To many who have witnessed its brutal tactics and religious extremism, the Islamic State, or ISIS, seems uniquely baffling and unusually dangerous.
According to its leaders’ own statements, the group wants to eliminate
infidels, impose sharia worldwide, and hasten the arrival of the Mahdi.
ISIS' foot soldiers have pursued these goals with astonishing cruelty.
Yet unlike the original al Qaeda, which showed little interest in
controlling territory, ISIS has also sought to build the rudiments of a
genuine state in the territory it controls. It has established clear
lines of authority, tax and educational systems, and a sophisticated
propaganda operation. It may call itself a “caliphate” and reject the
current state-based international system, but a territorial state is
what its leaders are running. As Jürgen Todenhöfer, a German journalist
who visited territory in Iraq and Syria controlled by ISIS, said in
2014, “We have to understand that ISIS is a country now.”
Yet ISIS is hardly the first extremist movement
to combine violent tendencies, grandiose ambitions, and territorial
control. Its religious dimension notwithstanding, the group is just the
latest in a long line of state-building revolutionaries, strikingly
similar in many ways to the regimes that emerged during the French,
Russian, Chinese, Cuban, Cambodian, and Iranian revolutions. These
movements were as hostile to prevailing international norms as ISIS is,
and they also used ruthless violence to eliminate or intimidate rivals
and demonstrate their power to a wider world.
The earlier episodes
are reassuring when contemplating ISIS today. They show that
revolutions pose serious dangers only when they involve great powers,
since only great powers have proved capable of spreading their
revolutionary principles. ISIS will never come close to being a great
power, and although it has attracted some sympathizers abroad, just as
earlier revolutions did, its ideology is too parochial and its power too
limited to spark similar takeovers outside Iraq and Syria.
History
also teaches that outside efforts to topple a revolutionary state often
backfire, by strengthening hard-liners and providing additional
opportunities for expansion. Today, U.S. efforts to “degrade and
ultimately destroy” ISIS, as the Obama administration has characterized
U.S. policy, could enhance its prestige, reinforce its narrative of
Western hostility to Islam, and bolster its claim to be Islam’s
staunchest defender. A better response would rely on local actors to
patiently contain the group, with the United States staying far in the background.
This approach requires seeing ISIS for what it is: a small and
underresourced revolutionary movement too weak to pose a significant
security threat, except to the unfortunate people under its control.
WHEN EXTREMISTS TAKE POWER
Revolutions
replace an existing state with a new one based on different political
principles. These upheavals are usually led by a vanguard party or rebel
group, such as the Bolsheviks in Russia, the Communist Party in China,
the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, or Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his
followers in Iran. Sometimes, a revolutionary movement overthrows the
regime on its own; other times, it exploits a power vacuum after the old
order has collapsed for other reasons. Revolutions
pose serious dangers only when they involve great powers, since only
great powers have proved capable of spreading their revolutionary
principles.
Because revolutions are violent struggles conducted in the face
of enormous obstacles, their leaders need abundant luck to topple a
regime and consolidate control afterward. They must also convince their
supporters to run grave risks and overcome the natural inclination to
let others fight and die for the cause. Revolutionary movements
typically use a combination of inducement, intimidation, and
indoctrination to enforce obedience and encourage sacrifices, just as
ISIS is doing now. In particular, they purvey ideologies designed to
justify extreme methods and convince their followers that their
sacrifices will bear fruit. The specific content of these beliefs
varies, but their purpose is always to persuade supporters that
replacing the existing order is essential and that their efforts are
destined to succeed. Typically, revolutionary ideologies do this in
three main ways.
First, revolutionary organizations portray their
opponents as evil, hostile, and incapable of reform. Compromise is
therefore impossible, which means the old order must be uprooted and
replaced. The revolutionaries in eighteenth-century France saw Europe’s
monarchies as irredeemably corrupt and unjust, a view that justified
radical measures at home and made war with the rest of Europe nearly
inevitable. Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks insisted that only a
thoroughgoing revolution could eliminate capitalism’s inherent evils,
and Mao Zedong told his followers, “The imperialists will never lay down
their butcher knives.” Khomeini thought likewise about the shah,
instructing his followers to “squeeze his neck until he is strangled.”
ISIS
is no different. Its leaders and ideologues portray the West as
innately hostile and existing Arab and Muslim governments as heretical
entities contrary to Islam’s true nature. Compromise with such infidels
and apostates makes no sense; they must be eliminated and replaced by
leaders following what ISIS regards as true Islamic principles.
Second,
revolutionary organizations preach that victory is inevitable, provided
supporters remain obedient and steadfast. Lenin argued that capitalism
was doomed by its own contradictions, and Mao described imperialists as
“paper tigers,” both thereby reassuring their followers that the
revolution would eventually triumph. ISIS' current leader, Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi, offered a similarly upbeat assessment in November 2014,
telling his audience, “Your state is well and in the best of conditions.
Its advance will not cease.”
Third, leaders of revolutionary
movements usually see their model as universally applicable. Once
victorious, they promise their followers, the revolution will liberate
millions, create a more perfect world, or fulfill some divinely ordained
plan. French radicals in the 1790s called for a “crusade for universal
liberty,” and Marxist-Leninists believed that world revolution would
produce a classless, stateless commonwealth of peace. Similarly,
Khomeini and his followers saw the revolution in Iran as the first step
toward the abolition of the “un-Islamic” nation-state system and the
establishment of a global Islamic community.
Watch the throne: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Mosul, July 2014.
In the same way, ISIS' leaders believe that their
fundamentalist message applies to the entire Muslim world and beyond. In
July 2014, for example, Baghdadi declared that ISIS would one day unite
“the Caucasian, Indian, Chinese, Shami [Syrian], Iraqi, Yemeni,
Egyptian, Maghribi [North African], American, French, German, and
Australian.” ISIS uses social media to spread its message abroad and is
quick to claim credit for faraway violent acts. This claim to universal
applicability forms a key part of the group’s appeal to foreigners and
is one reason other governments view the group with such alarm.
REVOLUTION AND WAR
Outsiders
rightly worry that a revolutionary state might try to expand.
Revolutionary leaders usually believe that it is their duty to export
their movement and that doing so is also the best way to keep it
alive—an idea captured in ISIS' slogan “lasting and expanding” (baqiya wa tatamaddad).
Not surprisingly, then, the neighbors of revolutionary states typically
consider preventive measures to weaken or overthrow the new regime. The
result is a spiral of suspicion and an increased danger of war.
Conflicts
between revolutionary regimes and other states are exacerbated further
by a paradoxical combination of insecurity and overconfidence on both
sides. New revolutionary leaders know that their position is tenuous and
that opponents may seek to crush them before they can consolidate
power. At the same time, their unlikely success, along with their
optimistic worldview, leads them to believe that they can beat the odds
and overcome far more powerful opponents. Among nearby states, the same
problem often occurs in reverse: they are usually alarmed by the new
state’s extreme goals yet confident they can get rid of it before it
consolidates power.
Part of the problem is that revolutions create
great uncertainty, which in turn fosters miscalculation. For one thing,
outsiders often have little direct contact with the new regime, so they
cannot gauge its true intentions and level of resolve or clearly
communicate their own redlines. Few outsiders have met with ISIS' top
leaders, for example, so it remains mysterious what they really believe
and how resolute they will prove to be.
Judging a revolutionary
state’s fighting capacity can also be difficult, especially if it rests
on radically different social foundations. Austria and Prussia thought
the revolution in France had left it vulnerable to military defeat;
instead, nationalist fervor and the mass conscription of able-bodied
men—the infamous levée en masse—soon made France the strongest
power in Europe. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein mistakenly believed that the
fall of the shah had left Iran open to attack, but when his forces
invaded the country in 1980, the clerical regime mobilized new sources
of military power, such as the Revolutionary Guard, and turned the tide
of battle in Iran’s favor.
It is also impossible to know for
certain whether a revolution will be contagious, but there is usually
some reason to fear it might be. Revolutionary states’ ambitions
inevitably strike sympathetic chords abroad and convince some number of
foreign sympathizers to flock to their banner. Antimonarchical elements
from all over Europe swarmed to Paris in the 1790s, and Westerners such
as the Harvard-educated social activist John Reed journeyed to Russia
following the Bolshevik Revolution. Such reverberations reinforce fears
of contagion: Europeans from London to Moscow worried that the
revolution in France might topple thrones across Europe, just as
Europeans and Americans obsessed about the spread of Bolshevism after
1917 and otherwise sensible people succumbed to McCarthyism in the
1950s.
To make matters even more confusing, revolutions also generate a flood of refugees
fleeing the new regime. Eager to persuade foreign powers to help them
return home, exiles typically offer lurid accounts of the new state’s
crimes (which may well be true) while suggesting the new regime can be
easily defeated. French, Russian, Chinese, Cuban, Iranian, and
Nicaraguan exiles made such claims to convince foreign powers to
intervene in their home countries, but governments who took their advice
usually came to regret it.
Ironically, the uncertainties that
accompany most revolutions can sometimes help the new state survive.
Because foreign powers cannot know for sure how powerful or appealing
the revolution will be, they cannot easily determine which is the
greater threat: the revolution itself or the possibility that other
rivals will take advantage of the resulting chaos to improve their own
positions. The revolution in France survived in part because its
monarchical foes were suspicious of one another and initially more
interested in making territorial gains than in restoring Louis XVI to
the throne. Similarly, divisions among the major powers and uncertainty
about the Bolsheviks’ long-term intentions impeded a coordinated
response to the revolution in Russia and helped Lenin and his followers
retain power after 1917.
Yet contrary to revolutionaries’ hopes
and their adversaries’ fears, the aftermath of most revolutions is
neither a rapidly spreading revolutionary cascade nor a swift
counterrevolutionary coup. The more typical result is a protracted
struggle between the new regime and its various antagonists, which ends
when the revolutionary government is removed from power, as the
Sandinistas were in Nicaragua, or when the state moderates its
revolutionary aims, as the Soviet Union, communist China, and
revolutionary Iran eventually chose to do.
These complex dynamics
are all evident with ISIS today. Its leaders regard the outside world as
hostile and heretical, believe their opponents are doomed to collapse,
and see their successes as the beginning of an irresistible
transnational uprising that will sweep away existing states. The group
has proved surprisingly capable at providing security and basic services
in its territory, spreading its message online, and fighting on the
ground against weak opponents. Its ability to attract thousands of
foreign fighters, meanwhile, has raised concerns about the group’s
broader appeal and its potential to inspire violent attacks in other
countries. Testimony from refugees fleeing ISIS' territory has amplified
these fears and reinforced opponents’ urge to destroy the new state
before it grows stronger.
At the same time, just as with past
revolutionary movements, efforts to defeat ISIS have been undermined by
opponents’ conflicting priorities. Both the United States and Iran want
to see the end of ISIS, but neither country wants to help the other gain
influence in Iraq. Turkey also views the group as a threat, but it
loathes the Assad regime in Syria and opposes any actions that might
strengthen Kurdish nationalism. Saudi Arabia, for its part, sees ISIS'
fundamentalist ideology as a challenge to its own legitimacy, but it
fears Iranian and Shiite influence as much, if not more. As a result,
none of these countries has made defeating ISIS its top priority.
Its
penchant for violence and use of sexual slavery notwithstanding, there
is little that is novel about ISIS. Its basic character and impact are
strikingly similar to those of earlier revolutionary states. We have
seen this movie many times before. But how does it end?
THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT SPREAD
Revolutions
can spread through one of two ways. Powerful revolutionary states rely
on conquest: in the 1790s, France waged war against monarchies across
Europe, and after World War II, the Soviet Union took over eastern
Europe. Weaker revolutionary states, however, can hope only to provide
an inspirational example. North Korea under the Kim family, Cuba under
Fidel Castro, Ethiopia under the so-called Derg, Cambodia under the
Khmer Rouge, Nicaragua under the Sandinistas—all lacked the raw power
necessary to spread their model by force.
So does ISIS. The Soviet
Union could impose communism on eastern Europe thanks to the mighty Red
Army, whereas ISIS has perhaps 30,000 reliable troops, according to
U.S. military intelligence, and no power-projection capabilities.
Although alarmists warn that ISIS now controls a swath of land larger
than the United Kingdom, most of it is empty desert. Its territory
produces between $4 billion and $8 billion worth of goods and services
annually, putting ISIS' GDP on a par with that of Barbados. Its annual
revenues amount to a mere $500 million or so—about one-tenth the annual
budget of Harvard University—and they are shrinking. ISIS is nowhere
close to being a great power, and given its small population and
underdeveloped economy, it will never become one.
An Iraqi helicopter flies over military vehicles in Husaybah, in Anbar province, July, 2015.
Still, might ISIS overwhelm weaker neighbors, such as
Jordan, Iraqi Kurdistan, the rest of Syria, or even parts of Saudi
Arabia? This is highly unlikely, for ISIS has faced growing resistance
whenever it has tried to move outside the ungoverned Sunni areas in
which it arose. And were ISIS to expand significantly, the result would
be more vigorous and coordinated resistance from its more powerful
neighbors. ISIS has already triggered stepped-up efforts to contain it,
most notably Turkey’s recent decision to seal its southern border,
create a buffer zone in northern Syria, and allow U.S. aircraft to use
the Incirlik Air Base for bombing missions in Iraq and Syria. One can
say with confidence that the group will never conquer a substantial
portion of the Middle East, let alone any areas beyond it.
Nor
will ISIS spread via contagion. Overturning even a weak government is
difficult, and revolutionary movements succeed only on rare occasions.
It took two world wars to bring the Marxists to power in Russia and
China, and ISIS succeeded only because the stars aligned: the United
States foolishly invaded Iraq, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
governed in a particularly divisive manner, and Syria fell into civil
war. Absent equally fortuitous events, ISIS will have a tough time
replicating its rise elsewhere.
Spreading a revolution via
contagion also requires a level of resources that only great powers
possess. The Soviet Union was powerful enough to subsidize the Communist
International and support client states around the world, but
medium-sized revolutionary powers are not so fortunate. Iran has backed a
number of proxies over the past 30-plus years, but it has yet to create
a single successful clone. ISIS is far weaker than Iran, and any
foreign subsidiaries it inspires will have to rely on their own
resources to succeed.
Moreover, a successful revolution serves as a
wake-up call for nearby states, prompting them to take steps to prevent
a repeat performance on home soil. European powers contained the threat
of Bolshevism domestically after 1917 by suppressing suspected
revolutionaries and addressing the concerns of the working class, and
the United States helped do the same thing in Europe and Asia after
World War II by establishing the Marshall Plan and providing security
through NATO and its alliances in Asia. Iran, the Gulf monarchies, and
other Muslim governments are already working to contain ISIS' influence
by restricting its intake of foreign fighters, interrupting its
financing, and encouraging local religious authorities to challenge its
religious claims. Muslim communities in Europe and elsewhere are busy
countering its poisonous message, as well.
Despite these efforts, some individuals will
still succumb to ISIS' allure, but even 100,000 foreign recruits would
not be enough to shift the balance of power in its favor. Only a tiny
fraction of the world’s billion-plus Muslims are interested in
submitting to the group’s brutal discipline, and many who rush to join
it today will become disillusioned and eager to leave or end up isolated
in a landlocked country and unable to cause trouble elsewhere.
To
be sure, some foreign fighters have already returned home and carried
out terrorist acts, and foreigners inspired by ISIS' propaganda have
staged “lone wolf” attacks in several countries. Such incidents will not
disappear, but they will be too few and too small in scope to topple a government. According to The New York Times,
since September 2014, groups or individuals claiming some connection to
the Islamic State have killed roughly 600 people outside Iraq and
Syria—a total dwarfed by the 14,000-plus people murdered in the United
States in that same period. All these deaths are regrettable, but
violence on a comparatively modest scale will not expand the Islamic
State’s sway. ISIS' ideology
will also limit its ability to grow. Although the group’s leaders
believe that their vision of a new caliphate is irresistible, it is
unlikely to capture enough hearts and minds. The ideals of liberty and
equality embodied in the American and French Revolutions resonated
around the world, and communism’s vision of a classless utopia appealed
to millions of impoverished workers and peasants. By contrast, ISIS'
puritanical message and violent methods do not travel well, and its
blueprint for an ever-expanding caliphate clashes with powerful
national, sectarian, and tribal identities throughout the Middle East.
Using Twitter, YouTube, or Instagram won’t make its core message more
palatable to most Muslims, especially after the novelty wears off and
potential recruits learn what life in the Islamic State is really like.
In any case, a version of Islam that is anathema to the vast majority of
Muslims will certainly not gain a following among non-Muslims. If one
were trying to invent a revolutionary credo devoid of universal appeal,
it would be hard to beat the Islamic State’s harsh and narrow worldview.
Finally,
should an Islamic State–like movement manage to gain power outside Iraq
and Syria—as could conceivably occur in the chaos of Libya—that group’s
leaders would follow their own interests rather than slavishly obey
Baghdadi’s commands. Outsiders often see radical groups as
monolithic—especially if they take the revolutionaries’ own rhetoric too
seriously—but such movements are notoriously prone to infighting. Deep
schisms divided Girondins and Jacobins, Bolsheviks and Mensheviks,
Stalinists and Trotskyites, and Khrushchev and Mao. ISIS' tendency to
treat minor disagreements as acts of heresy punishable by death makes
such disputes inevitable. Indeed, it has already led to serious quarrels
with al Qaeda and other extremist groups.
Critics might find this
assessment too sanguine. They might contend that neighboring states are
more fragile than commonly thought and that ISIS' example might shake
the foundations of the House of Saud, Jordan’s Hashemite Kingdom, or
Egypt’s military dictatorship. Given the fragility of the Middle Eastern
order and the widespread discontent that sparked the Arab Spring, could
ISIS be an exception to the rule that revolutions rarely spread?
Perhaps,
but this worst-case scenario is highly unlikely. If it were easy for
radicals to topple foreign governments, it would happen far more often.
Existing governments do not have to be especially capable to ward off
revolutions, and ISIS' potential targets have money, organized security
forces, support from influential religious authorities, and sympathetic
foreign backers. For all these reasons, ISIS' emergence does not herald
the beginning of a revolutionary tidal wave.
THE WAITING GAME
Just
because ISIS' long-term goal is doomed to fail, however, doesn’t mean
that eliminating the group will be easy. In fact, history suggests that
trying to destroy it with military force could easily backfire. Foreign
intervention by Austria and Prussia radicalized the French Revolution,
and Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980 allowed Khomeini and his followers
to purge moderate elements in the Islamic Republic. Lenin, Stalin, and
Mao used foreign threats to mobilize support and consolidate power, and
both the Russian and the Chinese Revolutions survived several attempts
to undo them. Likewise, aggressive efforts to destroy ISIS could help it
survive, especially if the United States takes the leading role. Outside
efforts to topple a revolutionary state often backfire, by
strengthening hard-liners and providing additional opportunities for
expansion
That leaves patient containment
as the best policy. Over time, the movement may collapse from its own
excesses and internal divisions. That outcome would be preferable, of
course, but it is not guaranteed. Fortunately, history suggests that if
ISIS survives, it will become a more normal state over time.
Revolutionaries can fantasize about transforming the world while out of
power, but to survive over the long term, they must learn to compromise
their ideals and moderate their behavior, even if they do not wholly
abandon their original principles. Leon Trotsky’s dreams of “world
revolution” gave way to Stalin’s “socialism in one country,” and Mao’s
radical policies at home were accompanied by a risk-averse policy toward
other states. Revolutionary Iran has followed a similar trajectory and
conducted its foreign policy in a mostly prudent and calculating manner.
Eventually, the rest of the world, even the United States, came to
terms with these revolutionary states.
Normalization does not
occur automatically, of course, and revolutionary states do not tame
their behavior unless other states teach them that relentless extremism
is costly and counterproductive. This means ISIS must be contained for
the foreseeable future, until it moderates its revolutionary aims or
even abandons them entirely. Containment worked against the Soviet
Union, and a similar approach has limited Iran’s influence for more than
three decades.
To succeed, a policy of containment must
prevent ISIS from conquering other countries and imposing its radical
vision on them. Because ISIS is weak and its core message is so
corrosive, preventing further expansion should not be beyond the
capacity of the frontline countries with the most at stake, with only
modest help from the United States. The Kurds, Iraq’s Shiites, Iran,
Turkey, Jordan, the Gulf monarchies, and Israel are not going to stand
by and watch ISIS grow, and any minor victories it does obtain will
encourage its neighbors to balance against it more vigorously.
Washington
should provide intelligence, weapons, and military training to aid such
efforts, but it should keep its role as small as possible and make it
crystal clear that stopping ISIS is largely up to local forces. It
follows that U.S. airpower should be used solely to prevent ISIS from
expanding; trying to bomb it into submission will inevitably kill
innocent civilians, strengthen anti-American sentiment, and
bolster ISIS' popularity.
Regional actors will no doubt try to
pass the buck and get Americans to do their fighting for them. U.S.
leaders should reject such ploys politely but firmly and pass the buck
right back. ISIS is not an existential threat to the United States, to
Middle Eastern energy supplies, to Israel, or to any other vital U.S.
interest, so U.S. military forces have no business being sent into
harm’s way to fight it. The
more involved the United States gets in containing the Islamic State,
the more it will reinforce the Islamic State’s propaganda about Western
crusaders
Successfully containing ISIS also requires Middle Eastern
countries to do more to insulate themselves against its revolutionary
message. Governments can reduce the risk of contagion by undertaking
energetic counterterrorist efforts—tracking
and arresting potential sympathizers, drying up financial support, and
so on—and by tackling the corruption that makes ISIS look like an
attractive alternative. Respected Muslim authorities in neighboring
countries should remind their coreligionists that Islamic civilization
was at its height not when it was most dogmatic or intolerant but when
it was most inclusive. To undercut ISIS' local support, Washington
should continue to press the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad to
adopt more inclusive policies toward Sunnis.
The United States
should encourage these efforts in private and support them in public,
while resisting its normal tendency to tell local governments how to run
their own countries. Recent U.S. efforts to steer local politics in the
Middle East have been a series of embarrassing failures, and U.S.
leaders should be modest in offering advice today. Washington can also
encourage its European allies to better integrate their own Muslim
minorities, but that task is ultimately up to them, too.
Indeed,
U.S. policymakers should keep in mind that the more involved the United
States gets in containing ISIS, the more it will reinforce ISIS'
propaganda about Western crusaders and their supposedly heretical Muslim
allies. At the sectarian level, were the United States to undertake
another costly effort to rebuild Iraq’s security forces, it would appear
complicit in the anti-Sunni policies that helped make ISIS popular,
thus encouraging Sunnis in Iraq and eastern Syria to remain loyal to the
group.
A U.S.-led campaign against ISIS
also risks heightening its appeal: if the world’s mightiest country
keeps insisting that the group is a grave threat, then its claim to be
the most faithful defender of Islam will gain credence. Instead of
hyping the threat and reinforcing ISIS' own propaganda, it would be far
better for U.S. policymakers to treat the group as a minor problem that
deserves only modest attention.
Taking the lead against ISIS would
also encourage free-riding by local powers with far more at stake. The
best defense against Islamic extremism is improved governance throughout
the Middle East, but that difficult process will not even begin if
local governments believe Washington will protect them no matter what.
The more the United States does, the less incentive local actors will
have to get their own houses in order.
In short, containing ISIS
is more likely to succeed if the United States declines to do the heavy
lifting. This hands-off approach requires American leaders to remain
cool in the face of beheadings, terrorist attacks, the destruction of
antiquities, and other provocations. Such discipline is not easy to
maintain in the era of partisan politics and 24-hour cable news, and it
runs counter to the interventionist instincts of much of the U.S.
foreign policy establishment.
But not every foreign tragedy is a threat to U.S. interests, and
not every problem needs to be solved by American power. The United
States blundered badly when it responded to 9/11 by invading
Iraq—precisely the sort of error Osama bin Laden had hoped it would
make—and ISIS would no doubt welcome another misguided U.S.
intervention in the Middle East. It would be worse than a crime to make
the same mistake again.
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