THERE’S no possibility of peace breaking out in the Middle East any time soon until a thumping military defeat is handed out to the Islamic State group.
The good news is that the Islamic State can be defeated. But the bad news is that it won’t be beaten using the current strategy.
After a year and more than 8000 air strikes against IS in Iraq and Syria, the terrorist group has emerged significantly larger, more battle- hardened and in full control of substantial swaths of territory including Iraq’s third largest city, Mosul, much of the Anbar province and the city of Raqqa in Syria.
It’s simply not right to say the group is weakening or on the brink of defeat.
IS continues to pump out well-designed and targeted propaganda that keeps the recruits coming, including from Australia.
True, IS has had some recent battlefield reverses — for example, last week being forced out of the village of Sinjar in northern Iraq by Kurdish forces. Some areas in Iraq have changed hands two and three times.
At a press conference in Turkey, American President Barak Obama got visibly annoyed at journalists questioning his strategy of containing IS using air power and providing limited training to the Iraqi army and to Kurdish groups.
“Why can’t we just take out these bastards?” one journalist asked.
In fact, American strategy is changing. Obama has authorised sending small numbers of special forces troops to “advise and assist” Kurdish fighters in northern Syria. These soldiers will get physically close to combat zones, reversing a US approach to keep its trainers well away from fighting.
We have also seen American special forces undertake hostage rescue missions in Syria. A pattern is slowly developing of a greater ground force involvement.
A more effective link is also emerging between the air strikes and ground fighting. Better-targeted strikes helped the Kurds liberate Sinjar. But very restrictive rules of engagement are preventing the air campaign from hitting IS leaders, who surround themselves with civilians for protection.
Killing the IS leadership would also kill innocents now being held hostage. To achieve the 8000-plus strikes, coalition aircraft have flown more than 57,000 sorties. Most times the aircraft come back will full weapon loads because they could not find targets where they had a high degree of certainty no civilians would be injured.
On the training front, progress has been frustratingly slow. Australia’s Defence Force chief recently told a Senate committee that one mark of our success with the Iraqi army was that the unit being trained came back to complete the course after holidays. We’re not talking about elite forces here.
In Syria the US has abandoned a very half-hearted plan to train moderate rebels. After spending more than $US500 million, an embarrassed general told a Congressional hearing that only five or six people had been trained. America is instead now arming Syrian rebels.
Russia is not the solution to defeat IS either. Moscow’s key targets are the Free Syrian Army and other groups fighting Assad. A small number of Russian strikes have hit IS in Raqqa, but this is really political cover for Russia’s propping up of Assad.
What can be done to improve the situation?
First, Obama should use the G20 to make sure the international community sticks to the task. Currently the coalition is fraying. Canada has recently stopped its air strikes after changing government and the British have declined to take their air operations into Syria.
Second, the rules of engagement relating to air strikes should be revised to more effectively target IS leadership. And the tempo of strikes need to be increased from about 20 a day to significantly more.
This may mean more civilian casualties but it is probably the only way to break the IS leadership. Once that happens the propaganda will dry up and the myth of IS invincibility will be punctured.
Third, the coalition should devote a greater number of special forces and other military trainers to the task. This would lift the numbers of troops involved from about 3500 to 10,000.
We need to add “accompany” to the trainers’ mission of “advise and assist”. That means accompanying Iraqi and other forces into battle. This has higher risk, but our forces are already in a risky situation. Accompanying the troops we train will inject more purpose and spine into military operations.
If the Islamic State’s leadership is removed from the equation there is a slim possibility that peace talks on Syria might gain traction. This is far from a solution to the Middle East’s problems, but it is a necessary first step.
Peter Jennings is executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/peter-jennings-how-we-can-defeat-isis/...
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