Islamic State, Half the Truth is Often a Whole Lie

The Three-State Solution for Iraq

Proceeding in order, to fully appreciate the information that constitutes the core of the anlysis and to understand the events that shaped the Islamic State, it is crucial to briefly outline the situation in Iraq in 2003, focusing on George W. Bush's project for the future of the country after Saddam Hussein.

“The only viable strategy, then, may be to correct the historical defect and move in stages toward a three-state solution: Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center and Shiites in the south.” (George W. Bush, 2003)

On 19th March 2003, the Operation Iraqi Freedom had just begun. A combined force made up of troops from the United States and 36 others countries invaded Iraq, but aside from overthrowing the secular regime of Saddam Hussein, not much else went according to plans. After destroying Iraq's political, institutional, and social structures, the coalition proved to be completely incapable to handle the rebuilding process, and even less to give a resemblance of stability to the country. President Bush failed the realization of the Three-State Solution that he had publicly advanced in the quote above. However, moving forward to December 2004, a document is published which casts the doubt that the U.S. had a back-up plan to pursue the same project, whatever the costs.

Seeing Into the Future

We are now moving to examine the reports, which hint at the strong responsibility of the United States in the events that resulted into the creation of the Islamic State.

In December 2004, the National Intelligence Council (NIC) released a report called "Mapping the Global Future" which contains a series of scenario-based forecasts on the future of the world until year 2020, with the contribution of several experts from around the globe. Analyses of this kind are in themselves absolutely normal, and certainly they are carried out with the intention of making some useful predictions. What is suspiciously disproportionate in this case is the incredible level of accuracy with which the scenarios have effectively come true, and I am making a specific reference to the Islamic State. Unless the experts who worked on this report were clairvoyants, it is hardly believable that they could pinpoint with such subtlety events that are occurring right now. It would be tempting to say that they could have been suggested what to write down, but that would not really have much sense. On the other hand, it is conceivable that they could have been manipulated about the real purpose of the research, and among those who requested the report maybe there were some malicious elements looking for scenarios that would have brought chaos in Syria and Iraq, with the intent to implement those to the letter.

A true surprise comes with the following scenario:

“A New Caliphate Provides an example of how a global movement fueled by radical

religious identity politics could Constitute a challenge to Western norms and values

as the foundation of the global system”. Page 20

“Radical Islam will have a significant global impact…

rallying disparate ethnic and national groups and perhaps even creating an authority that

transcends national boundaries.” Page 81

The creation of the Ummah is a known objective of many Islamic organizations, but that alone could not in any way allow the experts to predict the birth of a Caliphate exactly during the period covered by this document (2005- 2020), and with all the features provided in the document. Of course sometimes a lucky coincidence can happen. However, on top of the correct prediction it cannot be ignored that the Islamic State has also effectively split Iraq in three parts, similarly to President Bush Jr.'s project. Moreover, it threatens one of the few secular regimes left in the region, that of President Bashar Al-Assad, after the Arab Spring had wiped out or severely impacted many of the former governments in North Africa and the Middle East.

From page 83 it starts a fictionalized depiction of the scenario, in the form of an imaginary letter from a relative of Usama Bin Laden, who goes over a lengthy description of the events surrounding the Caliphate.

The report covers also other topics - of which I present some notable excerpts -, in a manner suggesting that the report resembles more a strategic analysis rather than a mere forecast, and for this reason I strongly encourage to read the original document. For instance the scope of the foreign policy of the United States their struggle to be the only superpower is analyzed.

“Pax Americana takes a look at how US predominance may survive the radical

changes to the global political landscape and need to fashion a new and inclusive

global order.” Page 16

Also the question on whether the EU could become a superpower is addressed, with the suggestion that broad economic and social reforms should be undertaken, that immigration from North Africa and the Middle East should be welcomed, encouraging the integration and the respect of the religious and cultural specificity. Please note that this was written in the pre-crisis era and that the 2008 economic earthquake wasn't even in sight, yet the resemblance with the current political and economic debates is strikingly. The only question is whether these recommendations were really aimed at showing the path for the EU to become a superpower.

“...aging populations and shrinking work forces in most countries will have an important impact on the continent. Either European countries adapt their work forces, reform their social

welfare, education, and tax systems, and accommodate growing immigrant populations

(chiefly from Muslim countries), or they face a period of protracted economic stasis.” Page 10

To conclude this section there is something which is not found in the report - but directly relates to it - which deserves attention. While world experts had managed to make predictions so accurate back in 2004, many years later in 2011 John Brennan - then Advisor for Homeland Security of the White House - bluntly discarded the possibility of the birth of a future Caliphate, although he had much more information available.

He stated:

"Our strategy is shaped by a deeper understanding of Al-Qaeda's goals, strategy, and tactics. I'm not talking about al-Qaeda's grandiose vision of global domination through a violent Islamic caliphate. That vision is absurd, and we are not going to organize our counterterrorism policies against a feckless delusion That Is never going to happen. We are not going to high These murderous thugs and their aspirations into something larger than they are”.

Maybe it was just a macroscopic oversight, but one that inevitably diverted the attention from an equally macroscopic source of danger. Brennan was later rewarded with the appointment as head of the CIA in 2013.

From Prediction to Reality

What happened in the wake of the Syrian rebellion is still too open to speculation, since there is limited knowledge about covert operations conducted to support - or even to start - the revolution. However there is little doubt that later on - thanks to funding received from the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and Turkey - the Islamic State has risen to become the extremely dangerous and powerful group as we know it nowadays.

Clearly, U.S.' allies deny any involvement, but the Islamic State has been effectively financed and armed by proxy when the Syrian rebels received help from the West. Indeed, the rebels - who are not a homogenous formation - consist also of groups such as the Al-Nusra Front - an Al-Qaida related group - and of the Islamic State. What happened is that eventually many joined the Islamic State, bringing with them the weapons, the training, and the money received by the West.

For instance, early in 2014 the U.S. Congress approved the funding of the Syrian insurgents in a closed-door session up to the end of the fiscal year on 30 September. This is a radical change of view from the previous year, when President Obama had requested $500 million for the moderate rebels, but the prevalent tendency was that there were too many concerns about the weapons and funds ending up in the end of extremist groups.

Even worse, who exactly would be the “moderate rebels” is a mystery in its own respect. However an eloquent description of the current “moderation” of the preeminent groups of the Syrian insurgents is given by Aron Lund for Foreign Policy.

“Even the most well-known insurgent alliance, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a loose umbrella term used by several inter-related insurgent networks, is hardly the secular movement it is portrayed as in the West, where it is represented by a small coterie of exiled military defectors.”

“Fighters are naturally drawn to religion as a tool to cope with the strains of war — there are no atheists in foxholes, as the saying goes. Foreign funding is also a factor, with most major donors (including Salafi networks, Syrian expats, and the governments of Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia) favoring Islamist rebels over more moderate groups.”

The last point that stresses the ambiguous nature of the West's attitude against the Islamic State is that a few months ago the U.S. and its allies - old and new - have decided reluctantly to fight Islamic State. At the same time the military equipment sent to Syrian opposition started showing up under the black flag of the Caliphate - alongside the insurgents trained by Western military - but this didn't stop the flowing of weapons and money to the rebels in Syria. The situation in Iraq and in Syria has never been so unstable as it is nowadays, never in those two countries there have been so many violations of human rights. In this scenario the fall of President Bashar Al-Assad would inevitably plunge the Middle East into extreme chaos.

Anyone Really Interested in the Islamic State?

To destroy the Islamic State it is first necessary the will and the interest to do so. Yet, despite the patency of this concept, nothing in the West or in its Middle East allies supports the idea that those will and interest are even there.

This might look surprising, because many recent wars had been waged under the pretext of human right violations that are hard to even compare to the horror that the Islamic State brought about. But the keyword being “pretext”, this issue is immediately not as surprising anymore.

If we had to draw the balance of the intervention in the Middle East it should be acknowledged that every publicized plan the United States had was badly botched. The situation in Iraq and in Syria has never been so unstable, let alone in Libya, secular regimes were overthrown and radicalized movements are replacing them in the whole area. Terrorism is on the rise with the uncontrolled migration to Europe and the return of foreign fighters.

President Bashar Al-Assad's is currently the only subject in the region who is unambiguously an enemy of the terrorists, yet he is being demonized like any other leader. Nobody is suggesting to praise him like a saint, but nobody would praise the Western leaders as such either, considering that their hands are not exactly clean of blood. But let's be clear that if President Assad were to fall, the situation would become even more devastating for the people of that area and the Islamic State would be free to concentrate on its operations abroad, which are proceeding steadily.

Indeed, Boko Haram controls a vast area in Nigeria and his troops are now infiltrating Cameroon. Islamic States affiliates executed two journalists in Libya just a few days ago, and a cell in Tunisia has recently claimed responsibility for the assassinations of two leaders of the opposition and concomitantly declared war against the government. The latest and one of the most terrible atrocities - the execution by a child of two allegedly FSB's agents - is a sign that the Caliphate is far from declining, and on the contrary it is molding the future generation of its army.

The ambiguity of the policy of the West played a role in the success of the Islamic State. The price in blood and sufferance has been high, and still will be for the foreseeable future. Now it would be an appropriate moment to take responsibility and actions.