ISIS: How to Defeat a Phony “Caliphate”

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http://www.juancole.com/2014/08/defeat-phony-caliphate.html

ISIS: How to Defeat a Phony “Caliphate”
By contributors | Aug. 29, 2014
By John Esposito via Huffington Post

Containing and ultimately defeating ISIS will require both short and long-term response. ISIS expansion has been made possible by political conditions in Syria and Iraq, ethnic-religious/sectarian divisions and violence and terror in the region, and the failures of the US and international community.

Bashar al-Assad’s unprincipled and disproportionate military response to the “threat” of the democratization wave, the Arab Spring, with the slaughter of Syrian opposition groups both radicalized the situation and heightened sectarian (Sunni-Shia or Alawi) divisions. The inability or reluctance of the US and EU to respond early on with significant assistance to the moderate Syrian opposition’s and the opposition’s failure to unite or work effectively together enhanced the ability of foreign jihadists.

In Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki’s installing of a Shia-dominated government, political marginalization of Sunnis increased an already polarized situation and sectarian violence that would result in alienated Sunnis welcoming ISIS.

ISIS’s expansion so far has been mostly in areas of Iraq that are either primarily Sunni or have important Sunni populations in them. The situation was compounded by Gulf funding of militant Salafi jihadists, including ISIS, to fight a proxy war in Syria against Assad. At the same time, the failure early on in Syria of the US and EU, to become significantly engaged and work closely with regional allies like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to support moderate anti-Assad forces had a ripple effect. The U.S. and EU underestimated the threat from Syria in 2011, so too it did so in Iraq more recently.