Jun 23, 2014

The Islamists’ blitzkrieg in northern Iraq appears to have caught the international community by surprise. However, one should neither attribute this success to one single group, namely the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), nor consider it totally unexpected. ISIS has long created a support base for itself in Mosul, and it was not the only organization — and perhaps not even the main one — to take over the city at lightning speed. Among six major groups, the Mujahideen Army especially stands out, and there is talk of the important role played by the Naqshbandiya group that has great influence among the Kurds and Turkmen. I doubt, however, that Baathists and former Iraqi military personnel played an equally significant role in the capture of part of the country by the terrorists.

Of course, it is not uncommon to find a "marriage of convenience" in politics. Yet, the civilizational positions of radical Islamic terrorists — who are "frozen in time" and have surpassed al-Qaeda in cruelty with their reprisals against those who do not accept their values — are irreconcilable with those of the secular nationalists, even if they have experienced some sort of re-Islamization in the opposition underground. And it is very convenient to blame it all on the Iraqi Baathists, including the Baathist regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom the Syrian opposition accused of supporting Islamic terrorists even before ISIS’ offensive. Regardless, a religious platform such as the Naqshbandiya, with its Sufi undertones, can hardly be acceptable for ISIS extremists. If they are at war with Jabhat al-Nusra, then they would be at each other’s throats even more with the Naqshbandis.

US President Barack Obama's decision to send 300 military advisers to Iraq and consider the possible use of air and rocket strikes on ISIS positions has confirmed the fact that in the mind of a significant part of the political establishment in Moscow, military force remains — perhaps to an even greater extent than before — an instrument of policymaking. Analysts are not surprised that along with opponents and skeptics, many in the United States appeared to support the direct involvement of US troops in the hostilities now ongoing in Iraq. They paid attention, in particular, to the words of the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who declared, "I think most important is that we take direct action now against ISIS."

In Moscow, what is happening is perceived as a repeat of the debates that took place in the United States before the invasion of Iraq in 2003. It has been suggested that the United States may possibly be drawn into the civil war in Iraq and the Levant, which would exacerbate the situation in the region. No one, however, is gloating over the failure that befell the large-scale operation — extremely costly in blood and treasure — that changed the regime and transformed the sociopolitical structure of one of the key countries in the Middle East. Moreover, if — with the active help of the Americans — the government in Baghdad succeeds in eradicating ISIS, this will serve Russia’s interests — first, because it would reduce the direct threat to its security posed by the spread of terrorism in the Middle East, and second, it would ease the military pressure on Syria, creating the preconditions for the resumption of the peace process.

The roots of what is exacerbating the problem do not lie in the mistakes of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whom both Washington and Tehran — somewhat paradoxically — have always supported, but in the errors of the previous US administration. Nowadays, hardly anyone doubts that the three major blunders committed by the Americans in Iraq were the ban on the Baath Party, the dissolution of the army and the elimination of the state bureaucratic apparatus. It is clear why this was done: There were fears that these structures would be incapable of transformation and that, moreover, had they been maintained, they could exact revenge in the future. However, the main effective state institutions that were eliminated were the mainstay of the secular nationalist regime — despite all the hideousness of Saddam Hussein’s brutal dictatorship, who brought grief both to a huge number of Iraqi citizens as well as to the citizens of neighboring Iran and Kuwait. As a result, a power vacuum spread in Iraq (not to mention the explosive mass of disgruntled highly skilled specialists) that the new rulers have failed to fill.