The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, is gobbling up more territory in preparation for striking western nations and a retired U.S. Army Special Forces officer says the U.S. needs to stop underestimating the enemy and start engaging Sunnis in Iraq to stand up and fight for their homeland.
Retired Lt. Col. Scott Mann spent 23 years in Special Forces, including 15 years of service as a Green Beret. He saw combat duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and several other spots around the world during his years in uniform. Mann points out that ISIS now controls a land area greater in size than the United Kingdom. He says the U.S. and our allies need to realize ISIS likely presents a greater threat to the West than any other group we’ve confronted since 9/11.
“These guys, in a lot of ways, are a lot more advanced than Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda always talked about re-establishing this caliphate, but I don’t think even Bin Laden expected to see it in his lifetime. Whereas ISIS, not only have they established it, the caliphate is part of their legitimacy. So the expansion of this is a very real thing and they’re going to keep going,” said Mann.
After Sunday’s video release of the grisly beheadings of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya. reports surfaced this week that ISIS plans to use North Africa as a launching pad for attacks in Europe. Mann believes that is definitely part of the plan.
“I fully believe they are looking to expand into Europe and even further, and I do think their activity in Libya and other places indicate that,” said Mann.
Mann says for all of its horrifying actions, ISIS has been very clear about its intentions and the U.S. and other nations have been slow to take them seriously.
“It seems like we keep counting these guys out or we keep missing what we’re capable of . The reality is these guys have a very powerful narrative that resonates with a lot people. And they follow an end of days kind of scenario here. They are manufacturing a holy war between Islam and the West and they fully intend to fight it,” said Mann.
At this week’s White House summit on confronting violent extremism, President Obama said the very reason he does not refer to ISIS as being motivated by Islamic extremism is because that’s what the radicals want. Mann is of two minds on this debate. First, he says Obama definitely needs to be more clear about who our enemy is.
“I do think it is a mistake to not call out the enemy as Islamist violent extremists because they certainly are and they are using medieval Islamism to justify their actions,” said Mann, who also says Obama is right not to give ISIS a lot of material to feed its propaganda efforts.
“I do think the president is right in cautioning us to not fall into the role of the crusader, who they want us to be. That falls right into their narrative and, frankly, that’s how they recruited the shooter in Denmark. It’s how they recruit these young girls from the UK, this narrative that Islam is under attack by the West. By trying to ‘do something,’ we end up playing into that narrative,” said Mann.
So how will ISIS be most effectively destroyed? Mann says is starts by studying how ISIS has gobbled up so much territory to this point.
“They go into a fragile state that is basically exploited by violent extremists in areas that are beyond the reach of that partner government. In Iraq, they go into the marginalized Sunni tribal areas, where those tribes are degraded and beaten down and they co-opt them from the bottom up,” said Mann.
“So if you strike them from the top down with the Iraqi military whom those Sunnis distrust or whether it’s with air strikes, you just drive those extremists deeper into the population, like a tick in a dog,” he said.
While Mann believes military action is critical to stop and ultimately destroy ISIS, he says the key is for American and other allied advisers to go into the marginalized areas and win over tribal leaders and have them fight back over time.
“These extremists have to be taken out. There’s no doubt about it. I believe it needs to be done in the context of a broader strategy, where we get into these local areas, these strategic safe havens and we find tribal leaders that are pushing back and resisting and we help them push [ISIS] out of there. I think that’s the only way for the long term that we degrade ISIS and other extremists to the point they are irrelevant,” said Mann.
According to Mann, sending in huge numbers of ground troops to collaborate with the tribal leaders would look like another U.S. occupation. He says sending in the advisers would accomplish the same goal with a much lighter footprint and a much small cost in blood and treasure. He says it’s an approach he personally watched succeed in Afghanistan.
“In the last few years of the Afghan war, Green Berets did that throughout rural Afghanistan. It was very effective and Mullah Omar was on record, citing it as one of the greatest threats the Taliban faced,” said Mann, who noted Gen. David Petraeus employed the same strategy in the Sunni areas of Iraq with groups like Sons of Iraq and The Awakening.
While Mann is urging western leaders not to underestimate ISIS, he also cautions that this fight will not be over quickly.
“This McDonald’s drive-thru mentality that we have of defeating these guys, where it happens in a couple of news cycles or a one-year combat rotation is fantasy. This is going to take decades to build up partner nation capacity to push back from the bottom on their own. In many of these societies, it took several decades to degrade it, and it’s going to take that long to build it back up,” said Mann.
