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The Islamic State:
From al-Qaeda Affiliate to Caliphate
Ahmed S. Hashim
T
he dramatic victories in summer 2014 of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) over rival groups fighting the regime of Bashar al-Assad — and over the government of Iraq and Kurdish forces — culminated in the declaration of a caliphate, or the Islamic State. The international community became alarmed, and the lightning ISIS advance in Iraq was blunted in mid-August by U.S. air power. Air strikes were ramped up in September and October in both Iraq and Syria by the United States and an ad hoc coalition of Middle Eastern and European states. There has been a scramble by policy makers, militaries, intelligence officials and journalists from around the globe to understand the ISIS phenomenon, resulting in a profusion of unverified and contradictory information. This study, drawing from a multitude of open sources, seeks to provide a concise overview of the origins, ideology, goals and military operations of ISIS in Iraq and Syria from 2003 to the present in order to help governments understand and deal with this phenomenon.
THE ORIGINS OF ISIS/IS
ISIS/IS has its origins in an obscure militant group, Jamaat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (JTJ), that was stood up in 2000 by a Jordanian one-time criminal-turned-Islamist named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (AMZ). His intent was to fight the Jordanian government, but he failed to gain traction. Zarqawi then traveled to Afghanistan to fight on the side of the mujahidin (resistance) in the jihad against the Soviets. Having arrived after their departure, he soon returned to his homeland to fight the well- entrenched Jordanian monarchy. His efforts came to naught, and he eventually returned to Afghanistan, where he ran an Islamic militant training camp near Herat. No evidence exists that he had much interaction with Osama bin Laden or his organization, al-Qaeda. AMZ claimed he was influenced by Abdullah Azzam, the Palestinian Jordanian Islamist thinker who exhorted Arabs to fight the Soviets alongside the Afghan mujahidin: "We used to receive some audiocassettes recorded by Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, may he rest in peace. He had a great influence on my decision to engage in jihad."
Following the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, al-Zarqawi moved into Iraq. There he developed extensive ties with Ansar al-Islam (Partisans of Islam), a Kurdish Islamist group. In March 2003, the United States invaded and occupied Iraq. A brilliant conventional campaign led to the erroneous belief on the part of the George W. Bush administration that Iraq would stabilize and progress towards democracy. By summer 2003, the disgruntled Sunni minority — toppled from power with the downfall of Saddam Hussein — launched a deadly insurgency. It consisted of five
distinct groups, four composed largely of Iraqis from the former regime, nationalists, tribal elements and various Islamist fighters. The fifth group was AMZ's JTJ, consisting of a smattering of Iraqis and many foreign fighters. JTJ developed into a network aimed at resisting the coalition occupation forces and their Iraqi allies. Its goals: to (i) force a withdrawal of coalition forces from Iraq; (ii) topple the Iraqi interim government; (iii) assassinate collaborators with the occupation regime; (iv) target the Shia population and defeat its deadly militias; and (v) establish an Islamic state under sharia, God's law. AMZ declared that the JTJ political platform was based on a saying attributed to the Prophet Mohammed: "I was sent to the world with a sword in my hand until all worship would be devoted to Allah alone." AMZ elaborates his project: We will fight in the cause of God until His shariah prevails. The first step is to expel the enemy and establish the state of Islam. We would then go forth to reconquer the Muslim lands and restore them to the Muslim nation.... I swear by God that even if the Americans had not invaded our lands together with the Jews, the Muslims would still be required not to refrain from jihad but go forth and seek the enemy until only God Almighty's shariah prevailed everywhere in the world.... Our political project is to expel this marauding enemy. This is the first step. Afterwards our goal is to establish God's shariah all over the globe.... We will not be revealing a secret when we say that we seek to establish Islamic justice in the entire world and crush the injustice of disbelief and the iniquity of other religions. In pursuit of his goals, AMZ left a trail of death and destruction in Iraq. JTJ differed considerably from the other Iraqi insurgent groups. Rather than using only guerrilla tactics — ambushes, raids and hit-and-run attacks against the U.S. forces — it relied heavily on suicide bombers. It targeted a wide variety of groups: the Iraqi security forces, Iraqi Shia and Kurdish political and religious figures, Shia Muslim civilians, foreign civilian contractors, and UN and humanitarian workers. AMZ reserved much of his ire for the Shia of Iraq. In February 2004, AMZ had called the Shia the "insurmountable obstacle, the lurking snake, the crafty and malicious scorpion, the spying enemy, and the penetrating venom." AMZ was very adept at using the Internet to promote his message, recruit personnel and terrorize his enemies, posting his first communiqué on a jihadist website in April 2004. Through creating a worldwide network, Zarqawi's volunteers posted messages from their leader and videos of militant acts, like beheadings, on multiple servers. This avoided delays in downloading and made it difficult for the material to be removed from the World Wide Web.
AMZ JOINS AL-QAEDA
In late 2004, AMZ brought his group under the loose control of Osama bin Laden; the group officially pledged allegiance to the al-Qaeda network in a letter in October 2004. The new organization, Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn, or al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), provided al- Qaeda with a ready-made base from which to strike the United States and AMZ with prestige. He was now part of a brand name that drew recruits and financial and logistical support.
In March 2005, AQI articulated a cohesive ideological vision — its "creed and methodology" — in which it expressed its determination to promote and defend tawhid (monotheism) and eliminate polytheism. It defined anyone who did not believe in the essential unity/oneness of God as an infidel and subject to takfir (excommunication) and death. It expressed the belief that the Prophet Mohammad is God's messenger for the entire human race and viewed secularism (ilmaniyah) and all other isms — nationalism, tribalism, communism and Baathism — as "blatant violations of Islam." Jihad was the duty of all Muslims if the infidels attacked. Waging jihad against the enemies of Islam was next in importance to the profession of the shahada (faith). AQI argued that all Muslims — excluding the Shia — constitute one nation. There is no differentiation between Arabs and non- Arabs; piety is what counts.
In the words of Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, then the chief spokesman of AQI, the goals are explicit:
- Remove the "aggressor" from Iraq.
- Affirm tawhid, oneness of God among Muslims.
- Propagate the message that "there is no god but God" to all the countries in which Islam is absent.
- Wage jihad to liberate Muslim territories from infidels and apostates.
- Fight the taghut (illegitimate) rulers of Muslim lands.
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began to sabotage government infrastructure and launch terror attacks against civilians, killing hundreds. Nonetheless, ISI suffered a significant blow on April 18, 2010, when its top leadership, Abu Ayub al-Masri and Abu Umar Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi, were both killed in a joint U.S.-Iraqi raid near Tikrit. By June 2010, 80 percent of the group's 42 leaders, including recruiters and financers, had been killed or captured, with only eight remaining at large. The decapitation of the leadership in 2010 set the stage for the emergence of the current and most successful leader, Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai (aka Dr. Ibrahim, Abu Dua, and Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi). It is difficult to pin down exactly who this elusive character is. It is said he is descended from the Prophet Muhammad and that he hails from the al-Bu Badri tribe, which is primarily based in Samarra and Diyala. Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi helped create Jaysh Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamah (the Army of the Sunni People), an active jihadist group that operated in Samarra, Diyala and Baghdad. U.S. forces arrested Abu Bakr in February 2004 and released him in December that year because he was not deemed to be a High Value Target. The Jaysh Ahl al- Sunnah leadership pledged allegiance to AQI and joined the umbrella organization.
ISI REEMERGES
Between 2010 and 2013, four key factors contributed to the reemergence of ISI: organizational restructuring coupled with the rebuilding of its military and administrative capacities; the dysfunctional nature of the Iraqi state and its growing conflict with the Sunni population; the fading away of al-Qaeda under the leadership of Ayman al-Zawahiri; and the outbreak of the Syrian civil war.
ISI goals became more nuanced and concisely articulated by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as the overthrow of illegitimate governments and the creation of an Islamic caliphate. This came out clearly once al-Baghdadi transformed his organization into the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and subsequently into the Islamic State. The focus on the caliphate has been elaborated in detail in the Islamic State's glossy magazine, Dabiq, of which there have been four issues to date. The first dealt with the importance of the declaration of the caliphate, among other matters. The caliphate represents the onset of a new era of "might and dignity" for the Muslims. The focus on creating an Islamic state is the defining element for ISIS, even if it was unable to gain the acclaim of the Islamic world and even if the state proves short-lived. It differs from al-Qaeda in its superior abilities to articulate an effective vision and a military strategy for implementing it. Even if ISIS fails, and there is every indication of impending overreach, this vision is remarkable for its audacity.
Having an ideology and goals of breathtaking ambition is not sufficient. ISI was a moribund mess when Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi took over; his revival of the organization began in 2010 and culminated in the organizational structure we see today. Much of the success of ISIS is due to the creation of a cohesive, disciplined and flexible organization by al-Baghdadi and other Iraqis that he hired, including, it is alleged, a former senior Iraqi army officer known as "Hajji Bakr." First, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi began by learning from and avoiding the mistakes of AMZ, such as spectacular and provocative attacks. AMZ's successor, Abu-Umar al-Baghdadi, erred by focusing on the mind- numbing minutiae of the organization and micromanaging his subordinates. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi built a hierarchical and centralized organization that was flexible enough to allow subordinates wide latitude in the field, as long as they stayed within the mission guidelines established by the leader.
Second, Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi reduced the role of the Arab expatriates in leadership posts. The presence of foreign Arabs at the top had irritated potential Iraqi supporters in the past. Instead they are now in combat units, like most of the non-Arab foreign fighters, and in support roles such as media outreach and propaganda, recruitment and collection of donations. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi thus allowed Iraqis, mostly from the military and security establishments of the former Baathist regime, to fill in the top layers of ISIS and then of the Islamic State.
Third, he divided the organization into the leadership — al-imara — or the executive, composed of Abu Bakr and his top advisers and second in command. It is the policymaking and governing body of the Islamic State. The rest of the organization is divided into first- and second- echelon structures. The first echelon consists of the Shura Council, the Military Council, and the Security and Intelligence Council. Abu Bakr directly supervises these councils. The Shura Council comes immediately below the leadership in importance; it consists of Abu Bakr himself and the "cabinet," nine to 11 members who can theoretically dismiss the leader if he does not carry out his duties as ordained by his office.
The Military Council consists of a head, chosen by al-Baghdadi, and three members. It oversees the military commanders in the wilayats (provinces) that make up the various units of the
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Islamic State. Careful observation of data suggests that the military contingents are distinct and made up of Iraqis directly in IS battalions, associated local fighters from the former regime elements, and foreign fighters mainly from Arab countries (the Westerners, including those of Middle Eastern descent, are in IS units in Ar-Raqqa, Syria). An exception is the fearsome and combat-effective Chechen fighters who, allegedly, played a key role in routing the Iraqi army in Mosul. Intelligence and military personnel from Saddam Hussein's army and security services helped set up and run the Security and Intelligence Council (SIC). It has a wide range of duties: (a) providing protective security to Al-Baghdadi for his movements and engagements; (b) ensuring the maintenance of communications between al-Baghdadi and the "provincial governors," who implement the caliph's decisions; (c) overseeing the execution of court rulings and the execution of penalties; (d) providing counterintelligence to prevent enemy infiltration of the state; (e) overseeing the delivery of mail and the security of communications among the various IS branches; and (f) maintaining special detachments for conducting assassinations, kidnappings and the collection of funds (headed by former members of the Baathist security services such as a former officer known as Abu Safwan al-Rifai.) Of the second-echelon structure the most important deals with the finances of ISIS and the Islamic State, especially pertaining to the funding of the war machine and the running costs of its state-building process. Our knowledge of the finances of ISIS/IS is still a work in progress; there are many unverified statements about the sources of its finances that continue to be issued uncritically by governments and the media. In brief, the Islamic State gets its money from the export of oil from fields under its control; it exports the oil to the Syrian government and the Iraqi Kurdish region and to Turkish groups. It taxes the population under its control and engages in the time-honored tactic of "extortion" from businesses.
ISI Grand Strategy
The resilient and flexible organization that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi built enabled him to formulate and implement a grand strategy in which goals are matched to operational plans for achieving them. This grand strategy is based on lessons learned from the failures of its parent organization, al-Qaeda, and from two key works: Idarat al-tawwahush: Akhtar marhala satamur biha al-umma (The Management of Savagery: The Most Dangerous Period Through Which the Umma Is Passing), written in 2009 by Abu Bakr Naji (aka Muhammad Abu Khalil al-Hakaymah), and Khouta istrategiyah li taziz al-mawqif al-siyasi lil dawlah al-islamiyah fi al-Irak (Strategic Plan to Improve the Political Position of the Islamic State in Iraq), written in 2010 by members of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI).
Management of Savagery argues that carrying out a campaign of constant violent attacks in Muslim states will eventually exhaust these states' ability and will to enforce their authority and that, as the writ of the state withers away, chaos or savagery (tawahhush) will ensue. Of course, if the state is facing serious internal and external difficulties such as civil war, revolution or attack from outside, the jihadists can take advantage of such situations to weaken the illegitimate regime even more by attenuating its control over its territories. Jihadists can take advantage of this savagery to win popular support, or at least acquiescence, by imposing security, providing social services and implementing sharia. As these territories under control increase, they can become the nucleus of a new caliphate.
ISI believed that Iraq could be returned to and maintained in a state of savagery, despite the success of the Americans and their Iraqi allies in crushing the group in 2007-08. It is in this context that Strategic Plan was written. It called for taking measures to improve the political and military positions of ISI so that it would be ready to capture and control territory once the Americans left. It would then be in position to create the caliphate. Operationally, the Strategic Plan calls on ISI to coordinate its political and military efforts, execute an effective PSYOPS campaign against the Iraqi security forces, and implement a jihadist equivalent of the "awakening" campaign.
ISI's military revival was on full display even before the events of 2014, and its attacks were characterized by their sheer ferocity, frequency and lethality. Abu Bakr was responsible for managing and directing large-scale operations. Between March and April 2011, ISI claimed 23 attacks south of Baghdad. On May 5, 2011, al-Baghdadi claimed responsibility for an attack in Hilla that killed 24 policemen and wounded 72 others. On August 15, 2011, a wave of ISI attacks beginning in Mosul resulted in 70 deaths. On December 22, 2011, a series of coordinated car bombings and IED attacks struck over a dozen neighborhoods across Baghdad, killing at least 63 people and wounding 180. The litany of death and destruction continued into 2012. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced a campaign of "Breaking the Walls" in July 2012 that made freeing its members from prison a top
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behavior of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) opponents of the Assad regime. ISI's leadership noticed this. In April 2013, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi released an audio statement announcing that Al-Nusra Front (Jabhat al-Nusra) had been established, financed and supported by the Islamic State of Iraq. Al- Baghdadi declared that the two groups were merging as the "Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham." The leader of Al-Nusra Front, Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, issued a statement denying the merger and complaining that neither he nor anyone else in Al-Nusra's leadership had been consulted about it. There are significant differences between Al-Nusra and ISIS. Al-Nusra was willing to cooperate with other jihadist groups to promote the goal of an Islamic state in Syria; ISIS was not so pragmatic. While Al-Nusra has a large contingent of foreign fighters, many Syrians see it as Syrian; by contrast, ISIS personnel are described as "foreign" occupiers. Al-Nusra actively fought for the overthrow of the Assad government; ISIS was more focused on establishing its own rule over territory and people and avoided fighting the Syrian Army. ISIS was far more ruthless in building an Islamic state; setting up a proto-state in the Syrian city of Raqqa in the northeast, where it built "a holistic system of governance that includes religious, educational, judicial, security, humanitarian and infrastructure projects...." In June 2013, Ayman al-Zawahiri, addressed both leaders in a letter, ruling against the merger and appointing an emissary to oversee relations between them and put an end to tensions. Zawahiri stipulated that al-Nusra would fight in Syria and ISI in Iraq. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi released an audio message rejecting Zawahiri's ruling and declaring that the merger would go ahead. In October 2013, Zawahiri ordered the disbanding of ISIS, putting Al-Nusra Front in charge of jihadist efforts in Syria. Baghdadi and others within ISIS contested Zawahiri's ruling on the basis of Islamic jurisprudence and practical and logical grounds. It would be a sin to dissolve the union. Furthermore, Islam did not recognize the "artificial" Sykes-Picot boundaries created in the aftermath of World War I that had divided the Islamic umma into states. Finally, it made no sense for the jihadists to fight disunited. In February 2014, after an eight-month power struggle, al-Qaeda disavowed relations with ISIS. In May 2014, Zawahiri ordered Al-Nusra Front to stop attacking ISIS, but there was no reconciliation.
Shock and Awe
When ISIS returned to Iraq in June 2014 to seize large swaths of territory, the stage was already set for an insurgent version of "shock and awe." ISIS concentrated its forces for a lightning attack on the Iraqis and the capture of territory and cities. ISIS activated the operational links with many former Baathist insurgents, many of whom were officers and intelligence personnel in the regime of Saddam Hussein. This included groups such as Rijal Jaysh al-Naqshbandiya and others that had ensconced themselves in Mosul and ran a shadow administration. ISIS information operations conducted by Shura Council leaders convinced several military and local leaders to resign and flee their posts, eventually giving rise to "stab in the back" stories of betrayal. Remaining military units and civilian leaders were isolated and targeted by suicide bombers or assassination squads or murdered en masse when captured, to send a message to remaining government forces. Videos of massacres were distributed widely, reaching the remaining Iraqi troops on the front lines. Many Sunnis, in particular, had no reason to fight for the Maliki government and deserted in large numbers. The statement of one Sunni security officer speaks volumes:
They [the Shia] don't even consider us Sunnis to be human beings. Only Shiites got promoted to become officers, and it was only the Shiites who landed government contracts. We were second-class citizens. Maliki asked Assad to bomb us Iraqis because he didn't have any aircraft of his own [Syrian Air Force fighters bombed ISIS positions in Iraq]. What kind of a leader is that?
Upon seizing a city, ISIS personnel made straight for police and municipal buildings and core infrastructure such as water and electricity, enabling them to completely control access to vital needs.
The Iraqi security forces collapsed. Four army divisions simply disappeared and will not be easily rebuilt. The Second Division was routed from Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, on June 9, and its four brigades dissolved. The First Division lost two brigades in Anbar earlier in the year, then two more during the ISIS advance in June, with one brigade totally destroyed in Diyala just northeast of Baghdad. The same is true of Iraq's Third Division. The division's Sixth and Ninth Brigades fled the Islamic State's advance in the north, and the Eleventh largely vanished. The Fourth Division also was routed. Half its personnel vanished; most deserted, while hundreds may have been massacred. Iraqi troops on the front line were short of food, water and ammunition. They survived because the ulema and charities in Samarra provided food for them. ISIS captured an enormous amount of equipment, including 1,500 armored Humvees and large numbers of mortars and heavy artillery pieces, among them 52 GPS-guided 155mm M198 howitzers.
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The size of the June 2014 debacle became clear shortly thereafter. American advisers turning up to assess the situation and help rebuild the Iraqi security forces found an incompetent military deeply infiltrated by Sunni militants and Shia militiamen, led by an unprofessional officer corps incapable of meeting the logistics needs of its soldiers. The initial U.S. assessment, which arrived at the Pentagon on July 14, was grim. The advisers concluded that Iraqi forces would be unable to launch the kinds of offensive operations required to roll back ISIS.
THE CALIPHATE
The successes of ISIS on the ground in Syria and Iraq led it to view the situation as opportune for the establishment of an Islamic state. On June 29, 2014, ISIS began to refer to itself as the Islamic State, declaring its occupied territory a new caliphate and naming Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi as its ruler (caliph). Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Adnani al-Shami, spokesperson for ISIS, described the establishment of the caliphate as "a dream that lives in the depths of every Muslim believer" and "the neglected obligation of the era." He said that the group's ruling Shura Council had decided to establish the caliphate formally and that Muslims around the world should now pledge their allegiance to the new caliph.
The declaration of the caliphate resounded throughout the region and the Islamic world. On the ground, there was an increase in surrenders by rebel brigades in Syria's Deir ez-Zour province. Fearful of ISIS power in the wake of its successes, a number of local leaders and tribal elders in Syria and Iraq sought to avoid confrontation and agreed to peaceful surrenders of their militias and occupations of their towns and villages. These surrenders and accretions of territory provided the Islamic State with territorial contiguity between the lands it seized in Syria and in Iraq, allowing it to claim that it had erased the old colonial boundaries established by the Western powers after World War I.
Second, the declaration of the caliphate created a stir in Islamist circles, not least within AQC, which was taken aback by being upstaged. The event divided jihadist thinkers and religious personalities as well as jihadist movements. AQC and its supporters — who tended to be older and veterans of past jihads — argued that Baghdadi was an upstart who had no right to declare a caliphate; the time was inopportune and the manner inappropriate. Al-Baghdadi and his supporters — frustrated by al-Qaeda's seeming lack of vigor and success in recent years — declared that the military successes of ISIS provided both the legitimacy and opportunity to declare a caliphate.
The resurgence of ISIS and its subsequent transformation into the Islamic State has come as a shock to the Iraqi government, the region and the international community. The key question is whether the group can reinforce its hold on the area it controls, or whether it will face factional challenges or effective international push-back. The challenges are both internal and external.
Imploding from Within
IS may sabotage itself without any help from the outside. It may overreach, even though its leaders have cautioned its commanders on the ground to be prudent as they extended control over territory and peoples. The first Islamic state experiment revealed that the jihadists were not very effective at establishing and maintaining local alliances. It succumbed to hubris before it could consolidate control and began acting as if it were the dominant group, opening the door to an anti- jihadist uprising among Sunni insurgents that was aided by the Americans.
The Islamic State of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has pursued two pathways to the construction of the state, depending on circumstances and local conditions. It used violence against groups in Syria and moved swiftly to control territory and population. In northern Iraq, especially around Mosul, it sought to build and sustain alliances with local armed groups and slowly inserted itself within the population. This required compromise and prudence in dealing with the heavily armed and well- embedded former Sunni insurgents, including Baathist and Islamist groups that had established shadow financial networks. The Maliki government's unwillingness to meet Sunni demands for greater political inclusion and more resources made ISIS's job of "seducing" the Sunni fighters an easy task. Maliki's replacement, Haider al-Abadi, is seen as equally anti-Sunni. Furthermore, so many Sunni groups have gone so far to the other side that neither sees any hope of reconciliation. The longer the Islamic State can take advantage of this lack of Sunni options, the more likely it is to transform itself into a socially embedded political, economic and military presence in the Sunni areas of Iraq. Key Sunni leaders of the Sahwa movement who refused to see the merits of allying with ISIS have either been assassinated or forced to "repent" in order to join the organization.
The ideology of IS and its horrific modus operandi may engender resistance; conflict with its local partners is the most likely pathway to collapse in both Syria and Iraq. Moreover, strife with its allies over resources and power sharing may emerge. Dependence on local Sunni networks made IS vulnerable to abandonment by the groups that formed the Anbar Awakening. Resistance has
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military successes in Syria in early 2014, when it kicked the other jihadist groups out of Raqqa, and in Iraq in summer 2014, when it conquered Mosul and other areas. Ground forces would be able to reduce the territories under IS control and thus work to delegitimize it.
Of course, IS cannot be defeated purely by military means. Political and diplomatic engagement with the Kurds and the central government in Iraq will be necessary. Israel and the Kurds are maneuvering to grant an independent "Kurdistan" as much Iraqi territory as possible. While the Kurds should be rewarded for their cooperation in defeating IS, this will cause problems if it comes at the territorial expense of what remains of Iraq. It will reinforce Sunni Arab grievances; they stand to lose the most in the territorial carve-up in the north. Coaxing Baghdad to offer political positions and economic equity in return for further military aid and training — as well as to ensure restraint by the Kurds — can only be done by the United States.
There is considerable pressure on Washington to ignore or bypass Syria and Iran. Israel and Saudi Arabia certainly want to keep these so-called "rogue states" weak. A parade of self-styled U.S. experts on the region has been promoting the idea that the solution to this mess lies in the overthrow of the Assad regime. It is strategically myopic, recalling the idea that the best way to deal with al-Qaeda was to overthrow Saddam Hussein, when the focus should have been on Afghanistan. Engaging Iran does not mean appeasement. It means warning Tehran not to engage in machinations that are at variance with U.S. efforts to rebuild the Iraqi body politic and military along national rather than sectarian lines.
Syria cannot offer much help against IS; it is overstretched and untrustworthy. However, a policy of supporting the opposition is fraught with danger. The "moderate" opposition will turn on Assad and ignore IS; they have, in effect, been doing so. The non-IS jihadists, many affiliated with al- Qaeda, will watch as their two opponents fight each other and the United States deals with IS. These non-IS jihadists should not emerge as the winners in this melee. This does, of course, create a problem; the U.S. targeting of Jabhat al-Nusra in late September 2014 led that organization to issue threats against the West and begin working with IS forces in Syria.
ISIS did not appear out of the blue. Much of its revival has been due to events such as the Syrian civil war, but also to the fecklessness and monumental failures of the Iraqi government. Its successes and continued existence were perpetuated by the inability of regional governments and the United States to recognize it as a dire threat until summer 2014. The chances for crushing the insurgent terrorist menace are greatest when both the endogenous and exogenous challenges to the Islamic State are maximized simultaneously. This will require a more sophisticated approach than that currently being implemented by the United States and its allies.
Obama Visit to New Delhi Stirs
Islamabad’s Scramble to Compete
Amy Calfas
A
bove the sounds of cheering during President Obama’s recent visit to New Delhi for the 66th Republic Day military parade, a chorus of discontent emerged across the international border to the northwest. In the perennial regional competition between India and Pakistan, the U.S. leader’s second visit to one while again steering clear of the other could have serious implications for strategic stability in South Asia.
President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have tea at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, Jan. 25, 2015. Obama swept aside past friction with India on Sunday to report progress on climate change and civilian nuclear power cooperation as he sought to transform a fraught relationship marked by suspicion into an enduring partnership linking the world’s oldest and largest democracies. (Stephen Crowley/The New York Times)
President Obama and Prime Minister Modi have tea at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, Jan. 25, 2015. Photo Credit: The New York Times/Stephen Crowley
The Jan. 25-27 visit to India also marked the second meeting between Obama and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in less than six months, as the world’s two largest democracies seek
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greater cooperation on defense, economic growth and energy. The summit occurred as the India- Pakistan relationship becomes increasingly fragile following a swell of violence on the Line of Control (LOC) dividing Kashmir between the two countries and India’s recent move to re-impose direct control over the area it administers. Join USIP on Feb. 9 for a discussion on possible ways to address the India-Pakistan rift. For more details, see the event page. Pakistan’s actions demonstrate its ire. Immediately following Obama’s visit, Pakistan’s high commissioner to India, Abdul Basit, was called to Islamabad for urgent consultations with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on the state of bilateral relations between the two countries. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s foreign ministry spoke out against India’s bid for a permanent Security Council seat. And Pakistan pursued its own bilateral outreach, sending Army Chief General Raheel Sharif and the national security advisor, Sartaj Aziz, to Beijing for a high-profile official visit with defense counterpart General Qi Jianguo that coincided with Obama’s visit to India. In Beijing, Pakistan’s message to India – and to its longtime ally the U.S. -- was clear: We can always look to China. Pakistan's mainline media have similarly touted the ties with China; major headlines cited Chinese officials referring to Pakistan as an "irreplaceable all-weather friend," a phrase that’s fast becoming a recurrent descriptor of the relationship by the two sides. Meanwhile, New Delhi’s ties with Beijing have long been marred by economic competition, border disputes and tensions over China’s increasing naval presence in the Indian Ocean. Not to be left behind in the diplomatic contest, though, the Indian government sent Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj to Beijing on Feb. 1 for three-way talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Modi subsequently announced his own maiden journey to Beijing this May to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. India’s and Pakistan’s efforts to court Beijing for strategic purposes are clear. Yet while China sees Pakistan as one of its closest allies, particularly in the strategic sense, it approaches India with reluctant pragmatism, viewing the subcontinent as both its biggest commercial partner and most powerful competitor. Modi’s May trip is likely part of the contest for Beijing’s attention, even as India seeks to secure its own dominance in Asia with the U.S. partnership.
Nuclear alliances
One of the most significant results of Obama’s visit to New Delhi, in fact, was the announcement of a long-delayed deal to implement an agreement on civilian nuclear energy signed in 2008, in which the United States pledged to provide India with technology to reduce the dependence of the nation’s 1.3 billion people on fossil fuels. A new insurance pool is intended to help facilitate the entry of U.S. nuclear suppliers into India by indemnifying them against liabilities. A White House joint statement also highlighted the commitment of the two leaders to “continue work towards India’s phased entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group” and other export-control regimes.
But these latest arrangements remain more symbolic than concrete. Questions remain about whether the insurance pool will address the concerns of American nuclear-equipment suppliers enough to begin work in India. And Pakistan has consistently opposed India's bid for membership in the 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a non-proliferation regime that controls exports of nuclear materials.
Pakistan’s Aziz used the Beijing meetings as a platform to reassert disapproval of India’s induction to the group under a country-specific exemption. The joint Obama-Modi statement suggests that the international community may be ready to usher India into the NSG as a de-facto member in the near future.
Aziz insisted on Jan. 27 that such a move “would further compound the already fragile strategic stability environment in South Asia,” according to the Times of India.
Mistrust between leaders in New Delhi and Islamabad has been further aggravated as the U.S. and India have increased defense cooperation. Again during this summit, Obama and Modi agreed to expand joint military exercises and continue bilateral cooperation on military technology development in accordance with the Defense Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI). That includes “joint production of parts and systems for the Lockheed C-130 and RQ-11 Raven drones,” according to news reports.
Arms deals
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structural reforms on a population that, for now, still views the ruling Syriza party as its savior from austerity. Within four months, Greece and Germany will be at loggerheads again, and Greece will likely still lack the austerity credentials that Berlin needs to convince its own Euroskeptics that it has the institutional heft and credibility to impose Germanic thriftiness on the rest of Europe. The more time Germany buys, the more inflexible the German and Greek negotiating positions become, and the more seriously traders, businessmen and politicians alike will have to take the threat of a so- called Grexit, the first in a chain of events that could shatter the eurozone.
The Role of the Crisis in Ukraine
In order to steer Germany through an escalating eurozone crisis, Merkel needs to calm her eastern front. It is no wonder, then, that she committed herself to multiple sleepless nights and an incessant travel schedule to put another Minsk agreement with Russia on paper. The deal was flawed from the start because it avoided recognizing the ongoing attempts by Russian-backed separatists to smooth out the demarcation line by bringing the pocket of Debaltseve under their zone of control. After several more days of scuffling, the Germans (again leveraging their creditor status — this time, against Ukraine) quietly pushed Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to accept the battlefield reality and move along with the cease-fire agreement. But even if Germany on one side and Russia on the other were able to bring about a relative calm in eastern Ukraine, it would do little in the end to de-escalate the standoff between the United States and Russia.
The Connection Between Ukraine and Iran
Contrary to popular opinion in the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin is not driven by crazed territorial ambitions. He is looking at the map, just as his predecessors have for centuries, and grappling with the task of securing the Russian underbelly from a borderland state coming under the wing of a much more formidable military power in the West. As the United States has reminded Moscow repeatedly over the past several days, the White House retains the option to send lethal aid to Ukraine. With heavier equipment comes trainers, and with trainers come boots on the ground.
From his perspective, Putin can already see the United States stretching beyond NATO bounds to recruit and shore up allies along the Russian periphery. Even as short-term truces are struck in eastern Ukraine, there is nothing precluding a much deeper U.S. probe in the region. That is the assumption that will drive Russian actions in the coming months as Putin reviews his military options, which include establishing a land bridge to Crimea (a move that would still, in effect, leave Russia's border with Ukraine exposed), a more ambitious push westward to anchor at the Dnieper River and probing actions in the Baltic states to test NATO's credibility.
The United States does not have the luxury of precluding any one of these possibilities, so it must prepare accordingly. But focusing on the Eurasian theater entails first tying up loose ends in the Middle East, starting with Iran. And so we come to Geneva, where U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif met again Feb. 22 to work out the remaining points of a nuclear deal before March 31, the date by which U.S. President Barack Obama is supposed to demonstrate enough progress in negotiations to hold Congress back from imposing additional sanctions on Iran. If the United States is to realistically game out scenarios in which U.S. military forces confront Russia in Europe, it needs to be able to rapidly redeploy forces that have spent the past dozen years putting out fires ignited by sprouting jihadist emirates and preparing for a potential conflict in the Persian Gulf. To lighten its load in the Middle East, the United States will look to regional powers with vested and often competing interests to shoulder more of the burden.
A U.S.-Iranian understanding goes well beyond agreeing on how much uranium Iran is allowed to enrich and stockpile and how much sanctions relief Iran gets for limiting its nuclear program. It will draw the regional contours of an Iranian sphere of influence and allow room for Washington and Tehran to cooperate in areas where their interests align. We can already see this in effect in Iraq and Syria, where the threat of the Islamic State has compelled the United States and Iran to coordinate efforts to contain jihadist ambitions. Though the United States will understandably be more cautious in its public statements while it tries to limit Israeli anxiety, U.S. officials have allegedly made positive remarks about Hezbollah's role in fighting terrorism when speaking privately with their Lebanese interlocutors in recent meetings. This may seem like a minor detail on the surface, but Iran sees a rapprochement with the United States as an opportunity to seek recognition for Hezbollah as a legitimate political actor.
A U.S.-Iranian rapprochement will not be complete by March, June or any other deadline Washington sets for this year. Framework agreements on the nuclear issue and sanctions relief will necessarily be implemented in phases to effectively extend the negotiations into 2016, when Congress could allow the core sanctions act against Iran to expire after several months of testing
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Iranian compliance and after Iran gets past its parliamentary elections. Arrestors could arise along the way, such as the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but they will not deter the White House from setting a course toward normalizing relations with Iran. The United States, regardless of which party is controlling the White House, will rank the threat of a growing Eurasian conflict well ahead of de-escalating the conflict with Iran. Even as a nuclear agreement establishes the foundation for a U.S.-Iranian understanding, Washington will rely on regional powers like Turkey and Saudi Arabia to eat away at the edges of Iran's sphere of influence, encouraging the natural rivalries in the region to mold a relative balance of power over time.
Circling Back
Germany needs a deal with Russia to be able to manage an existential crisis for the eurozone; Russia needs a deal with the United States to limit U.S. encroachment on its sphere of influence; and the United States needs a deal with Iran to refocus its attention on Russia. No conflict is divorced from the other, though each may be of a different scale. Germany and Russia can find ways to settle their differences, as can Iran and the United States. But a prolonged eurozone crisis cannot be avoided, nor can a deep Russian mistrust of U.S. intentions for its periphery.
Both issues bring the United States back to Eurasia. A distracted Germany will compel the United States to go beyond NATO boundaries to encircle Russia. Rest assured, Russia — even under severe economic stress — will find the means to respond.
Shale oil and its
Impact on World
M Imtiaz Shahid
S
hale oil is an unconventional oil produced from oil shale rock fragments by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. These processes convert the organic matter within the rock (kerogen) into synthetic oil and gas. The resulting oil can be used immediately as a fuel or upgraded to meet refinery feedstock specifications by adding hydrogen and removing impurities such as sulfur and nitrogen. The refined products can be used for the same purposes as those derived from crude oil. The term “shale oil” is interchangeable, as it is used as well for crude oil produced from shales of other very low permeability formations. However, for avoiding the risk of confusion of shale oil produced from oil shale with crude oil in oil-bearing shales, the International Energy Agency recommends to use the term “light tight oil” and World Energy Resources 2013 report by the World Energy Council uses the term “tight oil” for the latter. A sedimentary rock, oil shale is found all over the world, including China, Israel, and Russia. The United States, however, has the most shale resources. Extracting Shale Oil: Obtaining shale oil from oil shale involves heating kerogen in a process called pyrolysis. Pyrolysis is a form of heating without the use of oxygen. At about 60-160 degrees Celsius (140-320 degrees Fahrenheit), kerogen reaches its natural “oil window.” At 120-225 degrees Celsius (248-437 degrees Fahrenheit), kerogen reaches its natural “gas window.” For production of oil shale, the temperatures are much higher. Pyrolysis can either be done ex situ (above ground) or in situ (below ground). Ex Situ: During the ex situ process, oil shale is first extracted from the earth by surface or underground mining. The rock is crushed, and then retorted (heated) to release the shale oil. The shale oil is then refined of impurities, such as sulfur. In Situ : In situ is a new, experimental method of extracting shale oil.
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- However, the benefits of such oil price reductions will vary significantly by country. Large net oil importers such as India and Japan might see their GDP boosted by around 4%-7% by 2035, while the US, China, the Eurozone and the UK might gain by 2%-5% of GDP.
- Conversely, major oil exporters such as Russia and the Middle East could see a significant worsening of their trade balances by around 4%-10% of GDP in the long run if they fail to develop their own shale oil resources.
- The potential emergence of shale oil presents major strategic opportunities and challenges for the oil and gas industry and for governments worldwide. It could also influence the dynamics of geopolitics as it increases energy independence for many countries and reduces the influence of OPEC.
- There are significant strategic implications along the value chain. Oil producers, for example, will have carefully to assess their current portfolios and planned projects against lower oil price scenarios.
- National and international oil producers will also need to review their business models and skills in light of the very different demands of producing shale oil onshore rather than developing complex “frontier” projects on which most operations and new investment is currently focused.
- Lower than expected oil prices could also create long-term benefits for a wide range of businesses with products that use oil or oil-related products as inputs (e.g. petrochemicals and plastics, airlines, road hauliers, automotive manufacturers and heavy industry more generally).
- The potential environmental consequences of an increase in shale oil production are complex and appropriate regulation will be needed to meet local and national environmental concerns. Shale oil could have adverse environmental effects by making alternative lower carbon transport fuels less attractive, but might also displace production from higher cost and more environmentally sensitive plays.
The Shale Oil Revolution
is in Danger
Shawn Tully
O
il producers and Wall Street analysts claim the setback in the fracking industry brought on by the collapse in oil prices will be brief and minor. Don’t believe them. The shale oil revolution is providing a great gusher of profit, jobs, and swaggering entrepreneurship. It epitomizes the optimism surrounding America’s economic recovery. Indeed, the rise of hydraulic fracking from Montana to Texas to Pennsylvania has lifted U.S. oil production mightily, from 5.6 million barrels a day in 2010, to a current rate of 9.3 million. And until late last year, it was widely accepted that our output would keep rising in 1 million barrel-plus annual leaps for years to come. The recent drop in oil prices poses a major challenge to the frackers. But oil producers, Wall Street analysts, and most industry experts claim the setback will be brief and minor.
Don’t believe them.
The basic economics of fracking—what it costs to drill versus what oil now sells for—spells big trouble for the shale boom. At best, today’s producers may be able to hold production close to current levels. What’s gravely endangered is the advertised bonanza that virtually everyone deemed inevitable just a few short months ago.
Shale oil production is totally unlike drilling in any other part of the global market. In conventional wells, whether in the Middle East, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea, the wells
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operate on extremely long cycles. Typically, the amount of crude oil they produce declines at between 2% and 5% per year. Hence, a well that generates 2,000 barrels a day in the first year will yield between 95% and 98% of that quantity in year two. Since the output falls so gradually, wells typically keep pumping for 20 years or longer.
The wells’ long lives help account for the extreme volatility in oil prices. Naturally, producers plan their projects expecting to recoup the upfront investment required to find the oil and install the well––their “fixed costs”––and the “variable” or “marginal” costs of extracting the oil year after year, notably labor and electricity. In a business where the risks stand as tall as the rigs, companies only invest when they forecast future prices far above the total outlay of fixed and variable costs, in hopes of pocketing big profits. The rub is that energy prices frequently fall far below what’s required to return their full costs, let alone make a decent return. That was the scenario from the mid-1980s until early 2002, when oil prices averaged $20 a barrel.
When prices drop, however, almost all conventional wells keep pumping. That’s because the variable cost of lifting the crude is still far lower than the prices it fetches on the world market. Ten- year old wells often have variable costs of just $20 to $30 a barrel, so their owners keep on producing at prices of $60 or $80, even though it would require $100 oil to generate a good return on their total investment. In other words, what they spent to drill the well becomes irrelevant. All that matters is the cash they can generate over and above what’s required to suck out the crude every day. “What drives the business is the marginal cost, not the total cost,” says Ronald Ripple, a finance and energy business professor at the University of Tulsa. “Even at low prices, the production is still contributing something to cover the upfront investment.”
As a result, the global supply of oil is what economists call “inelastic.” Even if prices crater, the oil majors and sheiks keep pumping more or less the same quantities. They’ll only stop when prices drop below the variable cost—and for most wells, they seldom sink that far.
So, the primary determinant of oil prices, especially right now, is demand. Since supply won’t typically drop with a fall in the world’s thirst for oil, a decline in demand generates big, exaggerated downdrafts in prices. Naturally, wars and upheavals in oil producing countries can cause temporary shortages that mask falling consumption, but when production inevitably returns to normal levels, weak demand takes charge and prices crater.
That’s what is going on today. Oil consumption in the U.S. has fallen by over 8% since 2010, and the shrinkage in Europe is far greater than that. Meanwhile, China and India have not proven nearly as voracious as forecast. The drop in oil prices from over $100 in May to $48 has not, and will not, cause a major or even minor drop in production. That’s true even in high-cost areas such as the tar sands of Canada. In those forbidding fields, major energy companies have invested billions on plans to produce for 50 years, and even though they’re losing money on their total investment, they’re more than recouping their variable costs. So, as prices wobble, drilling will proceed smoothly.
Except for fracking. Unlike conventional projects, shale wells enjoy an extremely short life. In the Bakken region straddling Montana and North Dakota, a well that starts out pumping 1,000 barrels a day will decline to just 280 barrels by the start of year two, a shrinkage of 72%. By the beginning of year three, more than half the reserves of that well will be depleted, and annual production will fall to a trickle. To generate constant or increasing revenue, producers need to constantly drill new wells, since their existing wells span a mere half-life by industry standards.
In fact, fracking is a lot more like mining than conventional oil production. Mining companies need to dig new holes, year after year, to extract reserves of copper or iron ore. In fracking, there is intense pressure to keep replacing the production you lost last year.
On average, the “all-in,” breakeven cost for U.S. hydraulic shale is $65 per barrel, according to a study by Rystad Energy and Morgan Stanley Commodity Research. So, with the current price at $48, the industry is under siege. To be sure, the frackers will continue to operate older wells so long as they generate revenues in excess of their variable costs. But the older wells—unlike those in the Middle East or the North Sea—produce only tiny quantities. To keep the boom going, the shale gang must keep doing what they’ve been doing to thrive; they need to drill many, many new wells.
Right now, all signs are pointing to retreat. The count of rotary rigs in use—a proxy for new drilling—has fallen from 1,930 to 1,881 since October, after soaring during most of 2014. Continental Resources, a major force in shale, has announced that it will lower its drilling budget by 40% in 2015. Because of the constant need to drill, frackers are always raising more and more money by selling equity, securing bank loans, and selling junk bonds. Many are already heavily indebted. It’s unclear if banks and investors will keep the capital flowing at these prices.
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time since the Second Intifada. At the same time, it is poised to grow far more dangerous in the coming years. Its rival, the Palestinian Authority—with its aging leadership, reliance on international donor largesse, and support for both peace negotiations and cooperation with Israel on West Bank security looking bankrupt to many Palestinians—lacks broad legitimacy, while Hamas is gaining popularity on the West Bank for having stood up to Israel. Israel too claimed victory, with Netanyahu calling it “a major military achievement.” However, polls show Israelis are skeptical and feel no one really won.6 Israel even accepted that Hamas would be part of a Palestinian unity arrangement, a huge shift from its pre-war position, when it vehemently rejected any Palestinian government that included Hamas. Now is a good time to consider alternatives that would break us out of the cycle of provocation, response, and war. On one end, Israel could reoccupy Gaza, either ruling it directly or trying to bring in moderates like Abbas to rule there on the back of an Israeli tank. On the other extreme, a deal could be arranged that gives Hamas far more freedom to govern Gaza and have the area prosper in exchange for some form of disarmament. Israel might also try to bring the PA back to Gaza or even try to arrange a separate ceasefire with Hamas. These, along with the current approach, all have their strengths and weaknesses, but all deserve a more careful look as the peace process solution lacks credibility. Any alternative would probably involve a mix of measures from the different approaches, but for purposes of analysis, each is treated here as an ideal type. In the end, several steps are necessary if Israel is to gain more lasting security and Gazans are to gain better lives. First, almost all the options require moderate Palestinians to govern more competently and be politically stronger: currently they are on the path to political irrelevance. Second, the world should encourage pragmatists in Hamas to work with Palestinian moderates. Finally, options that offer small changes in the status quo deserve consideration. Such steps would, over time, enable Israel to take more risks and allow everyone to move beyond the current stalemate.
What's At Stake in Gaza?
Israel occupied Gaza in the 1967 war and governed it directly for over 25 years before surrendering control over much of the Strip to Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority in 1994. Israel did not reoccupy all of Gaza when the Second Intifada broke out in 2000, instead relying heavily on a security barrier, which it completed along the Gaza border in 2001. In 2005, Israel withdrew completely, this time even from the small Jewish settlements on the Strip—a wrenching move for Israelis that was bitterly controversial. Israelis hoped that this withdrawal would put Gaza and its problems behind them, removing it from the political equation, but instead it led to rocket and mortar fire. At times the attacks were just a brief disruption, at others a threat to daily life, and at all times intolerable. As Hamas's arsenal advanced from primitive, short-range “Qassam” rockets to advanced Iranian- and Syrian-supplied long-range rockets, almost all of Israel came under threat.
The rocket fire and other problems led to regular clashes, particularly in 2008–2009, again in 2012, and most recently in 2014. These clashes as well as several smaller ones led to over 90 deaths on the Israeli side, 71 of which occurred in the 2014 war. UN figures show almost 4,000 total Palestinian deaths in these three wars, among them at least 2,500 civilians, including roughly 900 children. (Palestinian deaths are harder to measure, and Israelis hotly challenge UN claims that many among the dead are civilians). Although Israel's “Iron Dome” missile-defense system has intercepted many rockets headed toward population centers, rockets have still forced Israelis to huddle in shelters, disrupted Israel's economy (especially tourism), and otherwise interrupted the daily lives of its citizens. In 2014, rocket fire led the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and several airlines to briefly suspend flights to Israel. In contrast to the 2012 conflict, Hamas was able to sustain rocket attacks throughout the most recent war, firing large salvos even as the ceasefire approached. Hamas also fired large numbers of mortars—short-range systems that cannot be intercepted by Iron Dome—leading many Israelis to leave areas near Gaza. Part of the reason Israel sent forces into Gaza was to stop the mortar threat.
Israelis also fear the tunnels Hamas has constructed in Gaza. In 2006, Hamas forces raided Israel via a tunnel and captured Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier Gilad Shalit, whose captivity only ended after five years and the exchange of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. During Operation Protective Edge in 2014, Israel discovered over 30 tunnels, almost half of which went into Israel proper. Israeli officials fear Hamas could repeat the Shalit operation or simply send operatives into Israel to kill and sow mayhem. Tunnels within Gaza itself greatly complicate Israeli military operations into the Strip. During the 2014 fighting, Hamas fighters emerged from a tunnel and surprised Israeli soldiers at the Nahal Oz border post: they did not capture a soldier, but they did kill
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five while taking only one casualty of their own. The tunnels also hide rockets, making it hard for Israel to destroy them. Hamas has also trained an army of several thousand fighters, some of whom are embedded within Gaza's civilian population. The result is what military analyst Jeffrey White calls a “human dome,” enabling Hamas fighters to avoid the full brunt of Israel's military response. These fighters lack the skill and firepower of the IDF, but they are tenacious, and the 2014 fighting showed them to be more capable than Hamas forces had been in previous rounds. For Palestinians, the Gaza problem is less about repeated wars—though these are tough enough—and more about the grinding misery of day-to-day life. Israel has made life difficult in Gaza as part of a policy designed to avoid a full-out humanitarian crisis but to discredit Hamas by preventing economic development in Gaza. U.S. government officials privately referred to this as keeping “Gaza's economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge.” Food security is low, electricity sporadic, and unemployment high. Making a bad situation worse for Hamas, the 2013 coup against the Muslim Brotherhood-led government in Egypt transformed a potential friend into a bitter enemy. Egypt has since clamped down on cross-border tunnels that are used to smuggle everything from diapers to rockets, devastating the Gazan economy—to the point that some Israeli security officials feared the pressure would backfire and lead to a complete collapse of order in Gaza or the empowerment of even more radical voices. Potential funders in the Gulf have also turned against Hamas, sharing Egypt's fear of the Brotherhood, and Iran and Hamas split when they picked opposite sides in the Syria conflict. War with Israel compounds all these problems. The Gaza conflict is troubling not just for Israelis and Gazans but for the region as a whole and for U.S. interests as well. Israelis look at their 2005 withdrawal from Gaza as a questionable precedent for the West Bank: why would withdrawal in the West Bank lead to peace when the withdrawal from Gaza failed to do so? Israelis are skeptical that talks with Abbas on the West Bank will really mean peace if rockets continue from Gaza, while the back and forth between Israel and Hamas, and the resulting heavy Palestinian casualties, inflame Palestinian anger against Israel and damage the standing of moderate Palestinian leaders. As long as the conflict festers, it is difficult for the peace process to resume and gain traction, and as long as the peace process ignores Gaza, the conflict festers. Conflict in Gaza also bleeds over into neighboring Sinai, contributing to the growing terrorism problem in Egypt. For the United States, which has more than enough problems in the Middle East, close ties to Israel become a millstone when Israel is perceived as slaughtering innocent Muslims.
The Current Approach: Mowing the Grass
Any solution must take into account the goals of the parties involved and the politics on all sides. For Israel, the immediate requirement is security: no rocket or other attacks from Gaza. This applies both to Hamas and to other militant groups in Gaza, like the Iran-linked Palestine Islamic Jihad and Salafi-jihadists (who have an ideology akin to that of al-Qaeda). Some of these are Hamas's enemies or rivals, but some Israeli leaders contend Hamas could suppress them if it wanted to and that Hamas allows them to strike Israel as a way to continue applying pressure while avoiding direct responsibility. (The truth is somewhere in between: Hamas cannot prevent every attack, and most of the attacks after 2012 were from Palestine Islamic Jihad, but Hamas can certainly do more than it has done to stop them.) Israel also worries about the development of Hamas's military potential, be it by building up rocket arsenals, restoring its tunnel complex, or otherwise being able to challenge Israel more successfully. Israel believes that Hamas did not honor the terms of the ceasefire after the previous clash in 2012: Hamas placed explosives on the border, built tunnels, manufactured weapons, and did not fully prevent rocket fire from Gaza.
Hamas, in turn, has multiple and conflicting goals. On one hand, Hamas seeks Israel's destruction. On the other hand, some, though not all, of Hamas's leaders recognize Israel's overwhelming military superiority and know they must temper their goals, with some calling for ceasefires—though these same leaders at times use violent rhetoric, and precisely where Hamas stands regarding even a de facto recognition of Israel has never been fully tested.
Hamas also must maintain its internal cohesion. Hamas tries to represent the vast Palestinian refugee population in Jordan, Lebanon, and elsewhere in the Arab world and globally; Palestinians in the West Bank; and of course Gazans; but the three groups have different goals. A more peaceful path threatens Hamas's internal cohesion. Having cultivated an ethos of violence for decades, and having come to power in part by denouncing the Palestinian Authority and using terrorism to undermine its efforts at peace, conciliatory steps might anger militants within the movement, particularly in the military wing, as well as members of smaller rival groups. This would
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