The ISIS Conundrum

Ever since the militant group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS), or simply “Islamic State”, stormed onto our television screens and twitter feeds last summer, journalists and analysts around the world have spilled countless gallons of ink attempting to make sense of this new phenomenon. US President Barak Obama, in his speech addressing the growing threat from the group in September 2014, described ISIS as “a terrorist organisation, pure and simple”; while political scholar Professor Audrey Kurth Cronin declared in a recent article published in Foreign Affairs that : “ISIS is not a terrorist group”.

If this weren’t confusing enough, a recent report in the UK Guardian highlights ISIS’s “empire of terror”, charting how the group is “extending its global reach” through declarations of allegiance by numerous Islamist militant groups across the Middle East and Africa (and perhaps even in Europe). On the other hand, several contrary media and academic voices have urged against sensationalising the group’s gains, focusing instead on their loss of momentum in terms of land acquisition, recruitment and resources on the ground. Indeed, for every report claiming that ISIS are a present and ever-growing threat to world security, there is a corresponding report arguing that the group’s strengths have been overestimated and that their star is already beginning to wane.

Despite the deluge of ISIS-related information flooding the internet, there is a dearth of well-informed and impartial analyses regarding the group – partly because most information we have access to regarding their movements and behaviour is information they themselves provide (and thus heavily subject to censorship and propaganda), and partly because each analysis in turn tends to bring their own prejudices and agendas to the table when attempting to explain the ISIS phenomenon. And yet now more than ever – as the Iraqi army enters its 5th day in the offensive to take back the city of Tikrit from ISIS forces – it is crucial that we have solid grasp of who ISIS are and what kind of threat they present. Not just to understand how they operate, but also to understand how to fight them.

So what are we to make of all this contradictory information? As ever, the truth is likely to lie somewhere in between sensationalised accounts of a new global caliphate and watered-down analyses that play down the threat posed by the group. Moreover, the root causes and likely trajectory of the ISIS movement cannot – to the dismay of newspaper editors everywhere – be reduced to a simple one-dimensional argument or to a monochromatic black-and-white paradigm of good and evil (such complexities are simply too intricate to capture in a news headline, and articles that take the time to trace the various historical and socio-political contours of the group simply don’t sell many newspapers).

What we shouldn’t do, in the quest to understand ISIS, is to view the group’s actions and ideology through the tired prism of primordial sectarianism; or even of some mediaeval reincarnation of Islamist doctrine. ISIS needs to be understood for what it is: a violent and radical manifestation of postmodernist angst, wrapped in a Messianic veil of ideological prophecy and mobilised through the physical conquest of territory and resources.

Unlike Al-Qaeda or many other religious terrorist organisations that came before it, ISIS is not founded on principles of piety and belief, but rather on a lust for power and control that although couched in religious language and imagery pertaining to the hereafter has very real and immediate implications for those who subscribe to it. As Prof Cronin puts it: “The group attracts followers yearning not only for religious righteousness but also adventure, personal power, and a sense of self and community.” It is this ideological underpinning that has, in part, accounted for its success in recruiting disenfranchised young European Muslims who feel marginalised and disaffected by their home societies.

In ideological terms, therefore, ISIS is more akin to the teenager who stays out late and takes illicit drugs than the self-controlled adult who adopts an acetic lifestyle in the hope of attaining Paradise (which could be one way of describing the underlying ideology of Al-Qaeda and other ultra-orthodox Salafi groups). ISIS, in other words, is “sexy“.

But it is more than that, too. As well as representing a pseudo-religious ideology aimed at world domination and power, ISIS also represents a new and very modern phenomenon in the history of radical terrorism: it aspires to be, and behaves much like, a pseudo-state.

It is the group’s conquest and retention of land and resources that have really set it apart from its predecessors – and that represent both the pinnacle of its power and the potential seeds of its undoing. Both in practical and ideological terms, ISIS relies on the returns it receives from the land and peoples it controls – the group’s income depends on revenue streams gained through possession of material assets (as well as from extortion of local populations); while its claim to represent the reincarnation of the Islamic caliphate in the form of an “Islamic state” is substantiated by its control over large swathes of territory. The group’s success in gaining and maintaining such territory thus far, then, may go some way to explaining why other Islamist groups around the world have decided to declare their allegiances; territory, and the power it represents, is thus the key to ISIS’s success.

But if the conquest of territory is what constitutes both the group’s uniqueness and power, then it also represents the single best way of defeating them. If ISIS were to lose large parts of the land under its control, then not only would that represent a military defeat, it would also damage the group ideologically, as it could no longer claim territorial sovereignty. This is what makes the Iraqi government’s current attempt to take back Tikrit so crucial. And yet they seems to be making a serious of tactical mistakes.

Firstly, of all the major cities currently held by ISIS, Tikrit could perhaps be said to represent the group’s stronghold. The hometown of former dictator Saddam Hussein, the city’s population has historically been both strongly Sunni and strongly Ba’athist. As a result, the population was one of the worst hit following the US-led invasion of 2003 and subsequent installation of a Shia government; which explains the high level of support for ISIS in the city. For this reason, Tikrit is seen as a strategic pawn in the game to take back Iraq; but it is also perhaps the worst place to begin in the attempt to defeat ISIS. The urban warfare of the cityscape is better suited to the well-trained and dispersed ISIS fighters than to the hulking mass of the Iraqi army and associated militias, and it is likely that the local population will oppose, rather than welcome, the liberating forces.

More than this, while the Tikrit offensive, if successful, is being billed by some as a potential model for future incursions against ISIS, the heavy role of Iranian-backed Shia militias in the fighting is raising questions about the shifting power balance in the region and potentially represents the harbinger of further sectarian chaos as Sunni tribes mobilise to resist the perceived “Persian storm”.

All the above points to the importance of working towards a deeper understanding of the movement known as the “Islamic State”, what they represent, how they operate, and how best to fight them. If the Iraqi government has miscalculated, the battle for Tikrit could serve to ultimately reinforce the group’s position, both as a regional pseudo-state player, and as a global ideological movement. All we can do now, however, is sit and wait.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.