Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Welcome! Log in to stay connected and make the most of your experience.

Input clean

Three Ideas to Consider in Defeating ISIS

Three Ideas to Consider in Defeating ISIS

After a 30 day review, the Department of Defense has delivered to the White House a preliminary plan to defeat ISIS.  While this is an admirable goal, defeating ISIS will only be a short-term fix to the problem of Islamic terrorism, just as defeating Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) only saw it reconstituted and return with a vengeance as ISIS.  Here are a few considerations based on what worked in the development of the 2006 Anbar Awakening—the Sunni Sheik led alliance with Coalition forces that fostered the defeat of AQI, first in Anbar province, then across Shia and Sunni parts of Iraq.

First, sign a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the Government of Iraq both to protect the rights of American troops serving in Iraq, and more importantly, laying the groundwork for the broader security arrangement between the United States and Iraq for the decades to come.  The inability to obtain a SOFA agreement with the Iraqi government contributed to the security situation in Iraq immediately beginning to unravel following the ill-advised pull out of U.S. forces at the end of 2011. Then-Prime Minister Nori Maliki accused his Sunni Vice President of terrorism, forcing Tariq al-Hashimi to flee the country.  Maliki gave in to his party’s demands and purged the government of Sunnis. He then sent the Iraqi Army in to Anbar province over the coming months to root out terrorists.  The Sunnis, who had served for years in a coalition government with Maliki’s Shia Dawa party since the forming of the Anbar Awakening, found themselves in the zero-sum situation that prevents consensual government in the Mideast.  Forced to choose between a government that was persecuting them and the religious extremist they rejected six years earlier, they returned to the latter.  While many tribal fighters stayed loyal to the Awakening movement, others turned to the Sunni-supremacist ISIS—the rebranded Al Qaeda in Iraq.  Without a SOFA, the U.S. will return to a similar situation in a few years; without any leverage to influence an Iraqi government on which we spent billions of dollars and thousands of lives to stabilize, only to leave and have those gains reversed.

Keep reading...Show less
Access all of The Cipher Brief’s national security-focused expert insight by becoming a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ Member.

Related Articles

Report for Friday, July 18, 2025

9:03 America/New_York Friday, July 18 [...] More

Dead Drop: July 18

IN THIS WEEK’S EDITION: CIA’s existential threat might not be what you think it is, the CIA’s EXDIR is back in business, a warning to be careful of [...] More

Does the CIA Have a Trust Problem?

Does the CIA Have a Trust Problem?

In a recent opinion piece published in The Cipher Brief, former senior CIA Executive Mark Kelton suggests that the country’s leading intelligence [...] More

Expert Q&A: Putin Overplayed His Hand with Trump on Ukraine

EXPERT Q&A — President Donald Trump has offered a strong hand of support to Ukraine in recent days, pledging new weapons and threatening Russia with [...] More

Report for Thursday, July 17, 2025

9:03 America/New_York Thursday, July 17 [...] More

A Nuclear Day of the Jackal

BOOK REVIEW: The Moldavian GambitBy Brad Meslin / Manhattan Book GroupReviewed by: James LawlerThe Reviewer — James Lawler devoted more than half of [...] More

Ukraine’s Defense may Hinge on Offensive Operations

Ukraine’s Defense may Hinge on Offensive Operations

CIPHER BRIEF REPORTING – Russia has been bombarding Ukrainian cities with massive aerial assaults, two days after U.S. President Donald Trump pledged [...] More

Report for Wednesday, July 16, 2025

8:45 AM America/New_York Wednesday, July 16 [...] More

China Can Do More to Improve Relations with the U.S.

OPINION — Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with his Chinese counterpart, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, at the ASEAN Summit. Rubio described the [...] More