ISIL is facing the most sustained ground assault since it shocked the world by seizing the Iraqi city of Mosul two years ago. According to the Pentagon, ISIL has now lost almost half of the Iraqi territory it controlled. Now it is facing twin attacks – by Kurdish-led forces moving south towards its “capital” in the Syrian city of Raqqa and by Iraqi forces that have surrounded the town of Fallujah and are threatening to recapture it.
On the surface it looks as if the battle between ISIL and the United States-backed coalition of forces is entering the endgame. As it loses territory, ISIL’s unique selling point – claiming to be an Islamic state that is the nucleus of an all-conquering caliphate – will be seen as a hollow failure.
But the reality is not so simple. Despite the optimistic assessments of the US military, there is no quick end in sight. Sober assessments suggest there will be at least another year of fighting before the ISIL citadels fall. And when that happens, the question will be whether it regroups – say in Libya – or becomes a clandestine organisation such as Al Qaeda, or is supplanted by another Salafi-jihadi group that will claim to have learnt the lessons of ISIL’s mistakes.
The reason the fight is taking so long is not a lack of firepower. The attacking forces are all divided in their goals. It is not just a simple question of restoring the sovereignty of Syria and Iraq; Turkey, Iran and the Arab powers all have interests. This means that the expulsion of ISIL will merely be the starting gun for other rivalries to kick in.
At the most basic level, the issue is who will take over the conquered towns. In eastern Syria, the so-called Syrian Democratic forces – an outfit dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) which is the US military’s most effective partner – is moving towards Raqqa. Efforts by the Americans to bolt Arab units on to this force have not so far succeeded in dispelling the impression that it is an arm of the YPG whose goal is to extend the area of Kurdish control at the expense of the Arab population.
For this reason, the immediate goal of the advance is not to take Raqqa, but to step up pressure on ISIL there. There is no force in Syria that could legitimately take over Raqqa, a Sunni Muslim city. The Kurds would be as alien as ISIL, if not so harsh.
Across the border in Iraq, the stakes are even higher. The government of prime minister Hayder Al Abadi is buffeted by the low oil price and popular demands for an end to top-level corruption.
Unable to dismantle the spoils-based parliamentary system established after the US invasion of 2003 or to make it function, he has opted to distract attention with a show of force against Fallujah. The city is surrounded by a kaleidoscope of units – Iraqi army, Shia militiamen and Sunni tribal forces united only by the desire to crush ISIL.
The experience of the city of Ramadi, its neighbour on the Euphrates, is that liberation means the city gets flattened. The consequence of winning the war against ISIL is that the main Sunni population centres are gradually being destroyed and turned into ghost towns, with more and more of the Sunni citizens displaced. While this may be an inevitable consequence of urban warfare, in the end it will look to the Sunni minority as sectarian cleansing by the Shia and their Iranian backers.
While the current focus is on Fallujah, the real prize is Mosul, Iraq’s third city. But that is a far harder task. Mosul lies in the territories disputed between Kurds and Arabs in northern Iraq, and the Kurdish fighters will want to extend their territory as the price for joining the battle to liberate the city.
Beyond these local disputes there is the Turkish interest, dominated by anxieties over the rise in the power of the Kurds in Iraq and Syria, and the effect this will have on the restive Kurds in Turkey.
When Syria began to fall apart in 2011, it seemed to the then Turkish prime minister (now president), Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that he had a historic chance to dominate his southern neighbour. In fact, blowback from the Syrian conflict is now unsettling the Turkish republic and the security forces are battling a Kurdish insurgency in the south-east of the country.
Mr Erdogan now sees the Kurdish YPG militia, despite their partnership with the Americans, as terrorists.
The combination of forces allied against ISIL is easily enough to inflict a historic defeat on ISIL. But it is politics, not firepower, that will win this battle. Sorting out what happens to the liberated zones and who takes over – without making the residents nostalgic for ISIL – is the key. The political issues are not just at the local level: they also require regional buy-in and a consensus to resolve the issue in Washington and Moscow.
Any military defeat of ISIL that does not succeed in making the residents feel secure in the care of the state and satisfying the minimum requirements of regional states will not last. Differences will be exploited by ISIL or its successors to pursue the fight.
An uninspiring example comes from Somalia: it is almost five years since the Al Shabab militia was driven out of the capital, Mogadishu, but they still dominate parts of the countryside, and their harsh rule is seen by some as preferable to control by the official Somali army and police. Their defeat in the capital has not stopped them being able to launch devastating attacks on peacekeeping forces, aircraft and other civilian targets.
If that is to be avoided, it requires at least a higher level of engagement from the United States. But in an election year the world will have to wait.
Alan Philps is a commentator on global affairs
On Twitter: @aphilps
