Sitting out the ISIS war

We’ve heard lots of talk about how to fight ISIS, how much to fight them—whether to contain, destroy, or merely defeat them—and even about the constitutional requirements for any such operation. But it is almost always assumed that the United States must meet these monsters on the field of battle and remove them from the headlines.

But what Graeme Wood has reported in his widely read Atlantic article, “What ISIS Really Wants,” calls into question our interest in such a war. In that study, Wood shows that ISIS is driven entirely by its followers’ rigorous Quranic beliefs (as they read it). These center on the establishment of a territorial caliphate that is a precursor to the end of the world. Whereas al-Qaeda focuses on terror acts abroad to remove Western interests from Arab lands, the focus of ISIS activity is in the Middle East itself. Though ISIS is certainly violent and cruel, it is not primarily a terrorist group. It is a conquering army with imperial ambitions.

So we cannot justify war based on the threat of militarized radicals returning from the caliphate to wreak havoc in New York. Those who leave the West to join Allah’s Kingdom fly on one-way tickets. The Islam of ISIS stresses a Muslim’s moral obligation to live under the caliphate if at all possible. There’s no going back. The kidnappings and beheadings are to attract people to the caliphate (especially those eager to fight), extort ransom, and draw America into what they believe will be history’s final battle.

The best argument for full-scale military engagement is to preserve regional stability, and no doubt to secure our oil supply. But the Middle East is already wildly unstable. Syria is in civil war, Iraq is up for grabs, and Iran is on the verge of a nuclear weapon. Throwing a full-scale U.S. re-invasion into the mix is unlikely to make things better.

ISIS will likely script its own demise. In its decision-making it is rigidly theological and thus forbids itself any exercise of prudence. Favorable circumstances have carried ISIS this far, but that will not continue. For example, an essential attribute of a true caliphate is that it is always expanding. Aside from Jordan and Kuwait—two countries we would want to secure—the Islamic State has nowhere to expand but into Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, and Saudi Arabia to the south. These states can take care of themselves. But as long as we are willing to throw the full force of the U.S. military into the fray, these powers will be happy to sit back and watch infidels die.

At best, in support of our regional allies, we could undertake a limited proxy war, as Richard Haass has advocated, arming the Kurds in the north, assembling and outfitting a multinational Sunni Muslim force to provide an alternative for Sunnis who would otherwise support ISIS for protection against Assad, Iran, and Shia-dominated Baghdad, and all supported by increased airstrikes.

We should heed President John Quincy Adams’ counsel not to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. But no matter, there is no possibility of any real war making under this president.