This journal has believed that the destruction of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria [ISIS] is a priority for US and NATO foreign policy. This is based on the general awfulness of life in the territory controlled by this nasty flavor of Fascislam. In addition, ISIS has been willing to strike far from its lands as the murders in Paris on Friday proved. The good news is that ISIS can be destroyed if the correct strategies are employed.
The first vulnerability of ISIS is the fact that it actually is a state. It occupies territory, a land area about the size of Belgium. It also has command and control sites in that territory. While it is sparsely populated, fewer than five million people live there, it does have population centers that serve as economic and military hubs. Thanks to oil, it has income of about $600 million a year, and it possesses assets of roughly $2 billion. All of these can be attacked by air and in cyberspace.
It is not hard to dismantle a state given sufficient firepower. The US took Iraq apart with just a few weeks’ of bombing. ISIS is less well-protected from air attack, and the important targets (the oil fields) cannot be moved and their locations are well-known. The bombing of the oilfields will cause a great deal of damage to the environment, and there is always a chance of civilian casualties. Knowing ISIS, human shields and other barbarous defensive moves may be employed. Destroying pipelines and storage facilities may prove easier than the wells themselves, but all of it requires good human intelligence. Eliminating the source of revenue is the key to crushing the offensive capacity of ISIS and damaging its defenses.
The desire for ground troops stems from a desire to deal with ISIS once and for all. The idea that the war will be over by Christmas is too optimistic by half. ISIS ground forces are not all that powerful; they merely took territory from very weak and unmotivated opponents. The Kurds, the Iraqis, the Turks and the Syrians could easily mop up after NATO and Russian airstrikes have done the heavy work. Getting them the political motivation to do so is another matter. It will take time.
An air campaign and a ground invastion will end ISIS as a state. However, that will encourage greater terrorist activity outside its land boundaries. To deal with that, the counter-terrrorist groups of the west are going to have to stop relying so much on signal intelligence, on intercepting messages. The FBI didn’t cripple the Bonanno crime family by tapping phones; the key was getting an agent (Joe Pistone a/k/a Donnie Brasco) inside the mob. Infiltration and disruption form the best strategy, far better than taking off shoes at airports and inspecting bags as sporting events.
Where will the infiltrators come from? There are literally millions of Syrians who have fled their homes because of the Syrian Civil War. Statistically, there has to be a sizable body of potential infiltrators, men who hate ISIS, understand what to do and have the abilities (language, Islamic customs, etc.) to undertake the job. Citizenship and protection in the US and elsewhere should come with the position.
Above all, one must understand that ISIS as a state is a very weak one. It is losing battles to the Kurdish peshmerga, and it has no capacity to move the fight into places like Turkey and Iran. Terrorism is, by definition, the strategy of the weak. They do not have planes in the sky over Damascus, let alone Paris. They have no tanks rolling through the streets of Baghdad. What they have are relatively light weapons in the hands of men who are willing to die on the barricades.
It will not be pretty, and it will take time. However, smart diplomacy, prudent intelligence and effective military action can end this barbarism.