The Guardian view on Isis victories: terrible but not terminal
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Version 0 of 1. The Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, said on Monday that he believed Ramadi could be taken back from Islamic State forces “in days”. The Syrian government offered no such assurances about Palmyra, but its air force has been repeatedly striking targets in and around the city. The conquest of these two places last week was a dramatic double victory for Isis, but how serious and long-lasting its gains are likely to be is another matter. Iraqi army units and Shia militias, the latter until now largely held back from the fighting, may be able to wrest back Ramadi, although it will almost certainly be largely destroyed in the process. The Syrian government’s chances of getting back Palmyra, a remote town with an alienated population, are more slender, but no doubt it can deal out some punishment from the air, with the same sadly ruinous result as is likely in Ramadi. Whatever happens on the battlefield in the future, the fall of Ramadi and Palmyra has demonstrated the defects of the Iraqi and Syrian armies, and the cruel superiority of the Isis way of war. That way combines prowess in light infantry skills, bravery, great mobility, ruthless sacrifice in the attack, and ruthless and deliberate savagery in its aftermath. It is reinforced by shrewd political preparation – during which different groups and tribes, including rival insurgents, are by turns wooed, co-opted, penetrated, intimidated and, if need be, destroyed – and by a predatory but effective system of financing. Its success is based on the fact that both Iraq and Syria are very divided societies. They are not only divided between Sunnis and Shias and by the consequences of civil war but, in an extremely local way, between tribes and towns and classes, who often find it difficult to combine even in adversity. Typically, for example, different groups in Anbar province, of which Ramadi is the capital, held opposed views on whether Shia militias should be put into the fight against Isis. Some wanted them in, others, pointing to militia misbehaviour after the recapture of Tikrit, wanted them kept out, as did the United States. After the fall of Ramadi that may now change. What do the armies of Iraq and Syria have to set against the deadly Isis formula? For all the differences between the two countries, they are conventional forces which, in theory, are drawn from the whole population, which, in theory, enjoy technological superiority over any likely enemy, and which, in theory, obey at least some of the rules of war. But in practice their composition reflects that of their societies very imperfectly. Similarly, their technological edge is now narrow, with the Syrians running out of bombs and missiles, and the Iraqis – in spite of American help, and air power – now short of the resources they need to fight effectively, according to General Jack Keane, one of the architects of the US “surge” in 2007. As to rules, they do not send their men to certain death in bomb-laden trucks, their soldiers expect a fighting chance of survival, and they do not execute prisoners and civilians, or, at least, they do not do so systematically in the way Isis does. When the US defence secretary Ash Carter says Iraqi forces showed “no will to fight”, he simplifies a complex situation. The nature of the Iraqi army reflects that of a riven, weary and uncertain country, and also the influence of an American model that works for US soldiers better than it usually does for the foreign militaries which it has, over the years, trained in many different countries. This is also a military which has been damagingly dismantled, hastily reconstructed and politically purged. The story in Syria, where the army was essentially prisoner to profoundly foolish political decisions, is different, but no better. If the outcome sought in either country was a confident and skilful army, these were not the ways to go. Yet the difference between Isis and its enemies is not in the end the difference between strength and weakness but between two sets of weaknesses. Isis can zoom across the desert killing people, it can attract dangerous young men from around the world, it can sustain itself for a while on stolen oil and antiquities, but in the end it will destroy the economic and social basis of the communities it is trying to dominate. In spite of its name, it cannot make a state. Sooner or later the pendulum will swing. |