Iraqi Sunni: ISIS Is Just Alright With Me

Lauren Bohn of Foreign Policy reports on the sentiments of Omar, a well educated Iraqi Sunni who finds ISIS not half bad:

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In the past year alone, 43-year-old Omar says he's watched hundreds die. Or as he describes it, "boom, gone, the end."

Omar is an administrator of one of the busiest hospitals in Fallujah, in Iraq's restive Anbar province. First, his brother nearly lost a leg in a mortar attack. Then, his neighbor's home was destroyed in shelling. Soon after, his mother narrowly missed a bombing in their once-placid neighborhood. But it wasn't until he watched a 5-year-old girl in a bright pink shirt take her last gasp of air outside his office, her body torn apart from shelling, that he knew he had to leave his hometown. Life in Iraq, as he puts it, has become an endless flow of "dark, dark red."

"Every day, I saw children watching parents die and parents watching children die," he says, recalling grim scenes from the hospital he's worked at for years. "I couldn't raise my children there any longer ... we all have targets on our head."

Back in January, six months before the Islamic State, then still ISIS, seized the world's attention by capturing Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, the group and its allies took the city of Fallujah and parts of the provincial capital of Ramadi. It was one of the first signs that Iraq's Sunni regions were falling into a state of open rebellion against the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

The ragtag fighters saw an opening after then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered security forces to dismantle a yearlong sit-in camp near Ramadi, claiming it had become a base for al Qaeda-linked militants. Sunnis like Omar had been protesting for the release of Sunni prisoners who they said were detained arbitrarily and without trial; they deeply resented their political exclusion from the Shiite-led central government. This wasn't the first time Anbar province had become a center of revolt: After the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that overthrew Saddam Hussein, the region became ground zero for a Sunni-led insurgency against the Iraqi government and U.S. troops.

Omar is one of the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people who have fled Iraq's largest province since fighting swept the region in January. He and his family have resettled in Shaqlawa, a mountain-ringed city near the regional capital of Erbil. There are so many displaced people from Fallujah that residents jokingly call the town "Shaqlujah."  Many live cramped lives in converted hotels, but middle-class families like Omar have rented homes, blending into a town they once traveled to for summer holidays. Christians and Yazidis have also sought refuge from other Islamic State-controlled territories, bringing with them horror stories of mass executions and kidnappings. But as a Sunni Arab, who complains of systemic oppression by Shiites in Baghdad, Omar wasn't fleeing the Islamic State -- in fact, he believes it is necessary in what he calls a renewed fight for the survival of Iraqi Sunnis.

"The government should be the father of the people," he says. "And Iraq's government is a terrorist organization. See, my vocabulary is different. You have to ask yourself: Who are the real terrorists here? When will the world wake up?"

Omar's deep-seated distrust of the Shiite-led government in Baghdad has been the fuel that allows the Islamic State to thrive, as the jihadist organization has exploited Iraq's deeply frayed social fabric in places like Anbar. It's a major hurdle for President Barack Obama's strategy for fighting IS, which hinges upon Sunni buy-in for the new unity government in Baghdad. Iraq's new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, has vowed to "work with all communities" -- but it's a mammoth task that has tripped up his predecessors and much of the international community.

"National reconciliation for many is a mirage ... it's a utopia," says Ahmed Ali, senior research analyst on Iraq at the Institute for the Study of War. "The problem is, Baghdad hasn't been able to articulate a reconciliatory approach to the residents of Anbar."

The longer the Islamic State is allowed to entrench itself in Anbar, Ali fears, the more difficult it will be to convince Iraqi Sunnis like Omar to give the government another chance. "ISIS wants that distrust to be present," he says. "They live on hatred."

The Baghdad government's actions have been far less than reconciliatory -- in fact, they've often been brutal. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has condemned Iraqi security forces and government-affiliated militias for use of barrel bombs and indiscriminate attacks in Anbar that have resulted in a heavy civilian toll.

"The Iraqi government may be fighting a vicious insurgency, but that's no license to kill civilians anywhere they think ISIS might be lurking," HRW deputy Middle East director Joe Stork said in a statement in July. "The government's airstrikes are wreaking an awful toll on ordinary residents."

That toll has further entrenched the Islamic State's hold in Fallujah, Omar says. "The Iraqi military is using ISIS as an excuse to commit genocide against Sunnis. For every shelling in Fallujah, I see a new black flag when I return. They're the only way to rule."

About once a week, Omar shuttles between Shaqlawa and Fallujah. It was a five-hour journey before the conflict, but now, with the route riddled with Kurdish, Iraqi government, and IS checkpoints, the drive takes 12 hours. Kurdish authorities are wary that Omar is colluding with the Islamic State: While Iraqi Kurdistan has welcomed a steady flow of internally displaced people, many harbor distrust toward Arabs and worry that violence will spill over and mar their own fight for independence from Iraq. Meanwhile, Omar says, the jihadists are wary he's colluding "with the other side" -- meaning a Kurdish-U.S.-Shiite coalition allied to destroy the Islamic State.

The reality? "Maybe a little of both in these times," Omar laughs nervously.

Omar speaks positively about the Islamic State's success in running day-to-day affairs in his home city. The group now oversees the operations of the hospital where he works: While he and colleagues once waited months for government paychecks, he says, they now receive them in a timely fashion.

"They aren't bad guys," he says. "They're us, they're a part of us. We all know them."

Not all Iraqi Sunnis are so sanguine about the Islamic State. Omar's friend Ehab, also displaced from Fallujah, shakes his head at this answer. The jihadist group, he believes, is simply another side of the evil he fled. "ISIS doesn't represent us," he says. The two men share a light debate over orange juice and agree to disagree.

Omar, however, can't muster outrage at the Islamic State's increasingly brutal methods. When asked about the jihadist group's endless parade of gory executions, crucifixions, and beheadings, he shrugs. Then he asks to move to a quieter, more discreet location.

"On the battlefield, ISIS fighting is different than ISIS ruling. So far, they're running things smoothly," he says, when we're out of range of potential eavesdroppers. "They might be moving a bit fast ... but they're what's needed now. Are there other options?"

"Look, I know it's brutal," he admits. "But this is war."       

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Lauren Bohn, “The Blood Brothers of Anbar,” Foreign Policy, September 12, 2014

Garfinkle Channels ISIS

Adam Garfinkle, editor of The American Interest, explores the thinking of ISIS and gives needed historical perspective to its victory in Iraq's Sunni heartland. After pointing to a prescient essay he wrote back in January discussing some such Sunni offensive, he gives his analysis of ISIS's intentions. In January, he wrote that the demons were getting closer to Baghdad: "everyone in Iraq still privately believes that one Sunni desert tribesman is worth a hundred cowardly Shi’a villagers in a fight. . . . Could a Sunni vanguard force, whether Islamist or not, just ride roughshod over a much larger on-paper but disintegrating Shi’a army all the way to Baghdad? Damn right it could." So it was "hardly unpredictable." He continues:

I don’t actually think that ISIS wants to march on Baghdad. I think they want to scare the Shi’a regime ensconced there into one massive laundry problem, and I think they want to get large numbers of clueless Shi’a men onto their turf, where they have metis, and slaughter them as an unmistakable signal to keep Baghdad’s writ far, far away from the Sunni tribal homelands. I think they do not really want to march on Baghdad because the coalition or pact, as noted in the quote above, of which they are still a part would likely fracture on that account. And I think they would rather look toward Syria to consolidate that territory, too, creating their new emirate—of which more in a moment.

So we heard talk of a “stall” in today’s news. There is no stall. There is a downshifting of gears in order to consolidate control over Tikrit, Tel Afar, and other new prizes, and in order to take the measure of the soon-to-be Shi’a walking corpses headed foolishly in their direction. So far it’s been really easy and, if you are a crazed, bloodthirsty fanatic, quite exhilarating. Just think: You get to drive down the road with submachine-guns firing out the windows, running all the other cars trying to flee Mosul off the road. Then you stop, go over to the spun-out vehicle, and put ten bullets in the face of all the passengers. What fun. And then you get to do it again, and again. But now there are just too many people to shoot, and some of them are shooting back. Not half as much fun.

What we are seeing, then, is not an attempt by ISIS and allies to take control of Iraq. What we are seeing, in part at least, is a classical example of premodern state, or empire, building. Many years ago, in 1956 to be precise, a cultural anthropologist named Anthony Wallace wrote an essay on what he called revitalization movements. He was mainly interested in the Ghost Dances of American Indians (of which also more in a moment), but what he described as cultures trying to boost themselves into a more effectively organized and satisfied orbit fits perfectly a host of Muslim religious movements in history, too. The first of these and the best fit for the classic description of a revitalization movement was Mohammed’s uniting of the tribes of Arabia under a new banner of faith in the 7th century. The Almohad maniacs, mainly Berbers, who invaded and completely trashed Almoravid Spain in the 12th century was another, and nothing reminds me as much of ISIS today as the Almohads then. The Wahhabi movement that sired the contemporary Saudi polity in the 18th century was another. So was the Taliban, version 1.0 at least. So was the mainly Tuareg movement that grabbed Timbuktu last year. And now we have ISIS.

But that’s only likely a part of what’s going on, as I just said. The other part we are witnessing is an equally classical form of chiliastic religious violence. Chiliastic premillenarian fanaticism can be inward and quietist, or it can be outward directed and both mass-homicidal and suicidal. It is always mystical and anchored in religious symbols against enemies believed to be attacking the very corporate identity of the pressed group. Like al-Qaeda on 9/11. Like the Ghost Dances. Like Tancred’s Crusaders when they sacked Jerusalem in 1099 and bathed the streets in blood. Like the Jewish zealots fighting the Romans before and at Masada. Like the Peasants’ Revolt of 16th century Germany. Somewhat like the Taiping Rebellion. The Mao-Maos in Kenya, too. One could continue with examples, but I’d be deliriously happy if just a dozen or so members of the entire U.S. political class understood or even just knew something about any of these historical cases.

So the real question about ISIS is, to what extent is it a movement of this world, and to what extent is it an example of collective radical religious madness bound to end in spectacular self-immolation? Well, there’s an argument for both possibilities, just as the Almohads were doubtlessly fanatical nutjobs but still managed to consolidate a polity.

A movement has to be at least part of this world to pull off as sophisticated an operation as the ISIS Mosul caper. Cranes and earthmovers operated as if commanded by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers professionals. We saw flying columns comprised of Toyota land cruisers, rather like in the successful Chadian war against Libya in the 1980s. It sure beats the camels and horses of the 7th century. Beats Shi’a too, evidently. But the craziness and delusion quotient is on display, as well. Why else would an ISIS spokesman assume and even yearn for U.S. intervention? They have to know that they will be bounteously dead if U.S. warplanes attack their concentrations in the stark lack of cover that is northeastern Iraq. But martyrdom may be what many of these holy warriors seek.

So again, what is happening is not entirely new anymore than it was unpredictable, even though it is a challenge to figure out which way this whirling human wind is headed. You would therefore have to assume that the U.S. intelligence community as a collections-and-analysis community, which after all knows lots more about Iraq today than it did a dozen years ago (and with NSA listening in), had signals-and-indices level warnings of all this. So go ahead, you just pucker right up and assume it; see where that gets you. (I’d talk more about this but it’s just too depressing.) . . .

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Adam Garfinkle, “Iraq: What a Way to Go,” The American Interest (The Middle East and Beyond), June 16, 2014. The extract is about half the original entry.