Edward Spiers: Tackling threat of the Islamist advance in Iraq

An offshoot of al-Qaida, Isis had its origins in the Sunni uprising against the US-led occupation of Iraq. It suffered severe reverses when the Americans crushed the revolt in Fallujah, killed its leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by a missile strike in 2006, and then co-opted Sunni tribes during George W Bush’s second term in the so-called awakening to drive al-Qaida out.

Isis has recovered by exploiting the sectarian divisions exacerbated by the civil war in Syria, the lavish funding of Sunni resistance groups in Syria by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and by Sunni resentment in Iraq from the authoritarian policies pursued by the elected prime minister, Nouri Maliki. The fact that the Shia-controlled government of Iran has used Iraq as a staging post, and a conduit for its support for the Assad regime, has simply compounded the depths of Sunni resentment.

Directing the revival of Isis has been the brutal but inspirational leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. This is the nom de guerre of a mysterious but dedicated jihadist. Only two authenticated pictures are known to exist of this leader, who combines a keen sense of strategic purpose with a prolific capacity to raise funds.

The organisation has also used the internet to demonstrate its vision of constructing a caliphate ruled by sharia law across much of the Middle East and north Africa, beginning with parts of Syria and Iraq, and the brutality of its methods - suicide bombings, beheadings and crucifixions - to attract thousands of followers from across the Middle East, the Somali-based al-Shabab, and some western countries, including several hundred volunteers from Britain.

Quite methodically, Isis moved first to establish a base in the eastern Syrian provinces of Ar-Raqqah and Dayr az Zawr in the spring of 2013, and then audaciously to attack Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad in the following July. It employed 12 car bombs, suicide bombers, and a barrage of mortars and rockets to liberate 500 senior al-Qaida prisoners. This proved a prelude to an assault on Anbar province, Iraq, and the capture of Fallujah in January 2014.

Despite the bombastic claims of the Baghdad authorities, and the repeated counter-assaults of the Iraqi army and air force, Isis retained control of the Sunni-dominated province. Emboldened by this success, Isis fighters have scattered Iraqi soldiers and police in the recent assaults on Mosul and Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein.

Although they liberated 2,500 prisoners from Mosul’s jail, and another 300 from Tikrit’s, seized over $400m from Mosul’s banks, and captured American weapons, vehicles and helicopters, this has been the easiest part of the advance on Baghdad. Moving further south in lightly armed vehicles will stretch their lines of communication and render them vulnerable to aerial attack.

Nouri Maliki has pleaded repeatedly with the Obama administration to supply manned and unmanned aerial support, and despite a continued flow of arms, ammunition, and other forms of equipment from Washington, he has had to wait while the administration reviewed its options.

Although President Obama declared that the United States has not ruled anything out in considering its response, official spokesmen have confirmed that this would not involve ‘boots on the ground’. Similarly, William Hague has stated that the British government is ‘not countenancing at this stage any British military involvement’.

However reassuring to domestic audiences, the Obama administration cannot let the Maliki premiership founder after describing Iraq as a ‘sovereign, self-reliant and democratic’ state when US forces left the country in December 2011. It may hope that limited aerial intervention, could help thwart the Isis advance as it moves into Shia-dominated areas near Baghdad, and provide Maliki with the opportunity to reorganize his discredited army, possibly with the aid of Shia militias and Iranian support.

If the outcome falls short of defeating Isis, the de facto partition of Iraq may ensue, that is, an independent Kurdistan, which has just seized Kirkuk and has the formidable Peshmerga to defend its northern region; a Sunni/jihadist region dominating the western provinces of Iraq; and the Shia-dominated area south and east of Baghdad, buttressed by forces from 
Iran.

Such an outcome is fraught with uncertainties and dangers.

Isis is a movement, which could still spread beyond Syria and Iraq, and pose a challenge to the oil-rich kingdoms of the Gulf that even a war-weary West could hardly ignore.

• Edward Spiers is a professor of strategic studies at the University of Leeds.