THE ISLAMIC STATE: THE CASE FOR EXPANDING THE AIR WAR
By Anthony H. Cordesman
23 Sep 14. No action the United States and President Obama takes can eliminate the fact that the campaign against the Islamic State involves major risks, many of which are beyond U.S. control:
* The lack of Iraqi unity. The uncertain change in the Iraqi government, the high risk it may not be able to bring its Sunnis back into a workable government and the divisions between Arab and Kurd.
* The lack of an effective mix of Iraqi ground forces. The steadily increasing evidence that the Iraqi Forces are militarily ineffective, that nearly half may need to be written off and the other half will take months to years to be effective. The uncertain ability to bring back Sunnis into a new National Guard. The grave weaknesses in the Kurdish peshmerga caused by a lack of training, equipment, and the near bankruptcy of the Kurdish Regional Government.
* The weakness of moderate Syrian opposition forces, and the risk that Assad and rival Islamist extremist forces like the Al Nusra Front will benefit from air attacks on the Islamic State in Syria. There is no good option for Syria, only a least bad one, and efforts to try to build a moderate political and military opposition will probably take years and only succeed if the Assad government and other opposition factions largely self-destruct.
* The uncertain role of allies. Some regional allies like Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, and European allies like Britain and France can be counted on if the US shows it is truly committed and will listen as well as lead. Qatar seem to be shifting away from Islamist causes and towards the alliance, but this is uncertain. Turkey and Erdogan stick out as a de facto non-ally, still willing to play games with the Islamic State in order to limit pressure from the Kurds and keep up pressure on Assad.
* Pressure and opportunism from Russia, Iran, and to some extent China. Russia and Iran can be counted on to try to use the crisis to support Assad, embarrass the United States, and advanced their own interests and influence in spite of the threat they face from the Islamic State. China’s role is more uncertain.
* A lack of clear international support, and cohesive efforts to halt the flow of money and volunteers and trade, and the broader lack of any cohesive effort by Islamic states and main stream Islam to confront the ideological and politic challenge of Islamist extremism. The UN meeting may help, and key states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt have stepped up their efforts to deal with the religious challenge, but the civil and religious aspects of the alliance remain weak. Once all of that is said, however, these risks combine with the military necessity to support the President’s decision to escalate the air war, and to escalate it further in the future. The United States needed to act far more decisively than it had to date, it could not afford to wait for either political or military reasons, and the risks were certain to grow if it did not take stronger military action.
* There was a humanitarian necessity. Quite aside from strategy and warfighting, people matter. The crisis with Turkey’s Kurds and other Syrians, and the continuing murders of the innocent required decisive action.
* The Islamic State’s gains had slowed but it was still winning in spite of U.S. close air support and added advisors and equipment transfers. It was still making limited gains on the Western fringes of Baghdad, putting major pressure on the Iraqi Kurds and creating a humanitarian nightmare for Syria’s Kurds. Air and cruise missile power were the only way to compensate for the current weaknesses of local ground forces, and check the humanitarian disaster along the Syrian Turkish border.
* Escalating the air war was the only way to attack the Islamic State without taking the risk of relying on weak Iraqi land forces and being seen as taking sides. Even a massive rise in U.S. mil