflict As Organized Entities.  Unlike the FSA and NC, which formed after the civil war started, the Kurdish PYD and YPG already existed when the war broke out and were in better position to put up a coordinated defense.
  • Military Leadership Close to Frontlines.  Unlike the FSA leadership, which is based in exile in Turkey, the Kurdish leadership is based out of its native Rojava and is close to the YPG fighters on the frontlines.
• Tacit Neutrality with Assad.  Hedges its bets via tacit neutrality with Assad's regime, as neither the SDF nor the Assad regime are each other’s main enemies.  
  • Fear of Assad's Retribution.  Kurds were among the most oppressed Syrian minorities during the Assad regime.  In fact, most were stripped of Syrian citizenship. Given the uncertainty about who will come out on top when the war is over, the Kurdish leadership calculated that tacit non-belligerence towards Assad is to its advantage, particularly since the Kurd’s immediate security threat is ISIL, and not Assad who is preoccupied with defending his position in the east of the country.
  • Assad's Reciprocal Tacit Neutrality.  Assad ceded control over much of Rojava to PYD, thus being more able to concentrate his fighting forces against the FSA/NC who aim to topple his regime more than the Kurds do.  
  • ISIL and Jihadists Are Bigger Threat.  Already busy fighting ISIL around Rojava, also joining the fight against Assad would result in SDF fighting a 2-front war and would spread its forces thin.  No need to pick a fight with Assad who is less of a threat while being bogged down fighting the FSA/NC.
  • Assad and PKK Historical Relationship.  In the past, Assad's regime has supported PKK, which is associated with PYD, as a proxy influence against Turkey.  Although that relationship largely ended in the late 1990's due to strong Turkish pressure on Syria, certain relationships between the Syrian intelligence and PYD leadership continued afterwards and currently facilitate a tacit neutrality between Assad and the Kurds while the current war rages on.

ISIL and Other Jihadists like Jabhat Al-Nusra (JAN)

• Goal: for ISIL, to maintain and expand its caliphate; for non-ISIL jihadists, to remove Assad's regime and install Islamic rule over Syria.
• Main Enemy: for ISIL, it’s the Kurds and their allies; for non-ISIL jihadists, it’s the Assad regime.

ISIL is described further in this piece in section "ISIL: Symptom of a Larger Problem".  

Anti-Assad Rebels Are Messy And Responsive To Whoever Provides Support

High Motivation To Fight + Lack of Means To Do So = Will Fight Like You Want If You Give Me Support

• Responsive.  Rebel organizational structures, alliances and actions on the ground are often a function of the kinds of foreign support they receive and the associated strings attached.
• Motivated.  Staying in the fight against Assad for years despite their needy situation is evidence of their high motivation.

Specific Goal, Flexible Tactics

• Take Direction From He Who Has The Goods
  • Fighting Strength.  The ability to secure predictable sources of support is often the determining factor for which partisan groups or "brigades" accumulate strength and are able to form alliances with other formations.
  • Leadership.  Rebel leadership positions often depend not just on fighting ability, but also on relationships with backers, whether domestic or foreign, to source the necessary support like food, arms and money.
  • Necessity.  Fighters often join or leave brigades based on "grass is greener on the other side" effect, out of necessity as well as to join a group with a better winning record.
  • Typical Dilemma.  An example of a given fighter’s dilemma could play out as such.  Let's say you're a rebel fighter whose family or friends were killed by the Assad regime.  You may have left your job as a petty vendor or defected from Assad's armed forces to join a rebel brigade which provided you with an AK47 rifle with 500 bullets and $100/month to provide for your remaining family back in town as replacement for the income you no longer receive from your job.  At some point, though, you are unpaid for a few months. There could be various reasons, such as a Saudi or Qatari foreign backer decided to cut support for your brigade, or a smuggling route that used to supply your group is no longer available, or your group's supplies were stolen or destroyed in fighting.  Given a national economy that has been hard hit by the war, including shortages, high inflation and the like, your being unpaid for months may put your family at risk of not having enough food to eat. At that point another rebel brigade nearby with a more overtly religious Islamic style wants you to join them, promises to pay you $150/month ($50/month more than your current brigade) on time, and is able to resupply you with bullets and other fighting supplies that you’re running out of.  Such dilemmas focus the mind to seek immediate relief from a different brigade and backer, even if the new group is not exactly aligned with the sensibilities of the given fighter. The ideological component for this group, unlike with ISIL or JAN, usually involves chanting and posting clips on YouTube while fighting Assad remains all the same. So you compromise your ideological preferences and join the new group in order to be able to fight better and provide more for your family back home.  If the first group, which is not Islamist in character, is able to source more support again such that it's able to resupply your AK47 with bullets, pay you $300/month (higher than both previous salaries), and has good intelligence about Assad's forces like where to shoot and where to move, you'll probably go back to the first group. Although such messiness and desperation is an unfortunate fact for many rebel formations, their fluidity and responsiveness also points at the upside potential from professionalizing and unifying the secular rebels into a more effective and moderate fighting force if they were provided with sufficient support and leadership.
• Overt Religiosity Is Misleading
  • Necessity > Ideology.  Other than the extreme actors like ISIL, JAN and others, most other brigades with comically bombastic names, long beards, and bravado, are driven more by necessity then ideology.  
  • Function Of Foreign Support.  If arms, money, food and supplies from outside supporters come with strings attached in terms of the professed ideology of the group, the group will usually be willing to bend to the demands, at least partially, in order to secure support from the backers.
  • Jihadist Options Already Exist.  If an individual fighter or a group was truly hardline jihadist, then it probably would have already allied with either ISIL, who have successfully managed to create a caliphate, or Al-Qaida's Jabhat Al-Nusra.  Given the extreme nature of jihadism, one is either jihadist or not. There is little middle ground, especially from the point of view of ISIL and JAN. So if there’s a big change in membership from secular/moderate factions to Islamist factions after a long time of fighting, as opposed to right at the beginning, then the shift is probably due not to ideology of the individual fighters but to the latter securing better support from outside backers and having a better winning record.
  • Cooperation Out of Desperation, Not Ideology.  There are cases where a rebel group will coordinate actions with an ISIL or JAN formation for tactical purposes against a common enemy, usually Assad's regime (there have also been fighting against the Kurds over strategic smuggling routes, weapons caches, and the like, but FSA-Kurdish spats usually didn’t escalate to extreme levels).  If, let's say, a rebel formation coordinates fighting with JAN against an Assad army formation poised to assault a civilian town that serves as opposition's base of support, such coordination between rebels and JAN is more indicative of strategic and tactical necessity then ideology.

Extremism

The portion of the fighting that is driven by sectarian and jihadist influences derives its character from:

• Assad's Tacit Cooperation With Extremists
  • Strategic Purpose
    • Split the Opposition.  Put pressure on the anti-Assad rebels by empowering extremists that don't share their goals, thus making the rebels right on 2 fronts against both Assad and extreme Islamists instead of only against Assad.
    • Consolidate Regime's Strength.  By ceding territory to those who don't share the rebels' top goal of removing the Assad regime, like was done with Rojava and Kurds, Assad’s regime is able to withdraw into a more consolidated military posture against the rebels while preventing the ceded territory from falling into the rebels' hands.
    • Promote Himself As Less Worse Alternative.  By facilitating extremists at the expense of the moderate rebels, the regime positions itself as the better alternative relative to the extremists who may overtake power if the Assad regime fell.  
  • How
    • Al-Qaida.  At the beginning of the uprising Assad purposely released many extremists from prison, many of whom went on to join extremist factions.  On a side note, the regime at the same time used the freed-up capacity in order to imprison and hold hostage the family members of his soldiers in order to prevent them from defecting to the FSA.
    • ISIL
      • Territory.  Assad ceded Syrian territory to ISIL, which eventually was part of the ISIL caliphate, in order to consolidate his military strength against the rebels.
      • Financial Dealings.  Assad's regime traded with and entered into financial transaction with ISIL related to oil extracted from Syrian eastern fields, which contributed to the caliphate's revenue.
      • Military.  Most of ISIL's fighting is done not against Assad's regime, but against FSA and SDF.  This is not by coincidence.
    • Sectarianism.  On many occasions Assad's armed forces and militias cleansed towns of non-preferred ethnicities, which not only caused civilian mayhem but also stoked sectarian revengeful behavior across Syria.  Making the nature of the war anything other than about Assad, and more about ethnic and religious strife, helped the Assad regime promote the case that without his strongman rule Syria will be ungovernable.
• Haphazard Foreign Involvement From Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Kuwait and Others
  • Plan A = Support FSA/NC.  Plan B = Support FSA/NC + Islamists.  Although Turkey and Gulf monarchies originally put a lot of support behind the FSA/NC military and political opposition, whose stated goals for Syria are in line with Western expectations, after some years of not being able to topple Assad, they went to Plan B and started  supporting Islamist fighters as well.
  • Institutional MO.  Given the Gulf monarchies established connections with jihadist elements from previous conflicts, and given the Salafi character of their domestic institutions and foreign affiliates, supporting Islamist factions to the war was a convenient way for them to add more muscle to the anti-Assad effort.
• Hesitant US Involvement.  Given the reserved nature of US support to the FSA, Turkey and Gulf monarchies calculated that without a more concerted US involvement they would need to pull out all the stops against Assad, even if that included supporting Islamists.
• War's Long Duration.  Although the Syrian conflict started as an anti-Assad civilian uprising in response to Assad regime’s brutality, after years of fighting the Islamists became a bigger proportion of the anti-Assad effort relative to the war’s outset.  If the war had ended within the first 2 years, say if Iran and Russia didn't provide support to Assad, then the civil war would probably not have been remembered as such a sectarian or jihadist in nature as it has become.

Assad: The Key Factor

Assad remaining in power has been the main stumbling block in previous negotiations to end the conflict among all the participants.

• Needs to Exit Syrian Politics
  • Obstacle to Agreement.  His role in post-conflict Syrian politics is the biggest item of disagreement between the warring parties.  If he agreed to exit Syrian politics, there would be much higher chance of reaching a diplomatic end to the conflict.
  • History of Brutality.  Because of the brutality of his regime most of the Syrian citizenry will continue to view him as a subject of their fears and hatreds, even if a deal is reached that keeps Assad in power.
  • Destabilizing Influence, Even If There's An Agreement
    • Anti-Assad Insurgency.  If there is a political agreement between all the warring factions that includes Assad staying in power, his presence will prevent a complete end to fighting.  Him remaining in power will probably result in a continuing low intensity underground movement against him, which will have a destabilizing effect on a post-war Syria and will be an impediment to getting past this chapter in Syrian history.
    • Sectarianism.  Decades of Assad's rule had stoked sectarian tensions to such a degree that his remaining in power (in any capacity, even as a symbolic presence) will be a stumbling block for getting beyond sectarianism on national level.  It’s may not be realistic to expect the different ethnicities and religions of the country to agree to a common national vision when the regime actively promoted its own sect (Alawites), marginalized Sunnis, and stripped the Kurds of citizenship.
    • Political Meddling.  If Assad is able to wield any meaningful influence in Syrian politics after any hypothetical agreement to end the fighting, then he will be incentivized to continue meddling under the scene to retain his position and regain lost power.  
  • Net Contributor to Spread of Jihadism.  Although Assad’s main goal is to restore control over Syrian territories that his regime lost control over, his tactical neutrality vis-a-vis ISIL and other jihadists to pressure the moderate opposition and promote himself as an anti-extremist, even if brutal, alternative is currently a net contributor to jihadism.  Even if his power is diminished as per an agreement, his strategic calculus regarding this issue will stay the same and will continue to present the same challenges even after the fighting stops. Assad’s incentive to present himself as a less worse alternative to the jihadism that he allows to fester will remain even after the fighting stops because such policy would put pressure on his political rivals that may gain a foothold in the country’s politics from any power-sharing agreement.
• Looking Ahead.  The war's continuation presents significant implications for Syria and the rest of the world.
  • Syrian Implications.  The longer the war continues, the more extremist in character will the opposition to Assad be, and the harder it will be to facilitate a multi-ethnic stable Syria after the conflict eventually ends.
  • World Implications.  After 5 years of mayhem, it's becoming more possible that the Syrian civil war may be a feeder of future jihadism similar to how the Afghanistan war against the Soviets in the 1980s was the nursery for subsequent jihadist movements, including Al-Qaida, the 9/11 attacks and other terrorist activates across the world.  There is no better way to recruit future jihadists then by raising a generation of young kids within the ISIL caliphate or by having them grow up during a brutal war that includes sectarian and jihadist elements, desperation, criminality, resource shortages and an overall state of nature.

How to think about the Iraqi Civil War?

In A Nutshell

This is basically ISIL waging war against both a weak and sectarian Iraqi central government, as well as the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), for control of Iraqi territory, people and resources--all within the context of post-Saddam Iraq that is plagued by sectarian and religious strife, mind boggling levels of corruption, mostly nefarious (even if understandable) Iranian influence in Iraqi politics, and the US having largely packed up and gone home.

Iraq: Petri Dish That Facilitated the Spread of the ISIL Fungus

What allowed ISIL to form in Iraq?

• US Disengagement
  • Reasons
    • Reluctance to stay in Iraq on the part of the US Administration after years of active US involvement and war fatigue.
    • Iranian pressure on Iraq to make it onerous for US to stay in its competition with US for greater influence in Iraq.
  • Results
    • Less pressure against the remnants of the post-Saddam Iraqi jihadist insurgency.
    • Less US influence in Iraqi political process.
    • More room for Jihadist extremist to regroup
    • More ability for Iran to play the ever-sectarian/theocratic unhelpful role in Iraqi social fabric
• Iranian Influence
  • Incentive.  Iran is strongly incentivized to wield influence in Iraq due to proximity, prior history of conflict with Iraq, its competition with US for Middle Eastern influence, and other regional dynamics like the Saudi Arabia/Iran conflict.
  • Sectarian.  Being a Shiite theocracy with history of hosting Shiite Iraqi elements, especially during Saddam Hussein's repressive Sunni-led rule, Iran developed much more contacts and relationships among Iraqi Shiites (and the Kurds to some extent) then among Sunnis.  Having the ability to wield strong influence in Iraq after Saddam’s fall and after the US disengagement required engaging those contacts at the expense of non-Shiite Iraqi groups. Engaging them, even without a specific sectarian agenda, implied a sectarian type of influence by default.  But even further, being a theocracy that is specifically Shiite and whose political authority rests on Shiite religious considerations, as opposed to Muslim in general, Iran's goals in Iraq were most surely sectarian.
  • Destabilizing.  Having a sectarian influence in a country that has a history of sectarian tensions is very destabilizing, weakens the ability of state institutions to function well across all areas and for all sects, and provides a perfect setting for the rise of ISIL.
• Ineffective Maliki Leadership
  • Problems All Around.  Maliki's leadership in Iraq, during which US left Iraq and ISIL took hold, was rife with sectarian repression against Sunnis, tensions with the Kurdish KRG over hydrocarbon resource ownership, mass corruption, and the weakening of Iraqi state institutions both civilian and military.
  • Iranian Influence.  Felt the need to acquiesce to the Iranian nefarious influence.
  • Sectarian.  Marginalized political competitors from non-Shiite areas, and included very few Sunni Awakening anti-jihadist militias into Iraqi armed forces.
  • Authoritarian.  Tried to wage direct control over many aspects of the government and used levers of patronage to centralize authority in his hands.
  • Corrupt.  Corrupted the Iraqi political process by favoring Shiite areas over Sunni and Kurdish ones in terms of budgets, resources, security, etc.
  • Militarily Weak
    • Poor Leadership and Support.  Many Iraqi competent commanders were replaced by Maliki with incompetent and corrupt stooges for political purposes.
    • Sectarianism.  Culture of sectarianism and little trust between the mostly-Shiite military and Sunni civilian areas
      • The mostly-Shia military often felt little impetus to protect Sunni populations from ISIL
      • Sunni population were a poor base of support for the army who were often seen as oppressors
    • Desertions.  ISIL's fanatical tactics, like suicidally ramming trucks full of explosives into Iraqi front lines, put fear into Iraqi soldiers and led many of them to abandon their posts upon ISIL's advance.
  • Prior Repression of Sunnis.  Unlike KRG, who have their own militia separate from the Iraqi central government, the Sunni areas didn't have their own formal military capabilities.  In fact the Sunni Awakening militias that were successful in the fight against jihadists in post-Saddam insurgency were forcibly disbanded by Maliki out of fear that they would constitute a threat to his rule.  When ISIL showed up, the Sunni citizen base, which had known Maliki sectarian repression and had no effective means to put up a fight against ISIL, often provided little resistance and sometimes even acquiesced to ISIL because it was something other than Maliki.  

Looking Ahead

How to best address the ISIL problem in Iraq?

• ISIL.  Direct military pressure on ISIL.
• Political Fresh Start.  The fight against ISIL, and al-Abadi's presidency, provides a unique opportunity for Iraq as a nation to get past Maliki's previous rule with a vision for Iraqi politics and institutions whereby:
  • All major Iraqi sects will buy into a common national vision.
  • Less corrupt and more responsive to the Iraqi people.
  • Will work for both Iran and US, as the 2 main foreign backers with interest in Iraq, in a way that is less confrontational against each other and less destabilizing to Iraq.

---

III. The Case for Active US-Led Involvement

ISIL

Threat That Must Be Eliminated

• Containment Not Enough.  The longer ISIL continues as an ongoing concern, the more problems it will present not only to Syria and Iraq, but also to the wider Middle East region and the rest of the world.

Threat to Middle East

The presence of the ISIL caliphate exacerbates other unhealthy dynamics in the Middle East.

• Exacerbates National Conflicts
  • Saudi Arabia vs Iran
  • Turkey vs Kurds (both were on a solution path until the Syrian civil war broke out)
  • Russia vs West
  • Iran vs West
  • Iran vs Israel
  • Israel vs Syria
  • Lebanon state vs Hezbollah
• Stokes Sectarianism
  • Sunni vs Shia/Alawite
  • Arab vs Kurd
  • Salafi vs everyone else
  • Harder to Resolve.  Sectarian tensions are an especially egregious threat to regional stability because it's a harder dynamic to address then conflicts that don't pertain to identity, such as struggles for political power or conflict over natural resources.  It's easier to negotiate a deal to resolve struggles over power and money then it is to resolve hatred between communities over identity and religion. The longer sectarian tensions are allowed to fester, the harder it will be to resolve them in the future.

Threat to the World

ISIL poses a threat to the US and the rest of the world both in terms of direct security and as a negative influence on the quality of social, cultural, and political norms.

• Direct Violence Threat
  • Immediate Threat
    • Terror Already Perpetrated. Among the most-memorable attacks within the Western polity are the attacks in Paris, Brussels, and Orlando.
    • Caliphate = Hub of Global Terrorism.  The ISIL Caliphate enables global terrorism not only as an underground terror network, but also as an above ground state which can use the military, financial and manpower strength of a state to facilitate terror.
    • ISIL Terrorism > Al-Qaida Terrorism.  ISIL has been able to cause more deaths per year during its existence than Al-Qaida was able to cause on a per year basis over its existence, even taking the 9/11 attacks into account.  Given that it's both an above ground state and an underground network across the globe at the same time, this should not come as a surprise. It's more successful in recruiting and wielding extremist influence than Al-Qaida, and in fact it bumped Al-Qaida off the pedestal as the leader of global jihadism.
  • Future Threat > Immediate Threat
    • Indoctrination.  ISIL caliphate operates schools systems that teach little other than hardline Salafi racist chauvinism and aggression to a population of ~6 million people.  Many of the young kids that grow up in such a system will be the jihadi terrorists of tomorrow.
    • Inspiration.  The longer ISIL is able to hold its caliphate and project an image of strength, the more it'll be an inspiration to future jihadists by making jihadism seem as a viable undertaking that pays off.
    • Battle and Institutional Experience.  Even after ISIL is eliminated as a caliphate, remnants of the organization will still be around the region and globally as an underground network.  It’s imperative that such remnants be as weak as possible. But for that to be the case the current Caliphate can’t be allowed to continue building up operational and institutional capabilities that may be used at another place and time.  There are several places in the world where the caliphate may reconstitute itself--whether due to government weakness, lawlessness, or the breakdown of social order--in such places as Libya, Somalia, the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, north Nigeria, the Sinai desert, Algeria, etc.  The more ISIL is able to succeed at Caliphate 1.0, the more successful it would be as Caliphate 2.0 given the chance. But the sooner the Caliphate 1.0 is proven to be a failure, the less chance here is of a Caliphate 2.0 from happening.
• Threat to Western Liberal Character
  • Terrorism Influences Western Politics.  In the Western world, although more people die from car accidents every year than from terrorist attacks, terrorism has a much greater ability to influence Western politics than car accidents because it has a more salient effect on the average person’s psyche.  
  • How So?  Although ISIL doesn't have enough military resources to overwhelm a Western nation state with an all-out invasion, like William the Conqueror taking over England at the Battle of Hastings, it can nevertheless force a change in the nation's character by inducing the nation to change itself.  In fact death and destruction are not goals in and of themselves, but are tactics to achieve the ultimate strategic goal of influencing the nation's politics. A citizenry that is more fearful and panic prone may push their government into rushed and ill-advised policies domestically and abroad.  In the longer term a sustained terror threat may have a negative influence on the social contract between the citizens and their government. It's hard to maintain an open and liberal society when people don't feel secure in everyday life. The average person's sense of fear is much less driven by a rational calculation of the odds of dying by terror vs the odds of dying by car accident, and much more driven by emotional arousal from being inundated with images and media reports about terror attacks.  In a way, the battle against ISIL is also an effort to save us from ourselves.
  • Examples
    • 9/11 Attacks. Fear, incredulity and a sense of rage result in a set of rushed policies such as the badly executed involvement in Iraq (at least before the New Way Forward), a more divisive political process, badly managed debate between the government and the people regarding the tradeoffs between security and privacy, people's initial screams for vengeance followed by subsequent incredulity over increased security presence in their lives, and other effects that we're currently living with.
    • Madrid Train Bombings in 2004.  Had such an impact on Spanish politics that it forced a change in the governing coalition from a center right to a socialist party and resulted in Spanish withdrawal from US-led military coalition in Iraq.  This was a big change in both domestic and foreign policy. Car accidents, although much more deadly in the aggregate, do not have such impact.
    • Other Attacks.  More recent attacks such as the Paris shootings in 2015, Brussels bombings in 2016, the rampage in San Bernardino, and the more recent one in Orlando, are more of the same.  After the Paris attacks France's social and political classes were galvanized with calls for revenge and France ramped up the campaign to bomb ISIL. Belgium is most likely undergoing a radical change in its intelligence and domestic security structures.  Such changes would never happen due to car accidents, even though they present a much bigger danger to the average citizen then terrorism has been.
    • Brexit.  Chances are that UK would have remained in the EU if it wasn’t for the Syrian Civil War or ISIL.  The Leave vote in the referendum was only 3.5% higher the Remain vote, which equals to only about 1 person in 30.   If it wasn’t for the salient fear of immigration and refugees around the time of the referendum, chances are that the Leave campaign wouldn’t have gotten the 1-in-30 person margin above the Remain campaign, and UK would still be in the EU.  Although British voters had various reasons to vote for either Leave or Remain campaigns beyond those that were pertained to immigration, the additional factor of ISIL and Syrian refugees was enough to make all the difference. (This section added in 2018)
• Policy Implications.  Absorbing terror attacks without a counter-reaction is not sustainable to any given political system.  People will demand action. The best approach is to plan ahead with allies to address the problem directly and judiciously instead of waiting for it to get worse for everyone.

Syrian Civil War

What Happens If No US Involvement?  

What are the possible outcomes for the Syrian civil war if no major powers like the US, which is able to lead a Western-friendly coalition, gets involved?  Let's consider the possibilities.

• Assad Wins: Unlikely
  • Has little popular support outside the area under his control, and many of those from other areas that support Assad, do so not out of love but because they fear the jihadists more than they despise Assad.  
  • Even with direct military, economic and diplomatic support from Iran and Russia, Assad's regime was able to regain only a portion of the territory originally lost.
• Opposition Wins: Unlikely
  • Without serious unified support from outside, the opposition will continue having problems coordinating their efforts amongst each other or unifying with the Kurdish-dominated SDF coalition to make a decisive difference.
  • Will have to continue facing pressure from ISIL, Assad and his foreign backers.
• Kurds/SDF Wins: Unlikely
  • The Kurdish nationalist agenda, understandable given decades of oppression against the Kurdish community, provides the required cohesion to protect Rojava, but is difficult to translate to success in non-Kurdish areas of Syria without a concerted effort to diversify the SDF effort by including non-Kurdish elements.  
  • Further success for SDF will be hard to come by without cooperating with the anti-Assad opposition and broadening SDF's stated goals to include more than just the pursuit of Kurdish interests.  
  • Without US involvement such decisive steps are unlikely to happen by themselves.
• ISIL Wins: Unlikely
  • Few Sunni Areas Left.  ISIL already controls much of the Sunni areas of Syria and Iraq.  Its expansion beyond the caliphate's border would involve non-Sunni areas which will present much more resistance to their rule.
  • Unpopular.  Although before it established its caliphate some Sunni populations were willing to acquiesce to ISIL control as the lesser evil between it and Maliki rule in Iraq, having experienced the caliphate rule for some time, it's probably an accurate assumption that ISIL would face stiff popular resistance if it didn't employ brutally oppressive tactics.  
  • US-Led Bombing.  ISIL is already facing military pressure from a US-led coalition.  It has already been put on the defensive by Western air pressure and by SDF with Western support.  Not many entities whose base of support depends on holding territory have succeeded when faced with Western air power.
• Current Trajectory -> Stalemate.  Without a substantive change in the situation the current civil war, which is already is in its 6th year as of 2016, will continue as is without any major faction having a decisive advantage over the others.
• Post-War Syria Unstable Without US Involvement.  If by some chance a single faction wins the war, without US involvement the resulting situation will still continue to be unstable.
  • Post-War Insurgency.  None of the current factions--Assad, Opposition, SDF or ISIL--are able to unify most of the Syrian population by themselves.  Even if any one of them wins against the rest through a military victory, a low level simmering insurgency will probably continue against the winner by any of the loosing sides.
  • Reconciliation Between Opposition and SDF Requires the US.  Even if the victor is among the Western-friendly factions--Opposition or SDF--a stable post-war political situation will require them both to reconcile with each other.  Without US involvement they will have problems doing so because of a prior history of friction.
    • Opposition may have trouble getting past SDF's tacit neutrality regarding Assad's regime
    • SDF may have trouble getting past Opposition's support from Turkey given Turkish-Kurd tensions
    • Opposition and SDF have a history of fighting each other.  Although they were usually were to resolve their differences, past tensions may arise again during post-war political negotiations.
    • Opposition's FSA is a loose coalition of various partisan brigades of various types and various level of receptiveness to Kurdish aspirations.  Without outside US pressure, which wields influence with both Opposition and SDF, such brigades may pose a problem to post-war Syria.
    • Both Opposition and SDF have shown themselves to be very responsive to Western cajoling.  Given the benefits to reconciling the two, there is a strong case to be made for US involvement to attempt to do just that.
  • SDF Internal Tensions.  SDF's largest military faction, the Kurdish PYD, has a complex history with other Kurdish factions in Rojava.  Some of these other Kurdish factions are competitors to PYD/YPG, and the latter has little incentive to share power with them unless US gets involved similarly to how US played a positive role in solving inter-Kurdish conflict in Iraqi Kurdistan in the mid-1990s.
  • Turkey-PKK Conflict.  Turkey's hardline stance against PYD's interests, given PYD's association with terrorist organization PKK, will be hard to resolve without strong US involvement.  The Turkey-Kurdish political reconciliation process was proceeding until the outbreak of the Syrian civil war. Subsequently, Turkey suffered terrorist attacks from PKK, and PYD's association with PKK led Turkey to work against Opposition-SDF unity including providing some ill-advised support to jihadists.  The kind of influence needed to resolve the Turkish-Kurdish conflict and its negative effects on the Syrian civil war can only be provided by the US, namely for Turkey to reconcile with the Kurds, not act against SDF's interests in Syria, stop support for jihadists, and for the SDF to distance themselves from PKK enough to Turkey's acceptability.  
• Syria Fracture More Likely.  US staying out of the conflict makes the Syrian split into multiple parts more likely rather than less.
  • Stalemate and Ethnic Cleansing.  Given the current stalemate and the flow of internally displaced refugees (IDF), the population may wind up sorting itself out in a way that turns factional frontlines into permanent borders based on ethno-religious distinctions.  US involvement makes such an outcome less likely by not only providing decisive support to end the conflict sooner rather than later, but also by facilitating dialog between factions with which US has influence.
  • Rojava Autonomy.  Rojava unilateral declared autonomy 5 years into the conflict.  If the war ended sooner or if the Kurds and the Opposition were able to reconcile, say due to US involvement, perhaps the Kurds wouldn’t have seceded from the rest of Syria and a unified post-war Syria would have been more likely.
• Regional and Global Effects
  • Sectarianism.  Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey have little incentive to stop supporting Syrian jihadists, who they see as the remaining viable opposition to Assad.  But besides putting pressure on the Assad regime, adding religious zealotry into the war naturally increases sectarian tensions. If US provided leadership and support to the Western-friendly forces in Syria (as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are themselves asking) there would be less reason for these countries to depend on jihadists in order to pursue their interests in the Syrian conflict.
  • Iranian Belligerence.  Iran will be incentivized to be more belligerent in Syria and the region.  Iran will be less under pressure and will have more ability to achieve its goals in Syria.
  • Related Conflicts.  Syrian civil war involves multiple ethno-religious groups, regional and global foreign players, and is the venue where regional conflicts are playing out.  US involvement would be helpful not only with regard to the Syrian conflict, but would be beneficial with regard to other regional considerations like eliminating a venue for Sunni-Shia tensions, provide Iran less ability to get its way through belligerence, and help get Turkey and Kurdish back to the solution path.
  • Increase in Global Jihadist Threat. See section named “ISIL” within “The Case for Active US-Led Involvement”.
  • Global Energy Markets.  Syria is included in potential plans for 2 major gas pipelines, the Qatar-Turkey pipeline and the Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline.  The way the war ends may have big ramifications not only on the regional energy projects, but potentially on world energy security, especially in Europe.
  • EU Unity.  The Syrian refugee crisis is putting pressure on EU institutional capacity and overall European political unity.  Brexit is a case in point (this point added in 2018).
  • Russian Belligerence.  If Russian support to Assad's regime remains unaddressed, especially after the "red line" affair, Russia will be more empowered to pursue its anti-West agenda in the region and globally.
  • China Belligerence.  If the US is unwilling or unable to apply decisive pressure to address a Middle Eastern conflict of such magnitude as the Syrian civil war, then China will smell weakness and will be emboldened to further promote its interests at the expense of US and its allies.

United States = Unique Influence

US is able to influence the conflict in ways that no one else can.  

• Military, Economic, and Diplomatic Strength.  Only the US has as many levels of pressure that can incentivize the factions to come to a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
• Non-Sectarian Credentials.  Only the US has as many established relationships, and the ability to form new ones, with the domestic and foreign parties involved in the conflict.
  • Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey have influence with the Sunni factions, but not with Alawites, Shiites, Kurds, or Christians.
  • Iran has sway with Assad's power base (Shiites and Hezbollah, Alawites, various minorities), but not with the Opposition or SDF/Kurds.
  • Russia has sway with similar factions as Iran plus some influence with Kurds in Rojava, but no sway with the Opposition.
• Political Bridge.  The foreign backers of opposing sides in the Syrian civil war (Opposition: Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar; Assad: Iran, Russia) are in conflict with each other beyond the context of the Syrian Civil War.  Influencing these foreign backers to agree on a diplomatic solution to the war will require someone who can bridge those broader divides. Only the US fits that description.
  • Saudi Arabia-Iran tensions
  • Saudi Arabia-Qatar rivalry
  • Turkish-Kurd tensions
  • Russia-Turkey tensions, especially after the Turkish shoot down of the Russian bomber aircraft.  
  • US has more ability and has more diplomatic experience with Russia than anyone else involved in Syria on the side of the Opposition.  Only the US can have any leverage with Russia to negotiate on behalf of the Opposition or SDF.
  • US has more sway with Iran then any backer of the Opposition, especially given the recent experience negotiating the agreement on the Iranian nuclear program.

Benefits Of Effective ENGAGEMENT in the Syrian cvil war

• Leadership.  US involvement is a game changer.
  • Promotes Diplomacy.  Deploying US attention on the problem focuses minds and promotes diplomatic solutions.  Few countries have the necessary leverage to force factions to the negotiating table.
  • Helps End the Conflict.  Enabling "good" guys not only has the benefit of beating the “bad" guys, but all else being equal it also helps bring the war to a quicker conclusion.
• Unity of Effort.  Efforts against the Assad regime and ISIL are hampered by disunity amongst the rebels and their backers.
  • Foreign Backer Disunity.  Some foreign backers, which want and end to the war in a way that's in line with Western interests, provide support that is often counterproductive because they don't have the ability to influence outcomes to the extent that US can and because their own agendas sometimes conflict with each other.  Saudi Arabia and Qatar are a case in point. Although they both want Assad to lose power in Syria, they nevertheless let their regional competition with each other spill over into the Syrian Civil War. US leadership, which these same backers are themselves asking for, will not only aid the situation in its own right, but will also help to channel the support of these backers in a more productive way.
  • Rebel Disunity.  Unified and consistent foreign support will reduce competition amongst rebel factions for aid, and will help the rebels fight in a more coordinated fashion.
• Focus On The Fight
  • If FSA and SDF are better supplied and supported, they'll be able to focus more of their time and energy on fighting Assad and ISIL instead of securing sources of food, arms and supplies.
• Reduce Extremist Influences
  • Reduce Foreign Support for Islamists
    • Foreign Islamist Backers.  Couple of years after putting resources behind the FSA and NC without being able to topple Assad, some backers of the opposition, like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, began bankrolling Islamist groups like Ahrar al-Sham and coalitions like the Army of Conquest which, although not part of ISIL, substantially increased the hardline character of the anti-Assad opposition.  Their path to such support is not surprising given their previous successes in supporting Islamists in other conflicts and the MO of the backers’ domestic institutions. Saudi Arabia particularly relies on religiosity for domestic political legitimacy.
    • US Pressure.  US involvement in the conflict will put pressure on such Islamist foreign influence not only due to the gravitas of US involvement, but also because these foreign Islamist backers are themselves asking for US involvement.  Saudi, Turkish and Qatari support is meant not to promote Islamism as much as to put pressure on the Assad regime. They should be amenable to reducing their support for Islamists if US gets involved in the effort against Assad.
  • Empower Moderates.  Giving more support to FSA and SDF should empower the moderate opposition relative to Assad's regime and jihadists, even after taking into account the risk of some weapons winding up in jihadist hands.  
    • Analysis based on figures found on Wikipedia for all the warring factions in the Syrian civil war yields the following results when adjusted via educated guess for troop motivation levels, capacity to improve from externally-provided support, proportion of troops influenced by fundamentalism, and the risk of arms falling into unintended hands.  
    • For a details see this spreadsheet.  The values chosen for these multiplier factors were our best guesstimation. But if you think the values should have been different, then you can test out your differing assumptions and see what the relative war strength would be then.

Armed Force	War Strength Proportions Without Western Involvement	War Strength Proportions With Western Involvement (Including Risk Of Arms Falling To Extremists)
Secular/Moderate Forces	32%	51%
Devoutly Fundamentalist Forces	26%	23%
Assad Forces	42%	25%

War Strength Proportions Without Western Involvement

War Strength Proportions With Western Involvement (Including Risk of Arms Falling to Extremists)

•  
  • Enable Minorities to Join the Opposition
    • Reduce Minority Fear.  Many minorities who are not Sunni or Kurds, especially in the east of Syria, support Assad not out of love but because their fear of jihadists is greater than their fear of Assad.  Enabling moderate forces at the relative expense of jihadists will reduce the jihadist threat and will incentivize minority communities and militias to pursue more than just the status-quo devil-you-know Assad vs jihadists, but would give them a reason to consider better possibilities.
    • FSA + SDF = Multi-Sectarian Opposition.  FSA is mostly Sunni, while SDF is made up mostly of Kurds plus some Arab and minority militias in and around Rojava.  They have a history of both cooperation and tension and are currently not united militarily due to political differences over the level of Kurdish autonomy in post-Assad Syria after several negotiation attempts.  Getting the two into a more formal united effort will significantly reduce the sectarian nature of the conflict because it will incentivize both anti-Assad Sunnis and anti-jihadist Kurds to work towards common goals.
      • Positive Influence on FSA and SDF.  Unity with SDF will make FSA more interested in protecting minorities, as opposed to remove Assad at all costs, since promoting the interests of multiple different sects will be the default expectation of any alliance with SDF. In turn, SDF fighting on the side of Sunni Arabs will promote Arab-Kurd tolerance, which is especially key given decades of repression felt by the Kurds at the hands of Assad's Arab, albeit Alawite, regime.
      • Reduce Jihadist Influence.  An FSA and SDF alliance will further reduce the jihadist influence by making tactical alliances with jihadists, like JAN and others, less necessary for FSA against Assad.
      • Further Pressure on Assad.  Assad's influence depends in large part on sectarian fear of jihadists and Sunni retribution if his regime falls.  Lessening the sectarian and jihadist influences will further erode Assad's base of support.
• Benefit To Civilians
  • Reduced Criminality and Warlordism.  FSA's desperate need for supplies, combined with Turkey closing the border with Rojava for SDF, creates a need for goods that is harder to source using traditional means during a war.  Hence the spread of smuggling, extortion and overall banditry. Such criminality not only negatively affects civilian life, but also has a corrupting influence on the rebels themselves who are desperate to secure supplies.  Providing a controlled and predictable system for supplying the moderate rebels will reduce the extent of such criminal activities.
  • End War Faster.  Providing decisive support to the moderate rebels, all else being equal, should help the war end faster and with a more desired outcome.

Doable In Terms Of Physical Capability And US Domestic Politics

• Not Required: Foreign Troops
  • "Troops On the Ground" = 100,000+ Syrian indigenous rebels, not troops from US or allies.
  • Decades of Assad's oppressive regime, combined with multiple years of brutal WW2-style war against much of his own population, has created no shortage of Syrians who want to fight Assad.
  • Unlike in Iraq prior to the US-led invasion in 2003, where there was no indigenous army to be had other than in KRG because all such opposition was crushed by Saddam Hussein in the 1991 uprising, in Syria there are currently 100,000+ indigenous Syrian troops involved in fighting between the FSA and YPG, which are the factions that the US and allies can work with.
• Required: Military Involvement That Is Low in Manpower, High in Capability.  The kind of military aid that the FSA and SDF need are a good fit with the kinds of capabilities that a US-led coalition can provide because it doesn't involve a large troop presence, and therefore is politically palatable domestically by both politicians and civilians.  
  • Air Support.  Dropping bombs on enemies from planes, drones, ships, etc.
  • Training.  Teaching the rebels to be a more professional fighting force.
  • Intelligence.  Who/what/where/why/how, where to shoot, where not to shoot, where to move, etc.
  • Special Ops.  Surgical missions that require specific capabilities for specific purposes.

Leave The Ghosts Of George W. Bush Behind

• Doing Opposite of Bad Policy Is Not Necessarily Good Policy.  If a certain policy was problematic in the past, it doesn't mean that trying to do the opposite of that policy is necessarily the right approach.  George W. Bush administration's involvement in Iraq has been criticized for being ill-advised. Regardless of whether you think that the problem was the lack of post-war planning up until the New Way Forward, or that the war shouldn't have been fought in the first place, doing the opposite of what Bush did in Iraq is not automatically a good policy with regard to Syria.
• Quality As Well As Quantity.  A good policy for conflict resolution involves not only dialing up or down the quantity of one's involvement, it's also a matter of quality.  Often the debate regarding involvement in Syria, especially when being compared to the Iraqi war of 2003, revolves around the amount of US involvement.  Such discussions often betray a sense of frustration at the high level of complexity of Middle East politics, with espousals that US should simply reduce its involvement in the region full stop.  But the right policy is not just a matter of quantity of involvement. It's also a matter of quality, including understanding the context; deciding on the mix of military, economic and diplomatic influence to exert and why; and preserving the flexibility to maneuver.  One can formulate 2 separate policies such that both include the same number of deployed troops, but one of them may be a glorious success and the other may be an abysmal failure. It's not enough to ask "how much?", it's also important to consider "how? where? who? what? why? depending on what?".
• Don't Take Our Word For It.  To judge the merits of a policy it's valuable to listen not only to oneself or one’s advisors, but also to 3rd party opinion holders who may know a thing or two.  Many of the countries, especially within the Middle East region, who were against Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003 are currently strongly asking for US leadership in the Syrian civil war.  They know their own region better than outsiders. Saudi Arabia, for example, feared that Bush's initial strategy to quickly withdraw from Iraq after toppling Saddam Hussein in 2003 would result in chaos and open the path for Iranian influence in Iraq.  This was proven to be accurate. Granted, they have their own interest within the Syrian war, and their opinion shouldn't be taken at face value. But whatever their interests are, it cannot include wanting regional instability. Despite their often counterproductive behavior, whether due to their institutional limitations or domestic politics, the assessment of the Syrian situation on the part of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, should be taken seriously.  And they’re all asking for the US to get more involved.
• US Didn't Break Syria, But US Can And Should Help Fix It.  Colin Powell's famous phrase "if you break it, you own it" has often been used to portray American involvement in Iraq in 2003 as foolhardy because, setting aside the WMD fiasco, if the invasion doesn't result in a stable viable Iraq as a nation, then US would have "broken" Iraq and, therefore, assume "ownership" responsibilities to get the nation on a stable footing at enormous cost of American lives and treasure.  Due to the difficulties that followed after Saddam was toppled by a US-led armed effort, a portion of the American political class and citizenry often recoil reflexively from involvement in other conflicts out of fear that the same problems that happened in Iraq would play out in those contexts as well. Although there's always a risk that a plan won't proceed as expected, the Iraqi involvement in 2003 is not a good template for understanding the Syrian situation.  This piece is meant to inform in this regard.
  • Syrian Civil War is Assad's Responsibility.  The Syrian conflict was triggered by popular resistance against Assad's brutal regime, not by a US military invasion was happened in Iraq in 2003.  The US didn't "break" Syria and is not responsible for its unfortunate situation. That responsibility belongs at the hands of Assad and his regime.  
  • Assad's Strategic Incompetence.  Besides brutality, Assad should also be faulted for strategic incompetence.  Assad could have handled the Arab Spring protests much better and could have prevented an all-out war.  There are regional examples which could have served as a model, including the approach of King Hussein in Jordan or King Muhammad in Morocco.  Those countries faced popular discord as in Syria, but their regimes had the good sense to resolve the public tensions productively for everyone involved instead of just brutally attacking civilians.  
  • Analogies for the Syrian Civil War
    • Wrong Analogy: "If you break it, you own it".
    • Correct Analogy: "If it fell off the shelf and broke itself, should something be done to address the damage or let it remain broken come what may?"

Limited Approach Has Been Tried; It’s Time For A More Comprehensive Strategy

A limited approach for Syria has been tried, and rightfully so given the recent past experience in post-Saddam Iraq and the hesitancy to ponder deploying 100,000s of US troops to some faraway place again.  However, despite the modest positive influence of programs to vet and supply a handful of moderate rebels, an overall military strategy that treats ISIL as a separate problem from the overall Syrian civil war had hampered a decisive solution to the war.  Given 200,000+ deaths, a refugee crisis that creates socio-political pressures in Middle East and Europe, and the establishment of a 7th-century style ISIL Islamic caliphate with global reach, the existing surgical approach is becoming much harder to defend.  With the right deployment of resources, messaging that rightly emphasizes both interests and values, in cooperation with regional allies, both the strategic calculus and the expanded political room to maneuver point to a greater US leadership in the Syrian civil war.

Other Conflicts and Fairness; Something is Better Than Nothing

Some would ask: if the US intervenes to help resolve the Syrian civil war, why not also do the same in other conflicts, some of which are even bigger humanitarian disasters?

Response: all conflicts are unique, and just because US can't solve all the world's conflicts doesn't mean that it shouldn't try to do anything about any.

Smart Power = Promoting Interest + Values

Wielding influence globally in modern times requires pursuing self-interest in a way that is consistent with one's values.  Either pursuing one's interests in a way that contradicts one's stated values, or instead trying to promote one's values across the globe without promoting one’s vital interests, is a recipe for failure.  Public opinion matters. The days when leaders could reach monumental strategic nation-level deals without them becoming a part of public discourse until only decades after, is gone. For example, the Arab Spring, notwithstanding its currently mixed record, would be impossible at a different time, say in the 1980s when there was no smart phones, social networks, prolific news outlets, and other means of communication and coordination.  But in today's world, all these things exist and serve as limitations on how global nations can stray from their stated values without embarrassment. At the same time, risking lives and treasure to intervene in conflicts that don't present strategic threats to the wider world is difficult to promote domestically. It’s hard to make a case to one’s citizens that they should put the lives of their troops at risk in order to help the lives of people in another country on the opposite side of the planet.  The reality of the situation is that although some people would be receptive to such appeals, most aren’t, and that limits the room for political leaders in countries with representative governments to intervene in conflicts that are humanitarian disasters but otherwise not immediate strategic challenges. Sometimes a humanitarian disaster reaches such scale and level of inhumanity that modern popular sensibility can't stomach doing nothing. But such popular outrage is the exception rather than the rule.  In today's age successfully wielding global influence requires an approach that focuses both on interests and values, not just one or the other. US leadership in the Syrian civil war would be consistent with such Smart Power approach because it will involve pursuing both American interests AND promoting American values.

Bottom Line

• Downside Risk of US Involvement < Downside Risk of US Non-Involvement

Iraqi Civil War

In a Nutshell

The Iraqi civil war presents challenges for US policy making that are both similar to and yet very different from the Syrian civil war.

• Similar Challenges
  • ISIL Threat.  Eliminate of the ISIL threat to Iraq, the wider Middle East region, and the world.
  • National Stability.  Help Iraq be a stable unified state.
• Unique Challenges
  • Government Needs Improvement, Not Replacement.  If it wasn't for the ISIL caliphate, the current Iraqi situation would probably be more accurate to describe as civil unrest rather than an all-out civil war like in Syria.  Brutality and sectarianism are present in both conflicts, but unlike with Syria, in Iraq there is no question of whether the government should remain or not. The Iraqi government, despite all its faults is still a democratically elected one and should be pressed to improve rather than worked against.   
  • Iran.  Despite Iran's problematic behaviors, the policy goal here should be not only to limit its bad behavior, but also to seize an opportunity to help Iran be a net-positive influence on Iraq in the short-term, and to help it be more Western-friendly in character over the long term.  

For the Sake of Iraq

• ISIL cannot be defeated without US military involvement
  • Iraqi forces, whose capabilities were degraded during Maliki rule, performed poorly against ISIL, which resulted in a big portion of Iraq becoming part of the ISIL caliphate
  • Iran's direct military involvement is problematic, not only because it's sectarian in nature and often brutal to non-Shiite Iraqi civilians, but also because it hasn't been able to dislodge ISIL in non-Shiite areas by itself
  • Without US military support, KRG wouldn't be able to resist ISIL beyond the Kurdish areas
• If Not The US, Then Who?  Let's consider the alternatives.
  • Iran.  Only has sway with Iraqi Shiites.  Maybe a little sway with KRG, but not overly so, especially given KRG's tension with the Iran-influenced Shiite-led Iraqi central government with which KRG can't agree on oil revenue sharing and the status of Kirkuk. Definitely no sway with Sunni political elite, tribal leaders or citizens.
  • Turkey.  Has decent and active relationship only with KRG.
  • GCC, Including Saudi Arabia and Qatar.  No sway with Shiites, nor Kurds, nor the Sunni areas which are mostly under ISIL control.
  • European Union.  Doesn't have as much influence in the Middle East as the US does, nor as the regional players do like Saudi Arabia and Iran.  As well, EU is currently busy with its own challenges, namely the refugee crisis and anti-EU political forces that stem both from within the EU and from Russia.
• US Military and Diplomatic Gravitas Are Decisive Factors.  US military involvement to defeat ISIL would provide more weight to US diplomatic efforts to promote an Iraqi Political Fresh Start by which all Iraqi sects would be enfranchised into a common Iraqi vision and help Iraq be a more stable, unified and independent nation.  No one other than the US is able to make headway on those issues in Iraq, not even Iran.

For the Sake of Middle East

• Sectarianism.  Stabilizing Iraq will help to reduce sectarian tensions, which would be a stabilizing influence not only for Iraq, but for the region as a whole which suffers from multiple instances of Sunni-Shia tensions, Arab-Kurd tensions, and many other ethnic tensions involving smaller minorities like Yazidis, Turkomans, Assyrians, Arameans, and others.  Getting Iraqi sects to not necessarily embrace each other with love and hugs, but at least in a practicable way to be vested in a common national vision that would involve including all sects in the national military, sharing of oil revenue, equitable budgeting and the like, would go a long way to stabilizing Iraq and help counter the narrative that different sects in the Middle East can't get along.
• Security.  Making Iraq more stable and have the ability to resist nefarious foreign influence will positively affect other conflicts in the region because it'll make other countries feel more secure.
  • Saudi Arabia vs Iran / Sunni vs Shia conflicts.  Saudi Arabia will be less fearful of a potential Iranian domination of the region if Iraq is able to resist Iranian influence and be less hardline Shiite in character.
  • Jihadist Threat to GCC Monarchies.  When ISIL took over large parts of Iraqi territory, Saudi Arabia and Jordan had to deploy troops to their borders with Iraq in case ISIL decided to invade them as well.  A more stable Iraq which can defend its territory from jihadists like ISIL will not only beneficial not only for Iraq, but also for other countries in the region who have faced pressure from uncontrolled jihadists.  
• Reform.  Being less fearful for national security provides more room for Middle Eastern regimes to pursue much needed domestic reform.

For the Sake of the US and the World

• Not Only Costs, Also Opportunities.  Helping resolve the Iraqi situation presents not only expanding resources to battle ISIL and cajoling Iraqi government to be more responsive to its people, but also presents opportunities for building bridges with Iran that will be beneficial for everyone involved and will incentivize Iran to pursue less anti-Western policies.
• Russia May Fill the Vacuum.  If US doesn't bring to bear the might of the US military and diplomatic capabilities in Iraq to address ISIL and Iraq's instability, then Iraqi government may deem it necessary to seek powerful partners elsewhere, including Russia, with whom it already has had dealings before.  Fortunately, Iraq's top preference is US, and US should take the opportunity to provide both support and pressure on the Iraqi leadership to get its act together.
• US Prestige And Influence Is On The Line.  If US doesn't provide the decisive support and pressure to address the ISIL threat and Iraq's governance quality problem, then US's prestige and ability to influence developments in the future will be greatly diminished.  That would present problems not only for the US, but also for the wider Middle East region and the world.
• Global Energy Markets.  Iraq's national stability influences global energy markets because its hydrocarbon energy deposits are not only among the largest in the world but also among the cheapest to extract.  If Iraq was helped or nudged towards a more stable and sustainable domestic dynamics after getting help eliminating ISIL, then, all else being equal, such involvement would be a net-positive contributor not only towards the world’s supply of energy but would at the same time also dilute and reduce Russia’s ability to use its energy exports to destabilize the US, the EU, and the wider civilized world. (Last point about Russia added to this piece in 2018 with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight).