Exploiting disorder

The International Crisis Group (ICG) takes appropriate transnational aim in its latest report at Al Qaeda (AQ) and the Islamic State (IS), introduced Monday at Brookings by ICG President, Jean-Marie Guehenno. The main thesis is that success of the terrorist dual threat is the result of instability. No surprise there. Few of their supposed enemies in the Middle East and North Africa regard either Al Qaeda or the Islamic State as their top priority. Again no surprise. Neither is invincible, though AQ in Guehenno’s view is underrated at present. It is learning to apply a lighter, more gradual touch that has greater prospects of success than IS’s draconian approach.

It is when we get to the policy prescriptions that I start to part company, as usual with ICG reports. Guehenno and the report argue for containment, or perhaps marginalization, rather than outright victory, because we would not in any event know what to do if we win. It is already apparent in Iraq that the government lacks the means to govern effectively and inclusively in all the territory recaptured from IS. But nowhere does ICG advocate that we acquire the state-building capacities needed to eliminate the disorder in which the terrorists thrive or to repair the societies that they have broken. This is not only short-sighted; it is a formula for unending warfare. The very least ICG should have done is to point out the incapacity and put forward some sort of idea how it can be repaired.

The report argues for keeping open lines of communication, by talking with whomever will talk with us, apparently including the Islamic State and Al Qaeda provided they meet that condition. This includes “unofficial, discreet lines of communication, through community leaders, non-state mediators or others.” I like that, since official talking lends an air of legitimacy that many groups don’t merit. But the argument offered in favor is the US rejection of Taliban offers in 2001 as well as similar reluctance in Somalia, Mali, Libya and Nigeria. None of those examples pertain to the Islamic State or Al Qaeda per se, both of which are arguably an order of magnitude or two less acceptable than the people and groups specifically mentioned. My guess is that we are in communication, directly or indirectly, with many of the groups mentioned, if only to try to free American hostages. It is hard to see how to do that with either Al Qaeda or the Islamic State.

Other recommendations get stronger grounding. Their suggestion for narrowing the countering violent extremism (CVE) agenda seems to me intellectually correct, even if the bureaucratic temptation to tie the development and peacebuilding agendas to the latest well-funded pet rock is irresistible. Respecting international humanitarian law, curbing targeted killings and investing in conflict prevention also make good sense to me. Neither the drone wars nor coddling of autocrats in the Middle East has served our strategic purposes well. Both have done more to spread the terrorist problem than defeat it.

In the end I thought Guehenno was correct in his talk at Brookings when he admired President Obama’s effort to keep the terrorist threat in perspective by noting its limited capacity to affect American national security. That effort Guehenno suggested was intellectually correct even if politically damaging. Unfortunately, the ICG report is less prudent:

World leaders’ concern is well-founded: IS’s attacks kill their citizens and threaten their societies’ cohesion.

It then urges us not to make mistakes that risk aggravating the situation, but it nowhere says what Guehenno did: the jihadists are not a threat on the order of the Soviet Union and should not arouse us politically in the way the nuclear threat once did.