More than 50 analysts
at US Central Command have recently said that claims of the so-called
Islamic State's weakness have been greatly exaggerated. If analysts'
allegations are correct, maybe it's time to start asking the question
everyone seems intent on avoiding: What happens if IS can't be defeated?
Do we then have to acknowledge the possibility of an IS victory?
We're not talking about a global "convert or die" type of victory that would see the world consumed by the apocalyptic ambitions of IS's megalomaniacal leadership. Instead, what would a more plausible kind of "agree to disagree" or at least "agree to be mortal enemies" victory look like for IS? Perhaps something much more pragmatic, like being able to effectively govern the territories they already control and successfully protect the borders of their so-called caliphate.
From a certain perspective IS is already doing just that. They already carry out the essential day-to-day asks of any state: paying municipal salaries, issuing travel documents, and running schools and hospitals. However, once this kind of administration becomes the status quo, defeating IS becomes less about targeting leaders or shattering terror networks than about destroying an entire system of political and military governance: no small task.
"They [IS] are building redundancies into the system," Will McCants, author of ISIS Apocalypse and director of the US Project on US Relations with the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution, told VICE News. "They are giving field commanders and governors much more freedom and leeway, so even if you lose the caliph [Abu Bakr al Baghdadi] you don't necessarily lose the caliphate."
Most observers now agree that defeating IS will be more challenging —and less likely —as the months and (now) years grind on. The longer the group survives against the international coalition that has so visibly formed against them, the more credibility they can build as a movement, and the greater their ability to attract foreign fighters, radical ideologues, and local auxiliaries.
Nick Heras, an associate fellow at the Jamestown Foundation and a Middle East researcher at the Center for a New America Security, told VICE News, "fundamentally speaking, [IS] has already achieved the first phase of victory, surviving for over a year with an intense multi-national US-led coalition against it. They held on to most of their territorial gains in Iraq and expanded their territory in Syria."
We're not talking about a global "convert or die" type of victory that would see the world consumed by the apocalyptic ambitions of IS's megalomaniacal leadership. Instead, what would a more plausible kind of "agree to disagree" or at least "agree to be mortal enemies" victory look like for IS? Perhaps something much more pragmatic, like being able to effectively govern the territories they already control and successfully protect the borders of their so-called caliphate.
From a certain perspective IS is already doing just that. They already carry out the essential day-to-day asks of any state: paying municipal salaries, issuing travel documents, and running schools and hospitals. However, once this kind of administration becomes the status quo, defeating IS becomes less about targeting leaders or shattering terror networks than about destroying an entire system of political and military governance: no small task.
"They [IS] are building redundancies into the system," Will McCants, author of ISIS Apocalypse and director of the US Project on US Relations with the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution, told VICE News. "They are giving field commanders and governors much more freedom and leeway, so even if you lose the caliph [Abu Bakr al Baghdadi] you don't necessarily lose the caliphate."
Most observers now agree that defeating IS will be more challenging —and less likely —as the months and (now) years grind on. The longer the group survives against the international coalition that has so visibly formed against them, the more credibility they can build as a movement, and the greater their ability to attract foreign fighters, radical ideologues, and local auxiliaries.
Nick Heras, an associate fellow at the Jamestown Foundation and a Middle East researcher at the Center for a New America Security, told VICE News, "fundamentally speaking, [IS] has already achieved the first phase of victory, surviving for over a year with an intense multi-national US-led coalition against it. They held on to most of their territorial gains in Iraq and expanded their territory in Syria."
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