ISIL: Explained

BY JOE LENOFF

I’ve heard them referred to as ISIL, ISIS, and IS. Which is it?

ISIL is short for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. ISIS is short for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and IS is short for the Islamic State. The difference, of course, is in the words the Levant and Syria. Both come from different translations of the Arabic word al-Shams. Traditionally al-Shams has referred to “Greater Syria”, or the land that was politically dependent on Damascus. Nowadays, we call this territory the Levant, a region that includes Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian territories. (The Levantine dialect of Arabic is still called Shami, or “of Greater Syria”.) When Middle Eastern states were created after World War I, Damascus’ land was limited to the state of Syria, so the contemporary term al-Shams refers only to Syria. Use of ISIL or ISIS depends if one prefers the traditional or contemporary translation.

I dislike ISIS for two reasons. One is that the group’s overarching ideological objective is to recreate a perceived political situation from more than a millennium in the past, when al-Shams would have meant the Levant, and not just Syria. The other reason is that the group is expansionary, seeking to eventually control the entire Levant (and beyond), and does not limit its objectives to the two contemporary states that the name ISIS implies. Syria is a contemporary state, but that situation is not respected by ISIL. ISIL looks to the far past to create a new situation in the future. It does not seem logical to use an exclusively contemporary term to describe them. So, saying ISIS limits the group where they don’t limit themselves and does not appreciate the ideology that they hold themselves to.

As much as ISIL would prefer for the ISIL/ISIS debate to be null and for the rest of the world to respect their request to be referred to simply as the Islamic State, or IS, ISIL is not a state. Many conditions must be met before land is referred to as a state. One of the most important of these conditions is international recognition. Other states must recognize a particular land as sovereign under legitimate rulers, and no state, Islamic-majority or otherwise, has done so for ISIL-ruled lands.

Calling them simply “the Islamic State” also implies they’re the only Islamic state, and of course, they’re not. There are many fully legitimate Islamic states around the world.

Some may argue that ISIL is a de facto state— with independent rule, bureaucratic consolidation, macroeconomic decision-making, and whatnot—and that may be, but a de facto state is not a state. There are many places around the world operating independently and outside the purview of the international state system. Take, for example, the many de facto independent cities within Syria or ancient tribes in the Amazon and the grasslands of Africa. Independence from national authority does not confer one international authority. Shortening ISIL’s name gives them undue legitimacy.

So, by process of elimination we are left with ISIL. It is the only English term we have left.

What is Islamism?

Islamism is defined as wanting to see the tenants of Islam extend beyond the private sphere into the public sphere, often referring to Islam’s influence on government. It has roots in the post-colonial world in 1798 with France’s colonization of Egypt and prominent Egyptian scholars asking, “How did we allow the West to pass us?”

Some accused the Ottoman Empire of being backward-looking and believed in “modernization” and an adoption of European culture and sciences, of European norms and ideals, and Enlightenment philosophy. We call these people modernists.

Others sought a return to an increased role of Islam in public life, some going so far as to call for Islamic governance. We call these people Islamists. They harken back to the Golden Age of Islam, when the Muslim Empires led the world, and they seek to recreate that situation. Some argued that the fastest rise of Muslim power was at the very outset of Muslim expansion in 632 A.D., when Islam dominated day-to-day life and governance, and before the complications of cumbersome jurisprudence. They also perceived that Islamdom’s decline occurred simultaneously with the incorporation of European values. They consider this a corruption. In this way, Islamism is best understood as a fundamentalist political ideology.

It is important to note that while not all modernists and not all Islamists feel that their ideologies circulate around a competitive notion between East and West, between Europe and the Muslim world, many do feel this way and are motivated by a “subordination”. However, both modernism and Islamism are an ideology. Both have radical elements, but by in large the followers of these ideologies are peace-loving people like you or me.

A brief history of Islamism

It was not until World War One that frustration set in, resulting from the externally imposed division and the extended occupation by European forces. Colonial powers, mainly the United Kingdom and France, argued that their rule was legitimate, that they were saving the natives from themselves and from Islam. Though previously fractured by ethnic or historical differenced outside of their shared religion, the Arab world now had a common enemy and many scholars fostered the utilization of Islam as a method of united resistance.

Most notably, the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt started as an intellectual movement in the 1920s and as a military movement in the 1940s. By the late 1950s King Farouk of Egypt was weak, and a power struggle emerged between the Muslim Brothers and a secular group called the Free Officers. The Free Officers eventually won, and their leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, cracked down on the Muslim Brothers.

When Anwar Sadat succeeded Nasser, he cast himself as the “believing president”, and one way in which he decided to reflect his piety was by giving the Muslim Brotherhood back some degree of political freedom. He encouraged the Muslim Brotherhood to be a quietist organization, and to help the government with social services, much like churches and synagogues and mosques do in the United States today.

However, the other side of Muslim Brotherhood, the radicals and the militants, wanted to continue militarization and to continue to attempt to take over governments. They believed that imposing Islamic law was a prerequisite to leading a fully Islamic life for the populace. The Egyptian government suppressed this aspect of the Muslim Brotherhood, leaving these radicals and the ideologies they held with them to spread around the world, evolving into many of the terrorist groups we know today. One prominent example is Hamas, based mainly out of the Gaza Strip. In 1981, Hosni Mubarak took over after Sadat’s assassination, and reversed many of his limited sympathetic policies, opting for a stronger stance against the Muslim Brotherhood.

In order to expand our scope, we turn beyond Egypt to Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan and the year 1979. By 1979, radical Egyptian Islamists were in Saudi Arabia, and, along with a partnership of the “zealous” Wahabis/ Salafists, seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca, one of the holiest sites in Islam. This was an embarrassment to the Saudi government, and after the Saudi government took back control life became increasingly difficult for Islamists and radicals in Saudi Arabia. The government no longer turned a blind eye to their recruitment or fundraising. Saud Arabia’s crackdown in 1979, along with Mubarak’s rise to power in 1981, along with many other factors, allowed for a mass jihadist and Islamist exodus to Afghanistan

When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 the radicals and Islamists perceived them as “Godless”. In this way, the Soviets were the perfect antithesis to Islamist ideology, as a secular people coming to “subordinate” the Islamic world further. The Soviet-Afghan war acted as a training ground for radical Islamist terrorism. Al Qaeda, and eventually ISIL, will come out from this hell-scape battle hardened and ideologically intransigent

The theme here is that repression and military force did not eliminate the radical Islamist threat, but it did disperse it and made it less predictable.

What is a caliphate?

On June 30, 2014 ISIL declared itself a caliphate and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as the caliph. The caliph is Mohammad’s one true successor on earth. He is the embodiment of the institution of Islam. Traditionally, the most powerful political and military empire of the Muslim World would have the caliph as their head of state, though not necessarily as the head of government. In 1924, Turkey dissolved this institution in an effort to modernize and to distinguish themselves from the Ottoman Empire prior.

Many have claimed to reestablish the caliphate since 1924, such as Boko Haram in Nigeria, and the Taliban in Afghanistan, though none have been legitimate. Significantly, Al–Azhar University and Clerical School, the Harvard of Islamic thought, has not recognized a legitimate caliphate since 1924.

Where does ISIL come from?

It is first important to understand that the current leader of ISIL, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was not always its leader. The founder of the organization, the man who was able to turn a marginal group within a second-tier militia into an international force grabbing world headlines was a man Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Zarqawi began his career in terrorism, like so many others, by finding his way to Afghanistan during the late 1980s in the fight against the Soviet Union. Here he developed an extremist Salafist ideology and even potentially a relationship with Osama bin-Laden. When his time was over in Afghanistan he moved to northern Iraq, where he joined up with Ansar al-Islam, a radical militant Kurdish separatist group. Zarqawi led Ansar al-Islam’s Arab branch until 2004, when Al Qaeda, reeling from the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, co-opted Zarqawi’s group and incorporated them into Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Zarqawi took on AQI leadership and in so doing created arguably the most effective Sunni militia in the Iraqi Civil War following the US invasion of Iraq. He was killed by an American airstrike in 2006.

AQI’s efficacy, however, was the result of gruesome tactics and brutality. Public executions, crucifixions, and rotting corpses with signs indicating lack of allegiance to AQI were among the more heinous of these tactics. A public backlash ensued in 2006, known as Sahwa, the Awakening. Locals turned on AQI, prompting the new leader, Abu Ayyud al-Masri, to rebrand AQI as the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI).

Continued public unrest, along with American airstrikes on ISI leadership, weakened the militants until 2011, when the Syrian Crisis escalated and ISI, now under al-Baghdadi, rebranded themselves again as ISIL to reflect their newer, broader goals. ISIL pivoted their military efforts to Syria while continuing political consolidation within Iraq. . ISIL’s native Iraqi lieutenants used their political capital to gain further local support. Disparate Sunni tribes, former Saddam-era Ba’ath party members, and others, frustrated with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shia-leaning government, found in ISIL a strong Sunni flag to rally behind and consolidate their efforts.

Militarily, ISIL was able to employ what they had learned fighting the Iraqi Civil War in the Syrian Crisis. They distinguished themselves early as excellent fighters, though did continue to provoke the ire of locals who saw them as more hardline than they were willing to support. ISIL did not limit their attacks to the Syrian government, but instead broadened their targets to include Shia Muslim and other minority communities. Syrian Sunnis who had been raised in a cosmopolitan or tolerant community bristled at this, but were powerless to stop it.

In early 2014, ISIL and Al Qaeda formally split. ISIL was, at this point, still affiliated with the Al Qaeda brand, Al Qaeda sought to combine ISIL’s political and military efforts with another Al Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, but this effort failed, resulting in the outright disavowal of ISIL from Al Qaeda. There are reports that Al Qaeda disavowed ISIL because they were “too horrid even for Al Qaeda”, though the source of that supposition is a letter written from Al Qaeda leadership to ISIL leader al-Baghdadi. The letter has yet to be confirmed, so we simply do not know.

In any event, as is popularly known, in summer 2014 ISIL determined the time was appropriate for a military pivot back to Iraq and a seizure of Sunni lands there. After minimal resistance from Iraqi forces, ISIL took many towns, fortifications, and highways linking Sunni lands. ISIL announced the reestablishment of the caliphate on June 30, 2014, and President Obama announced commencement of US operations against ISIL on August 7, 2014.

What are ISIL’s goals?

According to translations of speeches by the Middle East Research Institute and analysis by Foreign Affairs’ Robin Simcox, ISIL’s goals are a four-step process. (1) Declaration of a caliphate. Clearly, they have already accomplished this. (2) Consolidation of authority in regions they control to create for themselves a solid base and state-like structures to work from. This is where they are currently. (3) Take all Muslim lands, Sunni and Shia. (4) Conquer “Rome”, or the Christian world.

Though this seems like a rather obvious expansionary plan, it is crucial to understand that the fact that ISIL is not currently seeking to expand with the same zeal they had earlier in the year does not mean their threat is reduced. It simply means they are in a different phase of operations. The energy that they once put forth into gaining territory is now being used to enforce strict laws on piety and religious affairs, and to propagandize the lands they control. They are establishing state-like institutions, such as regulating transportation and energy, educating children, and offering pensions to ISIL bureaucrats and soldiers. Simply put, they are establishing macro-level institutions to have as a base of operations for the third and fourth phase of operations.

Understanding this process shows us that ISIL is not seeking to strike Europe or the United States any time soon. However, this is not to say that ISIL does not seek to eventually strike Europe or the United States. In an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd, President Obama said “we’ve not seen any immediate intelligence about threats to the homeland from ISIL”, but went on to state the threat that ISIL would be if they were to continue to consolidate. “In the more immediate term, it’s an imm– it’s a threat to friends, partners in the region and is causing all kinds of hardship.” Note his hesitation to use the term “immediate” to describe ISIL’s threat to friends and partners. It is “more” immediate, but it is not immediate in and of itself. Immediately— currently— ISIL is consolidating. ISIL then plans to move to “friends and partners in the region”, then to Europe and the USA.

Isn’t preventative war illegal?

One may argue that since ISIL is not an imminent threat to the United States, the US operation is then preventative instead of preemptive, and therefore internationally illegal. That argument is quickly dismissed in Iraq by the Iraqi government’s request for American support. In Syria it is slightly more complicated. The United States is not allied with Bashar al-Assad’s government (which it no longer recognizes), though it does have their complicit support, even their pleading for a united front, against ISIL. Is this enough? There are many complicating factors, and it is not clear if the bombings on ISIL targets within Syria are strictly legal in the international sense.

My assumption is that the Obama administration prioritized operational efficacy over international legality in this case.

How strong is ISIL really?

The CIA estimates that ISIL has anywhere from 20,000 to 31,000 rank and file troops.  This does not include supporters, and this does not include bureaucrats. For context, according to the United Kingdom’s International Institute for Strategic Studies, 20,000 is roughly the size of the Bahraini army, and 31,000 is roughly the size of the Kenyan army.

One of the major threats ISIL poses is the international character of their armed forces. Radical Islamists from around the world, mainly Tunisia and Saudi Arabia, have come to Syria and Iraq to fight under the ISIL flag. Some are also coming from Europe, and to a much lesser extent the United States. There is a fear that their passports and freedom of international travel those passports bring, will be a major avenue for ISIL’s eventual global terrorism.

Clearly, ISIL is not a standard military. There are no ISIL uniforms and traditional military tactics will not work against them. Counterterrorism tactics, requiring extended commitments on the ground and intensive work with local communities, will be necessary in addition to the air power the United States is providing. The US is quick to point out that this ground aspect of counterterrorism will be provided by Iraqi and Arab allies, and not by the US.

Where does ISIL get their money and military equipment?

Initially, ISIL received most of their funding from wealthy hardliners in Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. These individuals were sympathetic to ISIL’s goals of promoting Sunni interests and toppling Bashar al-Assad from Syria, and were not concerned with ISIL’s ruthlessness. Eventually their respective governments were pressured to cut off these funding sources, and ISIL was forced to find other means to support themselves.

When ISIL forces re-invaded Iraq, their reputation preceded them. Since the US invasion of Iraq and the purging of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party, the Iraqi military has been largely Shia and has been disinterested in defending Sunni lands, especially when the cost of failure was confronting ISIL’s extremism. The Iraqi military simply turned and ran from many forts and communities, leaving behind US-provided military equipment and, in some cases, large amounts of US cash.

ISIL has also captured many oil wells, and they smuggle this oil through the porous Turkish-Syrian border. The oil is then sold on the Turkish black market. Before US airstrikes, ISIL was averaging around $2 or $3 million per day from oil sales. The US has singled out these oil wells in its airstrikes, and has significantly hampered production, from an estimated 80,000 barrels a day prior to strikes, now reduced to about 20,000 barrels. This is still a significant amount of income, and the US is currently working with Turkey to crack down on their black market.

Where does ISIL control? The maps showing their borders always look so strange.

It depends on your analysis. It’s a series of roads and towns, but that should probably not be understood to include the desert surrounding those towns. They hold a large number of cities and infrastructure, especially along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, but there are limited reports of their influence extending beyond the major urban centers they control. That is why maps of ISIL-controlled lands sometimes look like tentacles extending into Iraq and sometimes include a broader swath of land. It depends if the cartographer wanted to include the rural lands as well, and if so, how much.