What Trump’s Syria Debacle Means for ISIS - POLITICO Magazine
The chaos in the Middle East helps terrorists in more ways than one.
To many counterterrorism experts, it has often seemed that President Donald Trump had an unerring instinct for bad policy. Blanket support for repressive dictators, Islamophobic language and the Muslim immigration ban, which alienated the Muslim Americans law enforcement depends on and encouraged white supremacists, a refusal to invest in programs to blunt extremism—what more damage could he do?
Few, however, imagined that he might just give ISIS the enormous boost of the Syria debacle.
Just months after the last scraps of ISIS’ Caliphate were wrested from the organization, northern Syria has been plunged into chaos thanks to Trump’s abrupt removal of U.S. troops from the region. Trump, a man addicted to superlatives, can now safely boast of having squandered a hard-fought military victory faster than anyone in history. And with the Turkish military and its proxies, Syrian forces, Kurdish fighters and Russian troops converging, there is real danger that prisons holding 11,000 ISIS fighters will be breached.
According to U.S. officials, many of the Syrian Kurdish soldiers guarding the prisons have been departing either to fight the Turks or simply escape the onslaught, leaving minimal or no security. At some facilities detainees are rioting. Scattered reports have been received of escapes, with official estimates of those who’ve gotten out rising to more than 100. (Accounts of larger numbers of escapees have come from camps where families of fighters are being held.) Officials also worry that their ability to get news from the Kurdish SDF or Syrian Democratic Forces, fighters guarding the prisons is diminishing fast. As has been widely reported, the U.S. military was unable to relocate 50 “HVIs” (High Value Individuals), the most dangerous of the terrorists, in the chaos.
Although Vice President Mike Pence and his Turkish interlocutors agreed on a cessation of hostilities on Thursday, the agreement will probably have little effect on ISIS detainees. Kurdish spokesmen have already understandably derided the deal as part two of a U.S. sellout and presumably will continue to fight. The 13-point agreement has no bearing on Syrian forces who are moving to retake control of the Kurdish region. And it commits Turkey to anti-ISIS “activities in northeast Syria” and “coordination on detention facilities,” but it is anyone’s guess what that will mean.
Exactly what the various parties have planned for dealing with ISIS detainees or fighters in the field is hard to say. For the Turks, jihadi fighters are a low priority compared with the Kurds, who they depict as a profound long-term threat to Turkish security. President Recep Tayyib Erdogan deserves no small amount of credit for the rise of ISIS: His policy of allowing foreign fighters to transit Turkey en route to Syria, over the objections of innumerable allies and partners, enabled ISIS to enlist some 20,000 outsiders to the conflict in the Levant. Erdogan, another paragon of bad judgment, had hoped these fighters would topple the regime of Syrian leader Bashar Assad.
For his part, Assad also has a history of neglecting—and manipulating—the jihadists. For years, his government quietly encouraged jihadis to travel to Iraq to harass U.S. forces and the post-Saddam, U.S.-backed government. Through most of the Syrian Civil War, the Syrian regime— with backing from Russia—concentrated its fire on other regime opponents rather than the ISIS fighters who built the cross-border caliphate. U.S. officials take some hope that Russia will press their Syrian partners to keep ISIS militants—and especially foreign fighters—locked up. None of these actors is known for a commitment to civil rights, to put it mildly, so bombing the prisons or otherwise attacking the prisoners also can’t be ruled out. If, that is, ISIS fighters on the outside don’t break their comrades out first, a tactic in which the group is well-practiced.
How much of a difference would this kind of replenishment to ISIS’ ranks make? Although Trump recently tweeted that the group is “100% defeated,” that is not the case. In Syria, Carter Center reporting shows ISIS still carrying out numerous attacks each month. The same is true in Iraq, where the group has embraced a strategy of hit-and-run attacks to demonstrate its resilience. United Nations reporting has put the total number of ISIS fighters in the field at 20,000 to 30,000. That number may be high, and it is unlikely that the group could start holding significant territory in Iraq as long as there are some 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq with air power to back them, but the scope for trouble is considerable—and all the more so with civil unrest elsewhere in Iraq, distracting the country’s leadership. In Syria, for now, fighting among the various militaries will likely prevent any new ISIS statelet from reemerging, but for the longer term, nothing is certain.
The potential for ISIS carrying out terrorist attacks elsewhere is also noteworthy. Of the detainees in Syria, 2,000 are foreign fighters representing some 40 countries. While some of these might be reluctant to return to the fight after the ordeal they’ve been through, Gen. Joe Votel, then commander of Central Command, testified in Congress in March that plenty of the “ISIS population being evacuated from the remaining vestiges of the caliphate largely remains unrepentant, unbroken and radicalized.” Intelligence services in Europe, North Africa and elsewhere will be looking hard for returnees, but borders are hardly airtight. Although ISIS’ principal focus is on the area that was home to the Caliphate, the group will want to continue to score points by carrying out violence wherever it can to demonstrate its vitality.
Numbers of militants are one measure of a terrorist group’s strength, but morale matters as well, and the Trump drawdown in Syria is a godsend for ISIS’ spirits. It’s not just that fighters in the field and supporters around the globe will be heartened by the possible return of the detainees; it’s also confirmation of the stories that jihadists tell themselves about their struggle.
At the heart of the ISIS narrative is the belief that its struggle is a long one, filled with tribulations its members must endure but also with occasional triumphs. The fact that the U.S. is abandoning Syria so shortly after the destruction of the Caliphate will resonate with the faithful as a sign of divine support. ISIS’ story is already one of comebacks, especially after the devastation the group suffered beginning in 2006, and the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, its first leader. ISIS leadership speaks of the establishment of the Caliphate as a historic achievement coming out of those ruins, and ISIS communications, though not nearly as voluminous as they were, aim to create a nostalgia for the Caliphate. Recalling that historic achievement helps keep ISIS at the forefront of its followers consciousness and aims to entice others into the fold. Just as the Prophet Mohammed faced setbacks, the propaganda claims, so do ISIS fighters, but this quick a revival will be received a portent of great things to come. Al Qaida tried a similar approach after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, likening its followers to the companions of the Prophet who endured terrible defeats, but it never benefited from the broad-based popularity of ISIS or the kind of turnaround seen in Syria.
Like all jihadist groups, ISIS also has entwined in its ideological DNA the notion that the U.S. is ultimately a paper tiger. Osama Bin Laden made this argument from the earliest days of al Qaida, claiming that President Ronald Reagan’s retreat from Lebanon in the early 1980s and the pullout from Somalia after the Black Hawk Down episode were indicative. After the pounding al Qaida took in Afghanistan beginning in 2001 and the methodical dismantlement of the Caliphate, that narrative has been in eclipse. Given events in Syria and Trump’s naked eagerness to escape from Afghanistan, expect it to come roaring back.
Departing Syria will hurt global security—and the U.S. in particular—in still other ways. In the first instance, the rekindling of war in Syria will inevitably increase the production of new extremists. War may be the father of all things, but it especially prolific in producing militants. The U.S. has, until now, been remarkably effective at dispatching specific terrorist foes who aim to do us imminent harm. But after two decades of war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Yemen and the north Caucasus, the number of jihadists in the world is widely believed to be at least four or five times the number that who were operating on 9/11. So the pool of extremists who may want to harm America tomorrow is steadily growing.
A greater concern for the U.S. is simply that Trump has shredded our ability to build coalitions to deal with urgent threats. The global network of intelligence and law enforcement agencies that coordinate the day-to-day work of counterterrorism will continue to operate because of the strong bonds at the professional level built up over many years and the continuing interest of national leaders to see that cooperation continue.
But after the president’s spur of the moment action, which appears to have been a surprise for our French and British allies, who have troops in Syria as well, America’s ability to rely on others for military support will be greatly diminished. In Europe, our allies are furious, and Trump’s offhand remark that the U.S. had nothing to worry about because ISIS extremists “are going to be escaping to Europe,” is the equivalent of a verbal flip of the bird to our closest friends. In the Middle East, as longtime CIA analyst Emile Nakhleh put it, “America’s abandonment of its Kurdish allies [is seen] as an act of short-sightedness, untrustworthiness, expediency, undependability, fickleness, disloyalty, and vacillation.”
This is a loss that will haunt us. The U.S.-led coalition to defeat ISIS consists of 75 countries. Some contribute more than others, but overall, the group has shared burdens and established a durable legitimacy for the operation. Consider now the hypothetical from hell: ISIS revives in six months and reestablishes a caliphate in Western Iraq and eastern Syria. Iraqi forces melt away again. The Syrian Kurds, understandably, are nowhere to be found. Who will then follow Donald Trump into battle?
What Trump’s Syria Debacle Means for ISIS - POLITICO Magazine
The chaos in the Middle East helps terrorists in more ways than one.
To many counterterrorism experts, it has often seemed that President Donald Trump had an unerring instinct for bad policy. Blanket support for repressive dictators, Islamophobic language and the Muslim immigration ban, which alienated the Muslim Americans law enforcement depends on and encouraged white supremacists, a refusal to invest in programs to blunt extremism—what more damage could he do?
Few, however, imagined that he might just give ISIS the enormous boost of the Syria debacle.
Just months after the last scraps of ISIS’ Caliphate were wrested from the organization, northern Syria has been plunged into chaos thanks to Trump’s abrupt removal of U.S. troops from the region. Trump, a man addicted to superlatives, can now safely boast of having squandered a hard-fought military victory faster than anyone in history. And with the Turkish military and its proxies, Syrian forces, Kurdish fighters and Russian troops converging, there is real danger that prisons holding 11,000 ISIS fighters will be breached.
According to U.S. officials, many of the Syrian Kurdish soldiers guarding the prisons have been departing either to fight the Turks or simply escape the onslaught, leaving minimal or no security. At some facilities detainees are rioting. Scattered reports have been received of escapes, with official estimates of those who’ve gotten out rising to more than 100. (Accounts of larger numbers of escapees have come from camps where families of fighters are being held.) Officials also worry that their ability to get news from the Kurdish SDF or Syrian Democratic Forces, fighters guarding the prisons is diminishing fast. As has been widely reported, the U.S. military was unable to relocate 50 “HVIs” (High Value Individuals), the most dangerous of the terrorists, in the chaos.
Although Vice President Mike Pence and his Turkish interlocutors agreed on a cessation of hostilities on Thursday, the agreement will probably have little effect on ISIS detainees. Kurdish spokesmen have already understandably derided the deal as part two of a U.S. sellout and presumably will continue to fight. The 13-point agreement has no bearing on Syrian forces who are moving to retake control of the Kurdish region. And it commits Turkey to anti-ISIS “activities in northeast Syria” and “coordination on detention facilities,” but it is anyone’s guess what that will mean.
Exactly what the various parties have planned for dealing with ISIS detainees or fighters in the field is hard to say. For the Turks, jihadi fighters are a low priority compared with the Kurds, who they depict as a profound long-term threat to Turkish security. President Recep Tayyib Erdogan deserves no small amount of credit for the rise of ISIS: His policy of allowing foreign fighters to transit Turkey en route to Syria, over the objections of innumerable allies and partners, enabled ISIS to enlist some 20,000 outsiders to the conflict in the Levant. Erdogan, another paragon of bad judgment, had hoped these fighters would topple the regime of Syrian leader Bashar Assad.
For his part, Assad also has a history of neglecting—and manipulating—the jihadists. For years, his government quietly encouraged jihadis to travel to Iraq to harass U.S. forces and the post-Saddam, U.S.-backed government. Through most of the Syrian Civil War, the Syrian regime— with backing from Russia—concentrated its fire on other regime opponents rather than the ISIS fighters who built the cross-border caliphate. U.S. officials take some hope that Russia will press their Syrian partners to keep ISIS militants—and especially foreign fighters—locked up. None of these actors is known for a commitment to civil rights, to put it mildly, so bombing the prisons or otherwise attacking the prisoners also can’t be ruled out. If, that is, ISIS fighters on the outside don’t break their comrades out first, a tactic in which the group is well-practiced.
How much of a difference would this kind of replenishment to ISIS’ ranks make? Although Trump recently tweeted that the group is “100% defeated,” that is not the case. In Syria, Carter Center reporting shows ISIS still carrying out numerous attacks each month. The same is true in Iraq, where the group has embraced a strategy of hit-and-run attacks to demonstrate its resilience. United Nations reporting has put the total number of ISIS fighters in the field at 20,000 to 30,000. That number may be high, and it is unlikely that the group could start holding significant territory in Iraq as long as there are some 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq with air power to back them, but the scope for trouble is considerable—and all the more so with civil unrest elsewhere in Iraq, distracting the country’s leadership. In Syria, for now, fighting among the various militaries will likely prevent any new ISIS statelet from reemerging, but for the longer term, nothing is certain.
The potential for ISIS carrying out terrorist attacks elsewhere is also noteworthy. Of the detainees in Syria, 2,000 are foreign fighters representing some 40 countries. While some of these might be reluctant to return to the fight after the orde
al they’ve been through, Gen. Joe Votel, then commander of Central Command, testified in Congress in March that plenty of the “ISIS population being evacuated from the remaining vestiges of the caliphate largely remains unrepentant, unbroken and radicalized.” Intelligence services in Europe, North Africa and elsewhere will be looking hard for returnees, but borders are hardly airtight. Although ISIS’ principal focus is on the area that was home to the Caliphate, the group will want to continue to score points by carrying out violence wherever it can to demonstrate its vitality.
Numbers of militants are one measure of a terrorist group’s strength, but morale matters as well, and the Trump drawdown in Syria is a godsend for ISIS’ spirits. It’s not just that fighters in the field and supporters around the globe will be heartened by the possible return of the detainees; it’s also confirmation of the stories that jihadists tell themselves about their struggle.
At the heart of the ISIS narrative is the belief that its struggle is a long one, filled with tribulations its members must endure but also with occasional triumphs. The fact that the U.S. is abandoning Syria so shortly after the destruction of the Caliphate will resonate with the faithful as a sign of divine support. ISIS’ story is already one of comebacks, especially after the devastation the group suffered beginning in 2006, and the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, its first leader. ISIS leadership speaks of the establishment of the Caliphate as a historic achievement coming out of those ruins, and ISIS communications, though not nearly as voluminous as they were, aim to create a nostalgia for the Caliphate. Recalling that historic achievement helps keep ISIS at the forefront of its followers consciousness and aims to entice others into the fold. Just as the Prophet Mohammed faced setbacks, the propaganda claims, so do ISIS fighters, but this quick a revival will be received a portent of great things to come. Al Qaida tried a similar approach after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, likening its followers to the companions of the Prophet who endured terrible defeats, but it never benefited from the broad-based popularity of ISIS or the kind of turnaround seen in Syria.
Like all jihadist groups, ISIS also has entwined in its ideological DNA the notion that the U.S. is ultimately a paper tiger. Osama Bin Laden made this argument from the earliest days of al Qaida, claiming that President Ronald Reagan’s retreat from Lebanon in the early 1980s and the pullout from Somalia after the Black Hawk Down episode were indicative. After the pounding al Qaida took in Afghanistan beginning in 2001 and the methodical dismantlement of the Caliphate, that narrative has been in eclipse. Given events in Syria and Trump’s naked eagerness to escape from Afghanistan, expect it to come roaring back.
Departing Syria will hurt global security—and the U.S. in particular—in still other ways. In the first instance, the rekindling of war in Syria will inevitably increase the production of new extremists. War may be the father of all things, but it especially prolific in producing militants. The U.S. has, until now, been remarkably effective at dispatching specific terrorist foes who aim to do us imminent harm. But after two decades of war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Yemen and the north Caucasus, the number of jihadists in the world is widely believed to be at least four or five times the number that who were operating on 9/11. So the pool of extremists who may want to harm America tomorrow is steadily growing.
A greater concern for the U.S. is simply that Trump has shredded our ability to build coalitions to deal with urgent threats. The global network of intelligence and law enforcement agencies that coordinate the day-to-day work of counterterrorism will continue to operate because of the strong bonds at the professional level built up over many years and the continuing interest of national leaders to see that cooperation continue.
But after the president’s spur of the moment action, which appears to have been a surprise for our French and British allies, who have troops in Syria as well, America’s ability to rely on others for military support will be greatly diminished. In Europe, our allies are furious, and Trump’s offhand remark that the U.S. had nothing to worry about because ISIS extremists “are going to be escaping to Europe,” is the equivalent of a verbal flip of the bird to our closest friends. In the Middle East, as longtime CIA analyst Emile Nakhleh put it, “America’s abandonment of its Kurdish allies [is seen] as an act of short-sightedness, untrustworthiness, expediency, undependability, fickleness, disloyalty, and vacillation.”
This is a loss that will haunt us. The U.S.-led coalition to defeat ISIS consists of 75 countries. Some contribute more than others, but overall, the group has shared burdens and established a durable legitimacy for the operation. Consider now the hypothetical from hell: ISIS revives in six months and reestablishes a caliphate in Western Iraq and eastern Syria. Iraqi forces melt away again. The Syrian Kurds, understandably, are nowhere to be found. Who will then follow Donald Trump into battle?