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Iraq has largely stayed under the radar during the 2013-2014 extemporaneous speaking season, which is a far cry from when the country was the focal point of many rounds between 2002 and 2008. However, on the eve of this year’s National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) National Tournament, Iraq has come back into the public eye in light of the collapse of the Iraqi Army in Mosul and Tikrit. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIL), forced the Iraqi Army to flee last week and are now threatening to capture Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. The ISIS, who have been active in the Syrian civil war and aim to create a Sunni caliphate that encompasses territory from both countries, could threaten Middle East instability, lead to the partition of Iraq, and have a negative impact on global oil markets.
This topic brief will give some background on the ISIS, discuss their recent military operations in Iraq, and analyze the threat they pose to Iraq and other nations in the region, as well as how the rise of the ISIS may impact future American foreign policy toward Iraq. Extempers are encouraged to read Extemp Central’s premium topic brief on Iraqi violence, which was written in September, to supplement this brief.
Readers are also encouraged to use the links below and in the related R&D to bolster their files about this topic.
The Rise of ISIS
In writings about the current Iraqi security situation extempers will see the opposition described as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIL). You can use either in a speech on the subject, since they refer to the same group, but be aware that you may receive questions that name the ISIS or ISIL. The Washington Post and Vox Media provide a great overview of the Iraqi crisis and the ISIS on June 12 and 13, respectively. The Global Post on June 13 also provides a timeline of major events that led to the current Iraq crisis. ISIS is an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), which terrorized Iraqi and American occupation forces after the 2003 invasion. The United States thought it squelched AQI’s activities during the 2007 surge, which used Sunni militias against AQI. However, the group has merely bided its time and regained its power since the Syrian civil war ignited in March 2011 and the United States withdrew its occupation forces from Iraq in December 2011. In February of this year, al-Qaeda and the ISIS split because al-Qaeda considered the ISIS’s methods too brutal and criticized its attacks against Muslims.
The ISIS is a Sunni Islamic outfit and its goal is to create an Islamic caliphate that encompasses territory in Iraq and Syria. The territory that it currently controls in Northwest Iraq and Northeast and Eastern Syria is the size of Belgium and straddles several major oil fields in both countries. The Wall Street Journal explains on June 12 that ISIS would like to broaden its territorial holdings to include Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Cyprus, and Southern Turkey, but the group is currently content to cause problems for the Syrian and Iraqi governments, both of which are Shi’ite dominated.
Understanding divisions in the Islamic world is important when analyzing future questions about the ISIS and its plans for Iraq, Syria, and the broader Middle East. Most of the world’s Muslims are Sunnis, who believe that leadership of the Islamic caliphate after the death of the Prophet Muhammad could pass to members of his clan that were not linked to him by blood. Shi’ites are the Islamic minority and its believers argue that only direct descendants of the Prophet should be allowed to obtain leadership of the Islamic community. In Iraq, Shi’ites are the majority sect, comprising an estimated 60-65% of the country’s population. Sunnis constitute 32-37%. Shi’ites largely live in southern Iraq, while Sunnis live in northern and central parts of the country. Kurds, who are Sunnis, but are ethnically different from Arabs, occupy northern Iraq. During Saddam Hussein’s rule of Iraq, Sunnis were in power, which angered Shi’ites that felt that their numbers should allow them to rule the country. After the fall of Saddam’s regime in 2003, Shi’ites became empowered through the country’s democratic political institutions. The United States and its allies intended for future Iraqi governments to reflect the country’s sectarian divides, akin to what Lebanon, another Middle Eastern nation, does with its government. Kurds occupy the Iraqi presidency, a largely ceremonial position, while a Shi’ite is prime minister and a Sunni is vice-president. Unfortunately, bad leadership under current prime minister Nouri al-Maliki has placed Iraq on the verge of civil war by giving the ISIS a receptive audience.
As Extemp Central explained in September, Maliki has gone to great lengths to alienate members of Iraq’s Sunni and Kurdish communities. Coming to power in 2006, he has turned Iraq into his personal fiefdom and has been hostile to those that oppose his rule. The Center for Strategic and International Studies on June 12 has a great report on Maliki’s role in the current crisis and how he has hurt the effectiveness of the Iraqi army. Extempers should print off both the summary and the .pdf file of the report that the Center provides. Maliki has angered Iraq’s minority ethnic and religious groups by driving some of their leaders out of office. For example, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, does not get along very well with Maliki and former Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi was accused of terrorism-related charges after U.S. forces withdrew in 2011. Hashemi currently lives as a fugitive, having been sentenced to death in absentia for his alleged crimes. Maliki has used the Iraqi Army as a form of political patronage by sacking competent officials for those who will pledge loyalty to him and this has reduced the effectiveness of the Iraqi Army. He also ordered police forces, infiltrated by his cronies, to kill Sunnis that launched peaceful protests against his rule and has used the country’s anti-terrorism laws against Sunnis. All of this has enabled the ISIS to enter Iraq and portray itself as a Iraqi Sunni empowerment movement and appeal to Sunni feelings of alienation against the Maliki regime. Analysts note that some of the Sunni militias that worked with the United States during the 2007 surge have now shifted their allegiance because of Maliki’s inability to integrate them into national defense forces and provide them with other benefits.
The leader of the ISIS is Abu Bakur al-Baghdadi. Baghdadi is an Iraqi and was actually arrested by the United States in 2005. He was released from U.S. custody into Iraqi hands in 2009 and Iraqi authorities decided to release him. Unlike other terror leaders, Baghdadi does not cut long videos that proclaim his intentions. Instead, the ISIS films its takeovers of towns and its victories on the battlefield and posts them on social media sites. It even sells DVDs of this footage to fund the group. The Washington Post previously cited claims that Baghdadi is “the new bin Laden” and there is currently a $10 million bounty for information that leads to his capture or liquidation. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Reports on June 12 reports that Baghdadi has been able to strengthen the ISIS through its operations in the Syrian civil war. Fighting against Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime has allowed ISIS fighters to gain a wealth of experience and given them an opportunity to govern local communities (more on this in this next section). The war has also given the group international credibility and enabled it to recruit new fighters across the Islamic world. The group is funded by a host of criminal activities that include extortion, kidnapping, but it also enjoys “legitimate” aid from princes in the Gulf states and other wealthy Arabs. As we will see in the next section of this brief, the ISIS is more than a run of the mill rebel outfit. Instead, it is a group that is laying the foundations for running an eventual state in modern Syria and Iraq.
ISIS Activities in Iraq
The recent ISIS advances on Mosul and Tikrit were preceded by other operations that took place earlier in the year. In January, the ISIS took the Iraqi city of Fallujah and Ramadi, which are less than seventy miles west of Baghdad. Foreign Policy notes on June 12 that despite these gains, the United States and other Arab nations were not able to create a coherent plan to deal with the ISIS. Although the Iraqi government requested advanced weapons such as fighter jets and attack helicopters to deal with the ISIS threat, the Obama administration was unwilling to grant them because of fears that Maliki might use the weapons against Sunnis and spark a civil war. Reuters on June 13 reports that former Baathist officers in Saddam Hussein’s army, along with disaffected Sunni groups, have joined the ISIS even if they do not completely agree with its ideology. For these groups, the ISIS takeover of parts of Iraq offers the chance of regaining positions of authority lost after the U.S. invasion and gives them their best chance in recent years to topple Maliki’s government.
What has sparked renewed interest in the ISIS is that last Monday it took over Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city and a Sunni dominated city, as well as Tikrit, which was the birthplace of Saddam Hussein. The victories of the ISIS were notable because the Iraqi Army reportedly ran away, leaving a great deal of American weaponry and vehicles in their wake. It is estimated that 30,000 Iraqi troops fled Mosul and The Guardian on June 13 reports rumors that police and the Iraqi Army brought civilian clothes with them to dress into if they were corned by the rebels. The dysfunction in the Iraqi Army that Prime Minister Maliki has created sowed the seeds of its defeat as Shi’ites in the Iraqi Army were unwilling to die to defend Sunni-dominated cities and folded under pressure. Furthermore, as the Foreign Policy article previously cited explains, when the United States withdrew from Iraq in December, it took its intelligence gathering units with it, which has hurt the Iraqi government’s ability to flush out threats to its existence.
In a telling sign of the Iraqi people’s disillusionment with their existing government, a large number of Sunnis largely welcomed ISIS militants into Mosul as liberators. The Atlantic on June 13 has an excellent article on how the ISIS is going about winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis in the cities that it conquers. While imposing sharia law in these territories and requiring women to dress in the full-body niqab, the ISIS is also going about restoring power and water services to underserved populations. It has opened religious schools for children and created food kitchens, offices to help orphans, and, unlike the Taliban in Afghanistan, has encouraged polio-vaccination efforts. Like other Islamic militant outfits like Hamas and Hezbollah, the ISIS is attempting to win over moderates and local leaders by providing better services than the central government. In Sunnis areas that have been largely neglected by Maliki’s regime, the ISIS is becoming a symbol for effective governance. The ability of the ISIS to clamp down on crime and protect Sunnis from sectarian attacks is another reason they are being welcomed. This being said, the ISIS is brutal toward those who oppose it, and it has publicized its executions of members of the Iraqi Army and local police. It has taken also steps to destroy local religious shrines and graves because it feels that these areas are polytheistic and against the tenets of Islam. Additionally, 500,000 people have reportedly fled Mosul over fears for their personal safety, which could come from the militants or the Iraqi Army, which citizens fear could use indiscriminate force to flush the ISIS out of its positions.
The ISIS has announced that it plans to step up its offensives and make a move on the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. Taking control of the capital would deal a significant, if not fatal, blow to the credibility of Maliki’s government and could lead to the de facto partitioning of Iraq. Kurdish peshmerga, the name given to the armed forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government, have already used the unrest to take control of the disputed city of Kirkuk from the Iraqi government, and could now work to consolidate their gains in the hopes of creating an independent Kurdish state. After all, the Kurds are the world’s largest stateless nation. In addition to Baghdad, the ISIS has aimed to take control of Samarra, which is home to the Al-Askari shrine. The Al-Askari shrine is one of the most important Shi’ite religious sites in the world and Sunni attacks on it in February 2006 produced a brief, yet bloody, sectarian civil war in the country that the U.S. surge had to put down. The fear is that if the ISIS takes Samarra and moves to destroy Al-Askari that it will cause Iraq to relapse into sectarian warfare. The same can be said if the ISIS and other Sunni militant groups take over Najaf and Karbala, which are the revered Shi’ite holy sites.
To deal with the threat posed by the ISIS after the debacle of Mosul, the Iraqi government has requested more aid from the United States and limited Internet access in the country. The Washington Post on June 13 has the transcript of President Obama’s address last week to the press and in it, President Obama said that he would work closely with Congress to reach a satisfactory course of action, although he ruled out sending American soldiers back to Iraq. Sensing U.S. reluctance to provide a great deal of aid, the Iraqi government has turned to its Shi’ite neighbor Iran and The New York Times on June 13 reports that Iran has sent three units of Revolutionary Guards troops to Iraq to fight alongside the Iraqi Army. The Wall Street Journal previously cited from June 12 argues that these forces are being used to help Iraqi troops win back Tikrit and are helping protest Shi’ite religious sites. Since Iran sees itself as the world’s leading Shi’ite nation, it has a vested interest in protecting Iraq’s Shi’ite population and religious centers because failing to do so would severely dent its credibility in the Middle East. There are other reports that Prime Minister Maliki has warned the United States that he will seek aggressive Iranian intervention to save his government if the United States does not supply attack helicopters, F-16 fighters, and needed intelligence on the ISIS. Time adds on June 13 that the Iraqi government has blocked social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube so the ISIS cannot widely disseminate videos taken about its conquests in northern and central Iraq. This has been criticized by the international community, but Maliki’s government does not care.
The Long-Term Threat of the ISIS
In the immediate term, it is unlikely the ISIS will manage to breach Baghdad and immediately bring down Maliki’s government. First, although the Iraqi Army is fracturing along sectarian lines, The Houston Chronicle explains on June 13 that Shi’ites within the army will probably be more willing to fight to protect Shi’ite areas than Sunni ones. As the Reuters article previously cited from June 13 points out, the ISIS advances toward Mosul and other areas this year have largely been uncontested. Additionally, analysts point out that the ISIS does not have the strength to take over Baghdad and Shi’ite religious sites. The estimated strength of the group is 10,000 or so fighters and it is tough to reach a definite numerical conclusion based on the fluctuating numbers of Sunni militant groups that have decided to side with the ISIS. The Center for Strategic and International Studies report previously cited from June 12 explains that the ISIS also faces the challenge of dealing with other rebel groups in Syria and Iraq. The group has struggled against Hezbollah in Syria and may struggle against Shi’ite militias that are reactivating in Iraq. The highest Shi’ite religious authority in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has urged his followers to take up arms against Sunni insurgents, and this could give Maliki’s government a much needed boost to fight its enemies.
The ISIS could face another problem if Western nations choose to back the Maliki government with force and this decision could become easier if the ISIS threatens a significant amount of Iraq’s oil. The Wall Street Journal on June 13 explains that Iraq accounts for 3.7% of the world’s oil production and the recent violence has caused the price of oil to top $114 a barrel. This is the highest price for the commodity since September. Although 90% of Iraq’s oil output has not been taken over by the ISIS, since existing supplies are in Shi’ite dominated areas of Southern Iraq, if these supplies were knocked offline it could undermine the world’s economic recovery by spiking prices since the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) would not have the spare capacity necessary to get prices back to their current levels. If the ISIS’s advances continued and threatened these supplies, President Obama’s hand to aggressively intervene would be forced, since high gas prices on the eve of a midterm election that his party is expected to lose would be devastating.
In terms of American politics, the ISIS advance has delivered another public relations blow to President Obama’s foreign policy. This has been a rough year for the president in diplomatic circles as Russia took over the Crimea and Iran is now being obstinate about concessions that it needs to make on its nuclear program. The U.S. intelligence community was caught off guard by the latest ISIS advance and The National Journal on June 12 writes that Republicans are blaming President Obama for the Iraq situation. Speaker of the House John Boehner said last week that President Obama took troops out of Iraq too quickly, and other Republicans have questioned the president’s assessment of al-Qaeda, whom he said was “on the run” when running for re-election in 2012. However, defenders of the president argue that he had little choice. The Nation on June 13 points out that Iraq failed to provide legal immunity to U.S. troops as part of a future Status of Forces Agreement, and when the Iraqi government failed to compromise on this point President Obama was left with no choice but to withdraw American forces. Republican critics of the president must be careful as The Economist reports on June 13 that they are aware that the American public does not want to send U.S. ground troops back to Iraq. Even Arizona Senator John McCain, who has advocated the use of American forces in several of the world’s conflict zones, including Crimea, has spoken against sending U.S. forces back to Iraq. President Obama is likely to adopt a policy of using airstrikes against the ISIS, which would probably placate both sides of the political aisle, but this carries significant risks for U.S. foreign policy going forward. The justification for force, according to The National Journal on June 13, would be preventing the collapse of the Iraqi government and with it, the billions of dollars and thousands of American lives given to create it. The New York Times on June 13 notes that President Obama would be able to carry out the airstrikes under the 2003 Congressional authorization that sent U.S. forces to Iraq since that authorization has never been revoked. This means that President Obama would not have to consult Congressional leaders about what he was going to do (although that would probably be in poor taste in light of the polarizing climate in Washington D.C., President Obama’s promise to consult Congress, and his use of executive actions this year). The long-term risk of aiding Maliki’s government is that it puts the U.S. on the side of supporting Shi’ites in the struggle for Iraq. This hindered American foreign policy efforts in the country under President George W. Bush and would continue under President Obama. Haaretz explains on June 13 that the use of airstrikes against the ISIS could turn Sunni terrorists anger toward the U.S. and make the U.S. the target for these groups in the future. It could also enflame sectarian tensions if the justification for the attacks was to protect Shi’ite holy sites, which is a concern President Obama has expressed when talking about the issue.
One of the interesting wild cards that extempers should look into when talking about the ISIS’s actions in Iraq is the role of the Kurdish peshmerga. As previously stated in this brief, Kurds have taken advantage of the recent instability to take over the city of Kirkuk, which has been a disputed territory between Kurds and the Iraqi government. Haaretz on June 14 reports that Kurds consider Kirkuk, an oil-rich territory, as their historic capital and they accused Saddam Hussein of taking it from them during his rule by ethnically cleansing the area. Saddam populated the city with Arabs during his regime in an attempt to keep its resources in Iraqi hands, and after his fall from power the Kurds have been locked in a dispute with the Iraqi government over who really controls the territory. With the Kurds now in control of Kirkuk, they are on their way to establishing their own independent nation. Since the Kurds have enjoyed relative prosperity compared with other Iraqis, due first to the no-fly zone established over their territory following the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War and then due to their peshmerga securing their borders from terrorists in Iraq’s sectarian violence, if Iraq descended into chaos and became ethnically and religiously partitioned they would benefit by achieving their dream of an independent state. This would not sit well with Turkey, who opposes an independent Kurdistan on the grounds that it may cause its Kurdish population, which lives in Southeast Turkey, to secede and join the new state. Another reason to pay attention to the Kurds is that Kirkuk is also occupied by Sunnis, so the ISIS could eventually turn its attention back on the Kurds and start a Kurdish-Arab war. The Haaretz article cited in this paragraph notes that the Kurds might be the kingmakers in the Iraqi government’s campaign against the ISIS because it could attack the ISIS or leave it alone, thereby turning the tide of the campaign. Already, the ISIS is trying to make an independent deal with Kurdish peshmerga forces, but the Kurds will have to weigh whether it is better to continue existing as an autonomous area in a future Iraq or whether it is better to have the ISIS acquire more power, destabilize existing Iraqi institutions, and acquire de facto independence if the conflict devolves into sectarian violence. As The Guardian points out on June 12, the Kurds have enjoyed democracy longer than other Iraqis and are a beacon of hope that democracy can work in the region, but the Kurds may not wish to be a symbol to other Iraqis in the future and if left to their own devices, would prefer to split from Iraq’s Shi’ites and Sunnis.
Foreign Policy on June 13 writes that the ISIS advances into Iraq could go a long way toward remaking the modern Middle East. Comparing the potential of the ISIS’s actions with the outcome of the Six Day War between the Israelis and their Arab opponents in 1967, Foreign Policy argues that the entire Middle East could become enflamed along sectarian lines due to the conflict. With Iran supporting Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria and now Maliki, they are basically fighting a campaign against the ISIS on two fronts. Sunni governments like Saudi Arabia may not be vocal in their support of the ISIS, but it is likely that they were providing tacit support to the group. A sectarian struggle in Iraq could eventually create a regional war as Iran and Saudi Arabia fight for their respective faiths through direct or proxy struggles in a variety of different theaters. The ISIS’s ability to funnel jihadists and supplies between Iraq and Syria also risks creating a broader front that combines both conflicts, thereby turning the Syrian civil war into a multi-state struggle. This is a perfect example of how one nation’s instability is being exported to other countries (the same criticism that is being levied against Libya in North Africa). The worst case scenario in the short-term is that ISIS consolidates its present holdings, the Iraqi Army proves incapable to retaking the Sunni territories that it lost, and the ISIS has a de facto state stretching across Syria and Iraq from which to export its radical ideology and terrorism. Such a situation could endanger other Middle East governments down the road such as Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and Israel, all of whom have territory that the ISIS wants.
Finally, if the U.S. decides to intervene on the side of the Iraqi government against the ISIS that could offer the unusual chance to work alongside Iran. Slate on June 13 writes that Iran views the ISIS as a consequence of U.S., Arab, and Turkish support for anti-Assad forces in Syria, but in a curious way, the U.S. and Iran may find themselves on the same side in the Iraqi conflict. Both sides supported each other during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq since they had mutual interests. In the case of Afghanistan, Iran wanted the Taliban regime eliminated due to the Taliban’s support of the Afghan opium trade. In Iraq, Iran wanted a friendly Shi’ite regime to come to power and its archenemy Saddam Hussein eliminated. In both cases, Iran got what it wanted, but on both fronts things are falling apart. The Taliban might return to power in Afghanistan after U.S. forces leave and the ISIS is threatening to topple Maliki. It unclear whether cooperating in Iraq might lead to a breakthrough on Iran’s nuclear program, but squelching the ISIS might provide a great opportunity for the U.S. to improve its relationship with Iran in the years ahead.
Overall, the only real solution for the Iraqi crisis is for Iraq to create an inclusive government that respects all of the nation’s ethnic and religious groups. President Obama and other Western leaders have demanded that Prime Minister Maliki do this for a long time, but Maliki has thus far refused. Reuters on June 13 argues that the lack of inclusion is what has created the current crisis by giving the ISIS a large number of willing recruits and enabling it to appear as the champion of Sunni interests in Iraq. Since the death of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, the Middle East does not have a great history of creating inclusive nation states. However, if Iraq is going to exist as a unified, independent, and democratic nation in the twenty-first century it is going to need to establish a government that is responsive to the needs of all groups and puts Iraqi identity above that of ethnicity and religion. This is Iraq’s true test in the coming months and years and if it fails, the country could fracture much like Yugoslavia did in the 1990s and ignite a sectarian struggle that could inflame the entire Middle East.