09/07/2015
One year after the declaration of the Caliphate of Al Baghdadi and nearly twelve months after the start of the bombings by the US and its allies, understanding what is really happening with the Islamic State (EI) remains an intellectually insoluble problem. And not because of the jihadi leaders, who are perfectly clear in their objectives and messages, but due to Western mental disability: rather than applying ourselves with analytical reliability, we let ourselves be carried away by ticks, desires and projections of our logic, with the result that looking to the Islamic State is the closest thing to getting on an intellectual roller coaster.
For example, when the CIA in 2013 was already paying some attention on what was then called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, President Obama disdained their abilities by saying that its members were ‘children playing with professional t-shirts’. ‘ More recently, the Spanish intelligence has instructed our government not say ‘Islamic State’ but ‘DAESH’, Arabic acronym of precisely what we don't want to mention, as if by denying the name you could erase reality. Nevertheless, the media has not gotten tired of jumping from scare to celebration and vice versa: fall of Mosul in June last year; Kobani defence in January; and recovery of Tikrit in May; subsequent loss of Ramadi ...The ISIS wins, the ISIS loses, the ISIS wins again. From the youth league, almost innocuous, we have moved on to the feeling that you cannot militarily defeat the Islamic State.
Certainly, the campaign being led by Obama is doing badly. The first aim which was substantially degrading the Islamic State, has not been reached. Not to mention destroying it. In Iraq, the EI continues to rule almost the same area it did a year ago and although it has lost some of its ability to trade oil under their control, it still has more than enough financial sources; in Syria, it virtually controls half of the country and if it has not controlled more it has been due to the resistance of other jihadist groups, not to the actions of the regime or the coalition bombing.
In the field of propaganda, the Islamic State continues to gain ground: the number of international volunteers joining their ranks has not stopped growing. In fact, at higher rates than those killed by coalition attacks. Caliphate provinces have gone beyond the old borders of Iraq and Syria and extend today over the Sinai, Libya, Nigeria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. And they will not stop there, because the map of the Caliphate aims to recover all that used to belong to the Islam, including the Iberian Peninsula.
However, there is no need to despair. If the air campaign is not going well it is not because it is only military, it is doing poorly simply because it is totally insufficient. Over a year, the total number of air sorties have been lower than those carried out in a week in the Gulf War of '91, or in two weeks of NATO action in Kosovo. It is insufficient because it is an undeniable fact that wars are not won solely from the air, you have to take the enemy's territory and control it. Obama has preferred that the Iranians do this work (given the failure of the Iraqi army), but sectarian differences are slowing down their potential success. And it is also insufficient because it is not by addressing once and for all the problem of radicalization of young Muslims in our land.
A change of strategy is urgent. The first thing is to accept that the Islamic state is just that, a State, and Islamic. The second thing is to end the perception that IE is the winning horse in this race. And to do that we must shrink its territorial power, with more bombing and ground troops. If their victories have given it its broad appeal and strength, we must generate losses that weaken it, because as Bin Laden said, nobody bets on a horse that is losing.
It is not a matter of time as American leaders say; it is a matter of intensity. And time is not on our favour.