Last October, I published a summary of the coalition battle to liberate Mosul from ISIS in The Cipher Brief, stressing that inside the one battle there were six “campaigns” – military or political in nature – that would shape Middle Eastern and counter-terrorism developments.
This piece updates that analysis in light of progress made defeating ISIS in Mosul, the new Trump Administration, and President Donald Trump’s tasking to the Department of Defense to come up with a plan to defeat ISIS by February 28. While the six-campaign approach remains appropriate, the individual campaigns have taken different courses. The operational campaigns focused on capturing and securing Mosul are going well. However, the stunning Russian-Syrian-Iranian victory in Syria attained by capturing Aleppo and securing a Syrian ceasefire through talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, underlines how important America’s strategic campaigns are, not only in terms of finishing off ISIS but in containing Iran as well. Following is the updated six-campaign analysis.
The First Operational Campaign: Liberating Mosul
This campaign has continued for three months, and Iraqi forces have cleared eastern Mosul and are just beginning the decisive assault on western Mosul, which is a more densely populated and fortified area, home to many ISIS sympathizers. Nevertheless, after taking high losses and displaying initial problems with urban warfare, the Iraqi security forces have performed increasingly well, integrating tanks and supporting fire to attack the city on multiple axes. Moving deliberately has kept both military and civilian casualties manageable, and it has also aided the delivery of relief to the civilian population.
The Obama Administration increased the number of supporting U.S. forces and loosened restrictions on air strikes, while moving advisory teams forward. Relations between the various Iraqi forces involved, while at times rocky, have not broken down; and nimble diplomacy has allayed fears that the coalition would crack, especially with the presence of Turkish troops near Mosul. ISIS is now besieged inside western Mosul with no hope of relief. Its defeat can now be measured in weeks or a few months.
The Second Operational Campaign: Mosul the Day After
The Iraqi government, with U.S., coalition, and international organization support, has done reasonably well in western Mosul on “day-after” missions. This includes securing areas against ISIS insurgents, providing humanitarian relief, and restraining the Turks and local allies, such as the Kurdish Peshmerga and Shi’a Popular Mobilization Unit militias. Reports vary as to the degree the liberated population welcomed Iraqi troops and relief efforts, but, so far, this campaign has gone better than expected, and a disaster with major humanitarian consequences in eastern Mosul is unlikely.
The First Strategic Campaign: Restoration of America’s Military Reputation
Victory in Mosul and eliminating ISIS as an organized force in Iraq – aside from isolated elements in Hawija – will be a major victory for the U.S. This victory will signal that the U.S. is back in the game to win, with credit going to the Trump Administration, although most of the success began with President Barack Obama.
The Second Strategic Campaign: Defeating ISIS
Trump is awaiting a plan, due February 28, for the total defeat of ISIS. If the Administration can stay on the six-month timeline for defeating ISIS in Mosul and Raqqa given by General Stephen Townsend, U.S. Commander of the joint task force responsible for coordinating coalition efforts against ISIS, this month, then Washington will have achieved a strategic victory in one of the three major regional armed conflicts – the others are Syria and Afghanistan.
ISIS will not die out any more than al Qaeda has, but the fall of these cities will, as a first step, end ISIS’ claim to be a “caliphate” with a state, population, economy and army. This territorial concept is essential to ISIS’ worldview and its recruitment. Second, ISIS’ defeat will dramatically reduce its ability to project terrorist attacks from sanctuaries. While the group may still inspire terrorism, complex attacks such as those in Paris in 2015 will be difficult to execute. ISIS operations in ungoverned areas after it loses its cities will keep it dangerous, but the magnitude of its threat will be a small fraction of that it has presented as a “caliphate.”
Nevertheless, the Raqqa campaign will be more complicated than Mosul. There is no friendly government acceptable to the U.S. or Syrian Sunni Arabs to establish a permanent presence, secure the population and prevent the return of ISIS after Raqqa falls. Nor is there a military force equivalent to what the Iraqis and Kurds have fielded in Mosul. Potential forces include Turkish forces and Turkish-supported Syrians (the Free Syrian Army); the Russian-Syrian-Iranian alliance; and the U.S. and its local ally, the Syrian Democratic Forces, a largely PYD (Syrian Kurdish offshoot of the Turkish Kurdish PKK) force with some local Sunni Arabs.
Each group has differing objectives for the day after, and they are in varying degrees antagonistic to each other. Unlike the case with Mosul there is no central coordinating body, and the U.S. has difficulties generating sufficient local ground combat power against ISIS in Raqqa without using American troops. While all the actors assume ISIS will be defeated this year, all are oriented on post-Raqqa competition in Syria. It is thus critical that the Pentagon’s ISIS plan includes how to complete that defeat in a way that enables the Administration to accomplish its other goal—containing Iran. This requires reconciling America’s Turkish and PYD Kurdish allies, sustaining the Astana ceasefire, and maintaining a U.S. presence in Syria after Raqqa in informal “safe zones” now under Turkish or Kurdish control.
The Third Strategic Campaign: Iraq
A strong U.S. role after the defeat of ISIS is essential to keep Iraq united and independent of Iran. This campaign, given the impending defeat of ISIS in Iraq, turns mainly on the day-after strategic plans vis-à-vis Iran. U.S. success in assisting Iraq has earned the appreciation of Iraqis, but Iran will push for a U.S. withdrawal after Mosul falls. This would not only undercut U.S. containment of Iran, but could split the country, with Kurdistan declaring independence and the Iraqi Sunni Arabs rebelling against Iranian-Shi’a alliance in Baghdad, possibly with ISIS remnants.
The Fourth Strategic Campaign: Iran
The Trump Administration has put Iran “on notice” that the U.S. will contain it much more aggressively than the Obama Administration did. Thus, ending the ISIS state in Syria and Iraq must be conducted with ever more attention paid to the primary strategic challenge: containing an Iran supported by Russia. While there are various implementing options, in the end Iran will emerge the winner if the U.S. cannot keep political influence and military presence in both Syria and Iraq after ISIS is defeated. If this does not happen, victory in Mosul and Raqqa will simply generate another ISIS-esque Sunni jihadist reaction, leaving the region even worse off.
