Islamic Extremism Is More than ISIL and the Goal Is More than Fallujah and Mosul

The battle for Fallujah has begun – again.  Apparently, the theory is that, if Iraqi forces can take Fallujah from Islamic State, that will weaken Islamic State before the expected effort to retake Mosul.  An effort to reclaim Mosul has been talked about for a year.  My guess is that the US is hoping Iraq can take both Fallujah and Mosul before the end of President Obama’s presidency.  If they are successful (or at least getting there), President Obama can say that Islamic State is beaten (actually, the Administration calls them ISIL; more about that later) – or has at least been put on the road to defeat – and he claim a foreign policy success before he leaves office.

Except that would be wrong – for at least a couple of reasons.  First, even if Fallujah and Mosul are retaken, we will merely be back where we were when President Obama took office.  Actually, we won’t even be in as good of shape.  George W. Bush made a lot of mistakes in Iraq, but eventually he figured it out.  Starting in late 2006, the counterinsurgency strategy, the surge, David Petraeus, and Ryan Crocker – plus President Bush himself – turned the situation in Iraq around.  It took us too long to get there, but we got there.  Unfortunately, Iraq today, even if Fallujah and Mosul are recaptured, isn’t in as good of shape as it was in January 2009.

The problem was, as I have said before (and here), that President Obama felt we should not have gone into Iraq, so it didn’t matter how we got out.  He was wrong.  The way we got out allowed Islamic State to grow.¹  Our exit from Iraq at the end of 2011, and our failure to pay sufficient attention before that, meant there was nobody to restrain President Maliki’s paranoia and pro-Shia sectarianism.  President Maliki leaned so far to the Shia side, a lot of Sunnis decided that ISIS might be better (or least less bad).  President Obama would say this is President Maliki’s fault; that we shouldn’t have to be involved.  It may be true that we shouldn’t have had to be involved, but that doesn’t mean that we might have been able to make things better (or keep them from getting worse) by being involved.

Which gets to the second reason why re-taking Fallujah and Mosul doesn’t mean President Obama has succeeded.  And this gets to perhaps one reason why the Obama administration refuses to call it “Islamic extremism.”²  In fact, the Administration won’t even call it Islamic State.  Instead, they call it ISIL, which is short for Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (i.e., Syria and Lebanon).  By calling it ISIL, they are trying to say that the problem is just Iraq and Syria.  If Iraq can retake Fallujah and Mosul and Islamic State can be pushed back in Syria, President Obama can claim a success.

But if the issue is Islamic extremism, as opposed to ISIL, then Fallujah, Mosul and something along the Turkish-Syrian border don’t solve the problem.  It will just pop up in different places.  Which means that this time we need to not stop before we’re done.  It also means that we need to, at the same time, per Ryan Crocker, anticipate what “ism” may be coming next, so we and our friends/allies can try to deal with it before it becomes another Islamic extremism or worse.
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¹ Like an infection when you don’t take the full course of the antibiotics.

² In addition to the President not fully trusting the American people.