Morning After: What Happens to Daesh Caliphate Once Terror is Defeated

At a time when policymakers in Washington, US special forces on the ground and US-backed local fighters are almost exclusively focused on defeating Daesh, no one has asked what will happen to the territories under militant control once the terror caliphate is defeated, Paul R. Pillar wrote for the National Interest.

Yet this answer will have major implications for Iraq and Syria.

This is by far not a matter of idle curiosity, particularly considering repeated calls to send more US forces, including ground troops, to Iraq and Syria. Washington should have learned by now that its counterterrorism strategies cannot solely revolve around the military component.

US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan clearly show that what could look like a military victory at first can soon turn into a hotbed of terrorism and sectarian violence in areas where previous grievances were not addressed, where security and efficient governance are also non-existent.

"Unresolved conflicts over power and territory in an area that already is awash in guns and extreme agendas are a recipe for still more terrorism, whether it comes under a label we are familiar with or some other label," Pillar noted.

Large parts of Iraq and Syria, whether still controlled by Daesh or any other radical group, are precisely the case.

"The question of what replaces a defeated [Daesh] is going to be especially contentious and acute in parts of north central Syria. The lines of conflict there will be in large part ones of Kurds against Arabs, but – amid the complicated Syria civil war – not exclusively so," the analyst observed.

Fighters of the Manbij military council take an overwatch position in the southern rural area of Manbij, in Aleppo Governorate, Syria June 1, 2016

© REUTERS / Rodi Said

Interestingly, Pillar referred to the Kurds and Arabs trained or backed by the US. This tension has been evident in the offensive to free the Syrian city of Manbij. Daesh used it to bring foreign fighters, supplies and weapons to Syria from Turkey before the routes were cut off by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) last week.

This campaign reflects a "growing problem for the US and its push to train local fighters, even as those forces take territory from [Daesh]. Who exactly will govern those towns now? Will it be the Kurds who have led the fight against [Daesh]? Or will it be what some in the Pentagon have privately called the 'token Arabs' trained by the US to accompany them?" the Daily Beast asked.

It is these concerns that have long prompted Russia to advocate for a broad and inclusive political process that would be open for all parties to the conflict except for terrorists. If a single group imposes its vision on a multicultural and multireligious country, those left out could either side with radicals or turn into terrorists.

"We firmly believe that political talks are the only way to settle the internal conflict in Syria. This is our principled stance, to which we have always adhered. This calls for a serious and constructive approach from all parties to the negotiations," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said last week.

Take post-war Iraq, for instance. The Sunnis were largely disenfranchised following the 2003 US invasion. Ten years later Daesh used these unresolved grievances to its own advantage. The terrorist group was the answer to the question of what would happen following Saddam Hussein's overthrow.  

US policymakers do not seem to be giving this issue enough thought and time is running out.

"The losing streak of [Daesh] has already been showing the error of those who have been asserting over much of the past two years that greater application of US military force against [Daesh] is essential," Pillar noted. "We will see increasingly in the months ahead the error of shoving aside the question of what comes after" the terrorist group.