Islamic State: Is the US-led campaign flawed?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-32846852

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As the jihadist fighters of Islamic State push ever further across Syria and Iraq, taking cities, airbases, prisons and border posts, US President Barack Obama has dismissed their gains as "a tactical setback".

The US-led coalition against IS, he insisted, is not losing to the jihadists. But the awkward truth is, the coalition is certainly not winning.

Every day that IS continues to even exist on the ground, every day that it carries out its harsh rule on a cowed population, and every day that it grows closer to becoming an entrenched, functioning, if albeit pariah state, is a mark of failure by some of the world's richest and most powerful armed forces ranged against it.

"I think the coalition strategy against IS was kind of non-existent," says Charlie Winter, a research analyst with the London-based counter extremism think-tank Quilliam.

"From the beginning it was dropping bombs against Islamic State positions, hoping to try and kill a few leaders, take out some artillery positions, that sort of thing.

"But besides that, it has resoundingly failed. Ramadi has just been taken, Palmyra has just been taken, Deir al-Zour airport is about to fall," Mr Winter says.

Iraqi-Iranian deal

So, why is the strategy not working?

To be fair, the coalition strategy has not been an abject failure.

Over the last 11 months it has had some notable successes, including saving the Kurdish cities of both Kobane and Irbil from being overrun by IS.

The jihadists threw wave after wave of fighters at Kobane - but repeated and intensive coalition air strikes, coupled with a spirited defence by Kurdish fighters, drove them back.

Air strikes also drove IS fighters off the Mosul and Haditha dams where it was feared they could have set off explosions triggering deadly floods.

A US-led humanitarian rescue programme saved thousands of displaced Kurdish and Yazidi families from death and starvation in the far north of Iraq as IS overran their villages.

And there have been a few precision-guided surgical strikes that have killed operational commanders, plus the recent Delta Force raid into Syria that killed the man who ran IS oil revenues.

But for IS, these are manageable losses, irritating but not life-threatening to their cause. Their march across much of the Middle East continues.

The biggest setback to IS was not even a part of coalition strategy, it was the result of a joint Iraqi-Iranian deal.

The Iraqi government's recapture from IS of the Sunni town of Tikrit was achieved largely with the help of Shia Iraqi militias, trained, armed and funded by the Iranians.

US air strikes were only called in at the last moment as Iraqi government forces took over from the militias.

'Unco-ordinated' campaign

On paper, the US-led coalition against IS boasts an impressive list of countries all lined up to help push this nightmare genie back into its bottle.

But their interests are not necessarily the same.

"The problem is the diverging interests and strategies of the IS opponents," says the Saudi analyst and expert on IS, Aimen Deen.

"The US, the EU, the GCC, Turkey and the Iranian axis (Iran, Assad, Baghdad and Hezbollah) as well as the rest of the Syrian opposition are fighting an unco-ordinated campaign against IS."

From a coalition operations room in the Gulf, targets are identified, missions are drawn up, and aircraft from a range of European and Arab countries take part in precision-guided air strikes.

But there is only so much that can be achieved from the air.

IS fighters have learned to avoid exposing their forces and equipment in easily targeted columns that can be struck in open country, preferring instead to embed themselves wherever they can in populated areas amongst civilians.

The problem is that ultimately this is a campaign that can only be decided on the ground, and there is no universally acceptable force that can take that job on.

In Syria, IS has now overshadowed all other rebel groups and their only real enemy is the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with its well-documented list of atrocities that include dropping barrel bombs filled with chlorine.

In both Syria and Iraq the poorly-armed Kurds have fought back tenaciously to defend their homeland from the advance of IS, helped by US air power.

But they don't do expeditionary warfare and have no appetite for going off to fight outside their area.

Dire prognosis

The US military, having lost 4,491 servicemen and women in its eight-year occupation of Iraq, is very reluctant to get drawn back into combat operations there.

It does have around 2,000 trainers, advisers, planners and others in the country, but its efforts to rebuild the Iraqi army into a capable fighting force have so far failed.

The Sunni tribal militias, who were recruited so successfully in 2007 to expel al-Qaeda from their land have since grown disillusioned with the Shia-led government in Baghdad.

Many are unsure which is their greatest threat: the Sunni fanatics of IS or the Shia fanatics amongst the various militias deployed to fight IS.

As of May 2015 the only units capable of taking on IS on the battlefield are trained Shia fighters backed by Iran. That includes Hizbollah units sent from Lebanon and Iraqi Shia directed by Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps advisers.

Neither will be popular in Sunni areas.

Against this backdrop, official US optimism about the direction of the campaign is unlikely to be matched by reality on the ground.

In the short term at least, the prognosis for that part of the Middle East is dire.

"The capture of Palmyra will not be the last setback for the anti‐IS coalition in Syria and Iraq," says Mr Deen.

"Come Ramadan (mid-June), IS' campaign will be relentless and almost unstoppable."