In March 2013, rebels surrounded the Syrian army around Raqqa. From inside the city, residents pleaded with the rebels not to attack. While many citizens sympathized with the rebel cause, Raqqa was already full of refugees from other war-torn parts of Syria. They had finally found refuge and begged for their relative peace not to be disturbed yet again. The rebels did not listen, and after a quick assault, Raqqa became the first large city to fall under the full control of the forces in opposition to Bashar al Assad.
That was almost two years ago. At the beginning of 2014, infighting broke out among rebels in the area, and the so-called Islamic State emerged victorious. Today, Raqqa is often referred to as their administrative capital. Those pleas issued by ordinary citizens two years ago might give us a small insight into the situation that paved the way for the Islamic State's formal entrance into the Syrian conflict.
While conducting interviews for a documentary about Syria, I met a young former fighter who had left the Free Syrian Army due to their conduct in Raqqa. The fighter had joined the Free Syrian Army because he believed that overthrowing Assad is a fundamental necessity. However, he decided to flee after Raqqa fell and he saw fighters loot people's homes and steal their belongings. The rebels' behaviour outraged him. He had joined a fight against injustice. Every piece of land liberated by the FSA, he believed, should become the complete opposite of Syria under Assad: no arbitrary detentions, no excessive force against dissidents, and no sectarianism. He had not joined the Free Syrian Army to become a thug.
The Islamic State winning hearts and minds
During the last year, the Islamic State has rampaged throughout Iraq and Syria. Only once they drew near Erbil and Baghdad did the United States move to roll them back, often with the help of uncomfortable allies such as the Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of the Iraqi Badr Brigades. In effect, the United States and Iran have the same allies on the ground in Iraq - a drastic turn in policy that underlines how seriously Washington and Tehran see the threat from the Islamic State.
The military advances of the Islamic State, and their brutality, have been well documented by journalists and analysts. However, their successes are not only due to military prowess - equally important is their ability to provide a sense of safety and normality to their subjects. How do they administer the areas they control? What services to they provide?
Any strategy to erase the Islamic State from the region clearly requires a decisive military component. But also crucial is a recognition that soft power is paramount to the Islamic State's success. If the group is to be permanently dislodged, its opponents need to administer the areas in a better fashion than the Islamic State and gain the support of the local population.
The Islamic State does several things to raise public support. They administer relief aid for the most needy citizens, often filming the actions for online advertising. The Islamic State has also contracted engineers to repair or even build new bridges across the Euphrates. A contact currently based in Raqqa, who wishes to remain anonymous, also told me the group has employed former Syrian state employees to work on restoring water supplies.
After having "revised" the traditional Syrian school curriculum to fit their moral views, the Islamic State began last year to open schools for children living in the areas under ISIS control. These schools indoctrinate students from a very early age, and they also provide military training. This should be particularly frightening for Western policy makers. But in a devastated country where schooling had been unavailable in opposition areas for three years, parents welcome the Islamic State's efforts to teach their children how to read and write.
The organization's sale of oil to mainly Turkish dealers has received much media scrutiny. But the Islamic State also sells its oil at subsidized rates to the population under its control. Again, such public policy is something quickly turns local public opinion.
The final aspect of the group's soft power is perhaps the most important. The Islamic State has two types of legal system. The first applies to enemy combatants. These fighters are not tried in courts and are often summarily and brutally executed. For citizens, however, there are courts administered under rule of law. While legal systems exist in other opposition-controlled areas, the Islamic State's courts are the most transparent and fair. If you break the law you will be harshly punished; if you do not, you are fine. Having lived for three years under near-total anarchy in the north and east of Syria, residents welcome Islamic State efforts.
Syria's rebels as an opportunity
U.S. President Barack Obama has so far seen Iraq as the main battlefront against the Islamic State, reasoning that the Iraqi government and the Kurds can supply foot soldiers that can engage the enemy. As a short-term approach this seems reasonable, but in the long run it will not succeed. Part of the reason for the Islamic State's success is that the group is seen by alienated Sunni civilians as the lesser of two evils. The Iraqi army, composed mainly of Shiites transported from the south of the country to patrol Sunni cities in the north, are seen as extending the reach of Baghdad's sectarian policies.
Yet the current anti-ISIS strategy relies on, well, sending Shiites to patrol Sunni streets. If Washington hopes to slowly gain the approval of Sunni tribal allies, this doesn't seem a hopeful strategy. The tribes that largely routed Islamic State's predecessor, al Qaeda in Iraq, are not likely to take up arms against the Islamic State in the absence of a neutral force such as the American army. If the tribes ally with Baghdad, they know they are welcoming ruthless Shiite militias into their homes. The Islamic State has also learned from the Anbar Awakening in 2005 and has set in motion a strategy to pre-empt tribal insurrection. For the last few years they have carried out targeted assassinations of key tribal leaders, often filming their drive-by shootings and posting them online. This long-term strategy has been largely ignored by the media.
I have previously on these pages argued for the establishment of a strategy to form a more coherent Syrian opposition. This strategy should be coupled with an effort to form some sense of normality in the areas controlled by the opposition. Obama has described the rebels as being "made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth." In fact, Syrian rebels do need exactly those types of people, perhaps not as fighters, but to provide services. Brutal as he may be, the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, seems to possess a better understanding of how to win hearts and minds in the war-torn territories than does Obama. In an audio statement released in July, Baghdadi urged supporters to emigrate to ISIS-controlled areas, saying: "We make a special call to the scholars, fuqah?' (experts in Islamic jurisprudence), and callers, especially the judges, as well as people with military, administrative, and service expertise, and medical doctors and engineers of all different specialisations and fields." Baghdadi understands that in order to win the war, he needs hard military power, but he also needs doctors, farmers, and administrators.
In the search for long-term solutions, the Syrian rebels seem to be best positioned to drive back the Islamic State. A coherent Syrian force can take back Der-er-Zor and Raqqa without being seen as occupiers. No other regional actor is in such a favorable position. To rely on Iraqi Kurds and Shiites would be to repeat the same mistake and expect a different result: the definition of insanity. If Syrian rebels become a more coherent fighting force, and if they are trained in how to administer the areas they occupy, we might start seeing a serious rollback of the Islamic State. If this aspect of the conflict is not recognized, then the Islamic State's grip on large parts of Syria is more likely to endure.
