Since Obama’s recent speech at the 2014 West Point Commencement, ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) has obtained enough territory, money, weapons and power to convince Western leaders that the group will cause problems for years to come.
“The need for a new strategy reflects the fact that today’s principal threat no longer comes from a centralized al-Qaeda leadership,” President Obama pointed out. “Instead it comes from decentralized al-Qaeda affiliates and extremists, many with agendas focused in the countries where they operate.”
ISIS’s origins can be traced back to the al-Qaeda offshoot group in Iraq (AQI). The Sunni group was able to heavily influence insurgency efforts in Iraq until the surge of U.S. troops in Iraq coupled with the Anbar Awakening. By this time, Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda already disassociated themselves with AQI due to their brutal killing of Sunni civilians. Around this time, AQI formed the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) after joining forces with small Sunni organizations in the region in a collective effort to create a force that was not necessarily dependent on terrorist actions.
In late 2011, the U.S. pulled out of Iraq, which allowed ISI to develop. ISI soon began to focus its actions on the Syrian conflict in 2012 in an attempt to take down the Assad regime. According to then-ISI members, a Syrian group known as al-Nusra Front merged with them during this period, thus creating ISIS. However, leaders of al-Nusra deny any affiliation with ISIS.
The primary objective of ISIS is to establish a caliphate, an Islamic government headed by a religious leader, otherwise known as a caliph. The current so-called caliphate envelops a large portion of eastern Syria and eastern/northern Iraq. ISIS is led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdad; who is now the self-proclaimed caliph of ISIS-held territory as well.
Al-Baghdadi proves to be an elusive figure, and there are very few public pictures and videos of the man. He is described by Washington Post writer David Ignatius as being “the true heir to Osama bin Laden” in regards to his fight against Western influence, adherence to Sharia law and the amount of power he has in the region.
ISIS deploys some terrorist tactics, but unlike al-Qaeda, ISIS takes a more organized military approach to fighting. A State Department official testified that ISIS is not “simply a terrorist organization—it is now a full-blown army.” There are an estimated thirty thousand fighters in the organization. Around 12,000 of those are foreigners from over 70 countries. An estimated 100 of these foreign fighters are from the United States.
ISIS has an estimated $2 billion USD in assets and is padded by the millions of dollars brought in each day through the sale of gas and oil from captured sites in Iraq and Syria. Through raids of Iraqi military weapon caches, ISIS has accumulated weapons, ammo, tanks, humvees, helicopters and other military equipment from the United States.
Using social media as a tool, ISIS has demonstrated that it is able to effectively wield its influence. From extremist hashtags to videos calling for foreign fighters, ISIS is controlling a part of Internet that is becoming more widely used by extremist organizations. The most prominent media postings that ISIS has uploaded were the beheadings of two captured American journalists.
On top of generating worldwide concern, ISIS’s actions have directly resulted in the migration of more than a million Iraqis and the massacre of close to six thousand Iraqi citizens (mostly religious and ethnic minorities) in this year alone. They continue to threaten the local population through their control of Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, and are beginning to obtain territory surrounding the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.
President Obama shows great care and concern for how he addresses the issue of ISIS, and for good reason Every president since the senior George Bush has initiated operations of substantial warfare in Iraq. The strategies deployed in Iraq by the U.S. have caused contention and President Obama does not want to create another Iraq War situation where the U.S. occupies the area for another decade.
Yet this hesitance displayed by Obama can be seen as a weakness as ISIS grows in power and size and establishes targets beyond its territory. “ISIL [ISIS] may not appear to be an imminent threat to the United States,” stated Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. “It is a threat to the United States. It is a threat, a clear threat to our partners in that area, and it is imminent.”
Thus far, the U.S. has focused all of its efforts on fighting ISIS though the use of fighter planes and drones. In a recent interview on Meet the Press, President Obama stated that the U.S. does not plan on deploying ground forces in the future, and instead is concerned with supplying the opposition with the necessary weapons and tools necessary to combat ISIS.
“We’re going to have to develop a moderate Sunni opposition that can control territory and that we can work with,” Obama asserted during the interview. “The notion that the United States should be putting boots on the ground, I think would be a profound mistake.”
Since that interview, according to a New York Times article published on September 11, Obama has officially announced an expanded plan for military action to include the deployment of 500 advisers to Iraq, along with additional air and drone strikes on Syria. He shirks the notion, however, of returning to full-on war with Iraq. •
