In months, ISIS has catapulted from a troublesome al-Qaeda offshoot to a dominant military power in Iraq and Syria. Their rapid takeover of territory, bombastic declarations of a caliphate, and horrendous violence towards minorities troubles the watching world. The United States, concerned as it is with any power struggle in the Middle East, is contemplating how to deal with the “ISIS Problem,” even as that intersects the “Syria Problem,” the “Iraq Problem,” and the “Kurd Problem”. There are a few main ideas about what U.S. policy should be: air raids, assassination, ground troops, other countries’ ground troops, and training rebels.
Yet all of these policies have flaws. Ongoing air raids may be containing ISIS, but they are not turning back the tide. Assassination of leaders requires much time, and (as the rise of ISIS post-bin Laden can attest) can lead to a cure that is worse than the disease. Obama and the American public are unwilling to put troops back on the ground in the region. Coalition countries are unlikely to furnish troops as long as America does not. The recently revealed potential strategy to train Free Syrian Army rebels is purely defensive and will not protect vulnerable minorities in ISIS-controlled areas.
So what can the United States do here, except realize its own limitations? With ISIS, Washington must face the unfortunate and unwelcome fact that although not entirely impotent, neither is it God. America cannot fix this problem, because it is one that stretches beyond its scope.
The battle that ISIS wages is not aimed against America, despite its grievances with American involvement in Iraqi politics. This is a battle waged against Shi’ites: the latest manifestation of a sectarian conflict that has been ongoing for decades. This is a battle waged against borders: the dream of a caliphate across the boundaries of Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. This is a battle rooted in the unfairness of the British and French, who, with the Sykes-Picot line in 1916, left the Kurds without a state, the Shi’ites in charge of Iraq, and volatile mixed groups in Lebanon and Syria.
None of this excuses ISIS. The group is barbarically cruel to minority groups and dismissive of human rights. However the question that the United States faces is not just whether it has the obligation to intervene, even on purely humanitarian grounds. The question is whether it has the ability to do so.
Yet “ability” is not just whether America numerically or statistically has the firepower and manpower necessary to plausibly stop the current violence. “Ability” asks the question of whether the United States has the agency and knowledge necessary to solve the problem in the long run. Considering the history and the aims of the inter-group conflict in this region, the track record America has with its interventions in the Middle East, and the lack of a good option in the present conundrum, it seems that America is ill-equipped for the task.