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John Barry

18 December 2015

POL 296

Professor Williams

ISIS War in Iraq and Syria Policy Proposal

ISIS is executing a multiple front civil war in Iraq and Syria. Their presence has

transformed both of these conflicts into one large religious war. Because of the nature of this

religious war, and the degree to which ISIS embraces and capitalizes on its position as a religious

army, the degree of brutality in the wars has increased since they entered the fray in April 2013.

This has increased the scale of the war and made traditional resolution, whether among the

parties taking part in the civil war or via an international mediator effectively impossible.

This limits American policy options. Many forms of direct intervention would be

ineffective at best and aggravating at worst. The oft called for “boots on the ground” approach is

likely the most notable offender, as there is no chance it would lead to a resolution and may

enhance the problem by creating martyrs. My policy recommendations mostly entail a

reprioritization of our current policy towards the war, with one additional recommendation that,

while likely effective, would surely be politically unfeasible both domestically and

internationally.

Prioritize getting spiritual leaders in the area to condemn ISIS. Undercut the religious

argument.

Continue airstrikes to keep ISIS in a holding pattern until other policies come to bear.

Support Assad’s forces, and help him create a coalition to combat ISIS domestically (not

feasible).

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Nature and Scope of the Problem

Coding of the War

When attempting to code the civil wars ISIS is waging, it is necessary to make some

assumptions. ISIS currently controls a territorial caliphate that includes portions of both Iraq and

Syria. Coincidentally, both Iraq and Syria are in the midst of separate civil wars, each of which

includes a multitude of factions, all of whom are supported by different international actors. The

Syrian Civil War, for example, currently includes no less than four factions on the ground;

Assad’s forces, rebels fighting Assad, ISIS, and the Kurds. When you add to this mix another,

different civil war that includes another set of factions, it becomes almost impossible to generate

a testable case against any theoretical model when considering the entire timespan of both wars.

The Syrian Civil War began eight years after the outbreak of the Iraq War and was fought along

vastly different circumstances, so attempting to fit one model across both wars would be futile.

Therefore, this paper will treat ISIS’s entry into the two wars as the beginning of a new civil war

itself. This is because in many ways, it truly is a new war, especially in Syria. Has ISIS joined

the war as yet another rebel group fighting Assad, it would have been easy to designate it another

event in the war that does not fundamentally change the tenor of war. However, ISIS is not

aligned with the Syrian rebels who began their war against Assad, nor is it aligned with the

Syrian state. Instead, it sees itself as a transnational polity, whose main objective is the

acquisition of territory. Therefore, this paper will consider the ISIS civil war in Iraq and Syria

which began on April 9, 2013 when the Islamic State in Iraq first announced that it was

expanding its operations into Syria and rebranded itself ISIS (Lister 20). While technically the

force in Syria at the time was what is now known as Jabhat al-Nusra and was not a branch of the

Islamic State, this moment represented the adoption of the transnational ideology that has been

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central to ISIS’s ideology. In addition, this paper will lean more towards an analysis of the

Syrian front of ISIS’s offensive. The first reason for this is that the Syrian Civil War more

closely models a traditional civil war and thus involvement there will be more likely to

Through this framework, it bears investigating whether the conflict ISIS finds itself in is

a traditional civil war at all. Its primary antagonist is not a state apparatus, and it does not link

itself to any previously existing state. One could make an argument that it contains more

elements of extrastate war than intrastate war. However, when applying the criteria that

Sambanis uses in “What is Civil War?”, it can be coded as a civil war. The requirements that

measure the severity of the war, such as casualties and intensity, are not in question. The key

provision in Sambanis’s coding is, “The government (through its military or militias) must be a

principal combatant” (Sambanis 829). While Assad’s forces have rarely confronted ISIS directly,

they certainly are a principal combatant. ISIS has confronted Iraqi military personnel directly,

which fulfills the requirement on the Iraqi front as well.

The next issue of coding involves whether to consider the ISIS civil war in Iraq and Syria

a religious civil war, an ethnic civil war, or neither. This is important to later analysis, as its

coding will change which models should apply to the case. ISIS’s stated goal is to create a Sunni

Islamic state that spans across previously defined borders. Combatant Abu Omar is quoted as

saying, “We are getting stronger every day in Sham and Iraq but it will not end there—of course,

one day we’ll defeat all the taghut regimes and bring back Islam to the whole region, including

al-Quds [Jerusalem]” (Lister 56). In works by scholars on religious civil war such as that of

Tufts, 2007, a civil war is coded as religious based on the discretion of the observer. She codes

wars as religious based on central importance and peripheral importance, and does this without

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any discernible coding model. By this standard, statements like that of Omar are more than

enough to classify ISIS’s campaign as a religious war.

Potential Consequences of the War and American Response

The war threatens to destabilize the region. While the war is currently a civil war mostly

contained to a contiguous region on the border between Iraq and Syria, ISIS has designs to

expand the war throughout the Middle East. This would result in a jihadist theocracy, which

every nation around the world wants to avoid.

Thus far, the United States’s response to the war has been multipronged. First, the United

States has developed a program to shelter up to 10,000 Syrian refugees displaced by the war.

Second, the United States has trained and armed several rebel groups in Syria, some of whom

have fought ISIS, and some of whom have fought Assad’s Syrian forces. Third, the United States

has attempted to counter ISIS’s message, primarily by collaborating with allies in the region such

as Egypt and Saudi Arabia and coaxing religious leaders to issue fatwahs against ISIS. Fourth,

the United States has begun a counter-finance campaign that aims to destroy ISIS’s refining

capability and other avenues of power. Finally, the United States has conducted airstrikes in both

Iraq and Syria in an effort to degrade ISIS’s power (United States Cong. Committee on Foreign

Affairs 5-6). While these steps have succeeded in rolling back some of ISIS’s gains, they have

been ineffective in eradicating the threat. In addition, the United States’ focus on ISIS has

diverted its attention from seeking a settlement with Assad’s regime.

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Analysis

Origins of the Conflict

Although ISIS’s wars in Syria and Iraq are primarily coded as religious civil wars, they

also fit under Sambanis’s model as an identity war, which encompasses both religious wars and

ethnic wars. According to this model, factors strongly linked with the outbreak of identity war

include an ethnically heterogeneous society, the presence of war in bordering countries, a group

with a political grievance, and a politically unfree society. Iraq and Syria at the time of the

outbreak of ISIS’s involvement in the war fit many of these criteria.

Most obviously, wars were already raging in both regions where ISIS eventually joined

the fight. While not as self-evident as the first point, the other factors hold true as well. Both Iraq

and Syria are highly ethnically heterogeneous. Syria contains a Shia Alawait government, but the

population is majority Sunni Arabs. There is also a significant Kurd presence. Iraq is led by a

Shia government, but it too has large Sunni Arab and Kurdish populations.

Neither country enjoys a high degree of political freedom. According to Freedom

House’s “Freedom in the World” index from the year that ISIS joined the conflict, 2013, both

Iraq and Syria garnered a “not free” rating. In addition, both Iraqis and Syrians could make a

compelling case for political grievances. Assad used chemical weapons against his citizens,

while the Shia government excluded Sunnis from most political representation after Hussein’s

Sunni government was overthrown. However, typically you would expect aggression towards the

state after situations like this. While ISIS has come in combat with Syrian troops at times, they

fight significantly more with Syrian rebels than the state. However, the political exclusion they

suffer as Sunnis could explain why they are more aggressive towards the Iraqi State.

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Intensity

In his paper, “Religion and State Failure: An Examination of the Extent and Magnitude

of Religious Conflict from 1950 to 1996”, Fox finds that religious wars tend to be more intense

than non-religious wars. The variables used to measure intensity include number of combatants,

number of fatalities, and portion of country affected by fighting. While the conflicts in Iraq and

Syria prior to the entry of ISIS into the fray included religious components with the tension

between Sunni and Shia, it was not as prevalent as it became once ISIS declared their intention to

form an Islamic caliphate. The fact that both sides of the religious conflict are Muslim is not

surprising, as Fox finds that Muslims engage in inter-religious war at a higher rate than any other

religious group. Therefore, if Fox’s theory holds true, one would expect the intensity of the civil

war to increase once ISIS got involved and transformed the war into an explicitly religious war.

There was indeed a significant increase in casualties after ISIS joined the Syrian Civil

War in 2013. In 2011, 7,841 people died, while in 2012, 49,294 died. The increase is partially

due to the fact that 2012 was the first full year of war. However, after ISIS joined the war in

2013, casualties jumped, as 73,447 people died in 2013 and 76,021 died in 2014. Every year

since 2012 has featured enough casualties to rank at the most intense level for Fox’s model, but

the jump in casualties coinciding with the introduction of ISIS is undeniable.

Likewise, the map of conflict has expanded since the introduction of ISIS, as much of

Eastern Syria, which was not involved in the original civil war, has been conquered by ISIS. It is

extremely difficult to gauge how many fighters are involved in the Syrian Civil War at any one

time due to the large number of rebel factions. However, the first two criteria display that there

was indeed an uptick in intensity when the war became more explicitly religious.

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Intervention

According to Kaufmann, intervention in ethnic wars cannot follow the same pattern as

intervention in non-ethnic wars. He would expect a successful resolution of ethnic war in one of

three circumstances: when a party wins complete victory, win the war is suppressed by a military

occupation (although this resolution only lasts as long as the occupier is willing to stay), or a

partition granting each ethnicity its own state.

Unfortunately, the religious component in the case of ISIS makes a successful resolution

even more difficult. Consider the total victory path. This is the most likely way that the ISIS civil

war will eventually end. If the United States could intervene in order to build a coalition between

a few of the other warring factions to directly stage a multilateral campaign against ISIS, they

might eventually be successful. However, this possibility remains unlikely, considering the level

of animosity that still exists between the Syrian rebels and Assad’s government. Additionally,

this approach could take a very long time. One prolonging factor of religious wars is the fact that

martyrdom is often seen as a noble death (Toft 100). ISIS will not come to a resolution in order

to avoid further deaths.

The second solution, which again could work as a temporary stopgap, would face much

the same problem as the first issue. ISIS would never surrender no matter how many casualties

we inflicted during our intervention. Thus, we would be pouring resources into a stopgap

measure that would revert back to its original state as soon as we pulled out. The American

public likely does not have the patience for another war of this type again. The only way this

could be a marginally successful strategy is if the United States could also successfully form a

coalition of other factions to continue the fight against ISIS domestically and exterminate them.

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The third form of intervention that Kaufmann suggests for ethnic conflicts would not be

effective in the case of ISIS. There is no doubt that there are religious and ethnic components to

ISIS’s violence. Indeed, their justification for war is religious. However, they are motivated by

the desire to acquire territory above all else. This is why, in Syria, they have fought the Sunni

rebels more often than they have the Shia Alwaite government. A multistate solution would do

nothing to pacify their desire for more territory. An intervention of this form would do nothing to

end the war and may lead to even greater degrees of brutality.

Termination

According to Toft, one of the problematic results of religious civil war is increased

difficulty in reaching a termination. This is partially a result of outbidding, another effect of

religious civil war. Leaders try to display their religious credentials in order to attract support

from locals in the region. This often results in an escalation of tensions. ISIS has clearly done

this from the moment they joined the war, as their very nature is that of an extreme jihadist

theocracy.

Because of this cycle of religious bidding and other factors associated with religious

wars, they often extend far beyond when one would expect a war governed by self-interest to

end. Therefore, Toft finds it likely that any settlement reached in situations of religious war are

likely to only be temporary unless it is achieved through total victory.

The Syrian war undeniably fits this model. However, before it could even get to the point

where it could act irrationally because of its religious beliefs, any steps toward settlement would

fail due to the very nature of ISIS and the chaos surrounding its caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Due

to the extreme lengths that ISIS has gone to during its military, it has received universal

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condemnation from the entire world community. As currently constructed, they would not find

one state actor who would be willing to enter into good faith negotiations with them. Therefore,

any settlement is impossible.

However, in order to apply Toft’s model, we can make an assumption that ISIS was

somehow able to find a negotiating partner with the ability to grant it a satisfactory settlement.

Say, for example, that Iraq and Syria offer to create an Islamic State whose borders fall

generously along the current frontline of battle. A rational actor would accept this form of

settlement. However, Toft argues that religious actors in war are not rational and do not act to

reach settlements rationally. Based on the statements made by ISIS members, her theory would

apply to the group. Their stated goal is to create a global caliphate. To limit that to a relatively

small area on the border of Iraq and Syria.would be a betrayal of their ethos. Even if they were to

temporarily agree to such an arrangement, it seems likely that tensions would erupt again leading

back to war, just as Toft predicts.

Conclusions

The ISIS war in Iraq and Syria is a difficult case for hopes of intervention because of the

high level of religiosity inherent in its most aggressive faction. Every theory of civil war that

posits that the introduction of religion into a war will intensify the war is proved valid by the

ISIS war in Iraq and Syria. The only instance where the ISIS war varied from the model actually

made Kaufmann’s already restrictive theory of how foreign intervention could yield positive

outcomes in cases of ethnic civil war even more restrictive.

There is no evidence in any of the theoretical models that suggests that ISIS will halt its

aggression. If it adheres to its current mode of war, ISIS will continue to act aggressively until it

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suffers total defeat. Unfortunately, total defeat for a faction fighting a religious war has a high

barrier to entry, as these fighters are not adverse to making themselves martyrs for their cause.

Therefore, total defeat would likely only occur if a multilateral coalition of domestic factions

operated together with the expressed purpose of destroying ISIS. With the sectarianism currently

rampant in the region, this is unlikely.

However, it is also unlikely that ISIS will do much to expand its current borders. The air

strikes underway by the United States and other world powers will not defeat ISIS, but they do

slow its expansion. Instead, ISIS will most likely spend the foreseeable future acting out its

brutal form of religious warfare on the same region, with a possible move outside of the region

into terrorist attacks in other regions if they grow frustrated by the war of attrition that awaits

them.

Policy Recommendations

As has been stated by multiple theorists, religious wars tend to escalate in terms of

intensity and duration. The introduction of ISIS into the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts created a

brand new war that was fundamentally different than the tenor of the wars that preceded it,

especially the Syrian Civil War. The chances of reaching a settlement with ISIS due to their

religious nature are almost none, no matter how many battlefield casualties they sustain. The

promise of martyrdom that accompanies battlefield death in religious war may even mean that a

significant escalation of intervention could actually aggravate the issue.

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Therefore, the suggestion that we put boots on the ground is unwise. The only way that

boots on the ground could bring about an end to this civil war would be if the American led

ground force eradicated every member of ISIS. The brutality that this would entail would yield

terrible optics, hurting us on the world stage. Otherwise, the United States would become

embroiled in another endless war as it tries to force a rational settlement with a group that all

evidence points to would refuse any settlement. It would likely result in the United States pulling

out after expending a great deal of blood and treasure but would not contribute a great deal to the

settlement of the war.

Our best chance to bring about a peaceful end to this conflict is to attempt to shift the war

back to a war of political grievance instead of a war of religion. If the war currently included just

Assad’s forces and the Sunni Rebels that began the first civil war in 2011, a settlement could be

well within grasp. Unfortunately, it is more difficult for a war to drift from non-religious to

religious than the other way around. However, if we are to have any chance of creating a

settlement, we must try to find a way to remove the religious aspect from this war.

This is why, although it is not publicized as much as our other policies in the region, our

current approach of convincing Muslim spiritual leaders to speak out against ISIS is extremely

effective. ISIS’s power comes through its ability to religiously outbid every other faction. By

deteriorating its claim to the religion of Islam, we can work to reduce its claim as a war of

religion. After doing this, we and other may be able to broker some form of settlement.

Barring this best case scenario, we should refocus on the conflict between Assad and the

rebels in Syria. There are so many factions currently fighting in Syria that it is unlikely that any

one group will break through for a sustained string of battlefield victories. Even ISIS has not

seen much change in its territorial holding recently. If one side can break through as the chief

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competitor to ISIS, they may be able to roll back ISIS’s gains. That faction would face the same

settlement problem once they move onto fight ISIS because they would still be fighting a

religious war. However, although the Syrian rebels and Assad’s forces are embroiled in a larger

religious war, neither of them has displayed the religious bidding that makes settlement difficult.

Therefore, pushing for a settlement between these factions is a legitimate strategy. Whichever

faction that was would be better equipped than American forces to fight a war of attrition within

their own territory. Unfortunately, while we have attempted to do this by training and equipping

rebel forces to fight Assad’s forces and ISIS, this has been out least effective mode of

intervention thus far. This would be completely politically unfeasible, but if the United States

truly wanted to bring about the best chance of ending the rest of the fighting in Syria in order to

end the war with ISIS, it could throw its support behind Assad. This move would be extremely

unpopular both domestically and amongst our allies, so it remains unfeasible.

Our most discusses current form of policy intervention, air strikes, will not end the civil

war but continued air strikes can function to contain ISIS while one of these other policy

recommendations takes its course.

On my honor, I have neither given nor received any unacknowledged aid on this

paper.

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Works Cited

Fox, Jonathan. "Religion and State Failure: An Examination of the Extent and Magnitude of

Religious Conflict from 1950 to 1996." International Political Science Review Int Polit

Sci Rev 25.1 (2004): 55-76. Web.

"Freedom in the World 2013." Freedom House. Freedom House, 2013. Web. 18 Dec. 2015.

Kaufmann, Chaim. "Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars." International

Security 20.4 (1996): 136-75. Web.

Lister, Charles R. The Islamic State: A Brief Introduction. Washington: Brookings Institution,

2015. Print.

Sambanis, Nicholas. "Do Ethnic and Nonethnic Civil Wars Have the Same Causes?: A

Theoretical and Empirical Inquiry (Part 1)." Journal of Conflict Resolution 45.3 (2001):

259-82. Web.

Sambanis, Nicholas. "What Is Civil War?: Conceptual and Empirical Complexities of an

Operational Definition." Journal of Conflict Resolution 48.6 (2004): 814-58. Web.

Toft, Monica Duffy. "Getting Religion? The Puzzling Case of Islam and Civil War."

International Security 31.4 (2007): 97-131. Web.

United States. Cong. Committee on Foreign Affairs,. Countering ISIS: Are We Making

Progress?: Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives,

One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, Second Session, December 10, 2014. 113 Cong., 2nd

sess. Cong. Rept. 113-234. Washington: US Government Printing Office, 2014. Print.