THE TOWER
by Jonathan Spyer
October 2014

As the U.S. and its Middle Eastern allies take on the Islamic State, the biggest challenge will be preventing other extremists—whether Al-Qaeda or Iranian proxies—from filling in the power vacuum.

….The Islamic State has now been depicted as the main problematic factor emerging from this conflict. But the Islamic State is in fact merely a particularly extreme and brutal manifestation of a broader process taking place in this area, in which political Islam of a Sunni variety is at war with the Shia political Islam of Iran and its proxies (especially Hezbollah and the Assad regime). The I.S. may promote a particularly lurid and repulsive version of Sunni political Islam, but in its beliefs and in its practices it does not represent some unique presence in the Syrian and Iraqi context. Rather, it is little more than a particularly virulent manifestation of a strain of politics and ideology which is the primary cause of the conflict taking place across the region.

In the two scenarios discussed above, both quite plausible outcomes of a Western air campaign, the I.S. would be defeated and replaced by another version of Islamism—either that of its fellow Sunnis, or that of the rival Shi’ites. A third possibility, however, is that the White House does not actually intend to pursue a policy intended to physically destroy the Islamic State in its heartland in northern Syria. Certainly, more recent statements emerging from the Administration appear to be preparing to “walk back” the President’s comments.

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said in mid-September that success for U.S. policy vis-à-vis the I.S. would come when the group “no longer threatens our friends in the region, no longer threatens the United States.” This sounds like the introduction to a more modest policy of degrading I.S. capabilities, rather than seeking to “destroy” the Islamic State……

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