A strategy for defeating Islamic State from an unlikely

source

Shi'ite
fighters fire a rocket during clashes with Islamic State militants in Salahuddin province, March 1,
2015. REUTERS/Ahmed Al-Hussain
President Barack Obama has laid out his goal in the Middle East: to degrade and defeat Islamic
State. Yet remarkably little progress seems to have been made.
Why has it proven so difficult for the world's greatest power and its regional allies to succeed
against an estimated 30,000 radical extremists? ?The answer can be found by examining the
situation the Allies confronted in Russia after World War One.

Then, as now, a relatively obscure revolutionary group with a threatening ideology seized control of
a strategically important region. A war-weary United States agreed to limited participation in an
allied effort to dislodge the radicals, providing several thousand troops and supplies. Allied nations,
including Britain, Canada, France and Australia, joined the effort. After five years of fighting,
however, the radicals were able to consolidate their control and continued to pose a threat to
Western interests for many decades.

Leon Trotsky with Vladimir Lenin

and Klim Voroshilov among soldiers in Petrograd in 1921. WIKIPEDIA
That territory was the Russian empire; the years of fighting stretched from 1918 through 1922, and
the revolutionary group was the Bolshevik (later Communist) Party.
Among all the groups that opposed the tyranny of the Russian tsars, the Bolsheviks were the most
extreme. They promised a new social order that would empower workers, end the tyranny of religion
and existing elites, abolish all private property and usher in a new era for mankind. Originally a
small minority in the opposition, even among the communists, the Bolsheviks' ruthless strategic
vision propelled them to mastery of all Russia. They had seemed near exhaustion, after fighting a
fierce civil war against White Russian reactionary forces. The allied forces had just triumphed in
World War One. Yet it was the Bolsheviks who emerged victorious.

Relying on a "Red Terror," including gruesome tortures and mass executions, the Bolsheviks
defeated both domestic opponents and the allied international forces. They won because of their
intense determination, cohesion and ideological support, while allied forces were hamstrung by
divided objectives, little desire to continue fighting after years of draining war and lack of public
support at home.

Dead soldiers of the 8th

Cheskoslovakian Regiment after a battle at the Ussuriysky Front. WIKIPEDIA
Though today's forces in the front-line countries of Syria and Iraq may be capable of defending
regions of their territory, trading tactical wins and losses with Islamic State, they are not capable of
mounting the sustained military offensive necessary to rout Islamic State and recover the territories
this radical group controls. For that, an allied force including the United States, Turkey, Iran and
other powerful nations, including European countries and the Gulf nations, is needed.
Only a multipronged offensive coordinated with strong air and ground forces can grind down the
resourceful and well-equipped forces of Islamic State. It would likely draw on Iraqi forces backed by
Iranian arms, troops and expertise from the east; Kurdish forces backed by Turkish arms, troops and
expertise from the north, and Sunni Syrian forces backed by Gulf money and armaments from the
West.
Yet the prospects that such a coalition could act effectively are slim. Washington and its European
allies are exhausted from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Already suffering from long recessions
and vast spending on overseas military expeditions, their publics show mixed enthusiasm for a
renewed fight in the Middle East, even against an enemy as frightful as Islamic State.
Moreover, as in 1918, the key allies are divided on their objectives. Iran will only support a
campaign against Islamic State that promises to maintain the authority of Syria's President Bashar
al-Assad, while Turkey and Saudi Arabia will only support a campaign that promises to remove Assad
from power. The United States has therefore tried to mount a campaign against Islamic State with
no explicit strategy for Assad's future. This has gained only tepid support from key potential allies.
Disagreements over Syria strategy do not end there. As the sudden resignation of Defense Secretary
Chuck Hagel and the debate over a proposed new authorization for the use of U.S. forces against
Islamic State suggest, disagreements over Washington's role in fighting Islamic State exist even
within the U.S. government.

Armored vehicles of Iraqi security

forces with militias known as Hashid Shaabi drive past smoke arising from a clash with Islamic State
militants in the town of al-Alam, March 10, 2015.REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani
By contrast, support for Islamic State is growing locally and internationally. Just as the Bolsheviks
cited foreign intervention in Russia's revolution as proof that Western capitalist states were bent on
exploiting hapless Russians, so Islamic State points to U.S. bombing strikes and drone attacks to
persuade Sunni Muslims in Syria, Iraq and around the globe that Western infidels are seeking to
undermine and oppress their religion.
Not only have the Sunni populations forced out of power by Shi'ite leaders in Iraq and Syria rallied
to Islamic State's banner, so, too, have disgruntled Sunnis and radical groups in other countries,
including Europeans, Australians, Canadians, Egyptians, Palestinians, Tunisians and Chechens. ?In
Libya and Nigeria, local jihadists have sworn allegiance to Islamic State.
Indeed, anywhere that Sunni Muslims feel oppressed or excluded, Islamic State's program to build a
powerful, defiant Sunni state in the Islamic heartland has magnetic appeal. Islamic State can bide its
time and recover from tactical reversals. In the long run, it will be gathering its forces and seeking
to increase its funding and arms for the days when it will march on Baghdad, mount terror attacks
on Western nations and their Middle Eastern allies (including Turkey and Saudi Arabia), and
undermine what it sees as the apostate state of Iran.

Red Army troops attack Kronstadt

sailors in March 1921. WIKIPEDIA

Can anything be done to overcome the divisions among the potential allies? It will be extremely
difficult. Nations with highly divergent interests would have to cooperate in a sustained campaign.
Many analysts say Assad is content to leave Islamic State in control of parts of Syria, as long as he
holds the key Damascus-Aleppo corridor and the coast. Meanwhile, Assad's brutality and U.S. air
strikes are driving ever more Syrians to support Islamic State.
Thus the only way to bring Syria's powerful armed forces into the fight against Islamic State is to
remove Assad from power. Syria's military and elites could be promised that, if they replace Assad,
they will be fully supported in their efforts to rebuild Syria. They would have to agree, however, to
an inclusive regime that respects and incorporates the nation's Sunni majority, not just a revived
Alawite oligarchy.
Iran would have to accept Assad's departure and in addition promise to support a regime in Iraq that
respects and incorporates Sunnis, something it has notably failed to do over the past decade. Turkey
would have to put aside its conflicts with its Kurds and its enmity to Iran, both of which it has
treated as more important than defeating Islamic State.
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States would have to cooperate with Iran, while reining in their own
citizens who provide financial support to Sunni extremists.
Russia would also have to be assured that its naval base at Tartus in Syria would be maintained by a
new Syrian regime. Otherwise, Moscow will likely act as spoiler and supply Assad with sufficient
weapons and aid to maintain his rule.

American troops parading in

Vladivostok, Siberia, August 1918. Courtesy National Archives
In 1918-1920, the Western allies won many victories against the Bolsheviks, defeating the Red Army
in Estonia, Odessa and Siberia. Yet the allied forces were never able to follow up with a successful
drive into the heart of Bolshevik power.
The Bolsheviks held onto Moscow and most of European Russia and waited out the Allies' declining
resolve. In the early 1920s, one Western ally after another withdrew its forces from Russia, leaving
the Bolsheviks to build their state over the following decades.
Something similar seems the most likely outcome in the Middle East today. ?The deep divisions
among potential allies and the lack of public support for yet another war in the Middle East will
likely doom efforts to overcome the more committed, cohesive and determined forces of Islamic

State.
The Islamic State, like the Bolshevik regime a century earlier, is a rising revolutionary power. It has
gone from being just another terrorist group to master of a region larger than Lebanon or Israel,
with a population of more than 2 million, tens of thousands of armed fighters and financial resources
in the billions of dollars.
Unless the major powers of the region -- Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia -- can unite and sustain
a multipronged campaign against Islamic State, we shall have to deal with a major source of
terrorism and war in the region for many years to come.
This piece appears here courtesy of?Project for Study of the 21st Century.?You can find more
information about the group, as well as other commentaries at?www.projects21.com.