OPINION_ To Beat ISIS, Focus on Syria

The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Contributors

To Beat ISIS, Focus on Syria

By JULIEN BARNES-DACEY and DANIEL LEVY
SEPT. 1, 2014
The New York Times


LONDON — The battlefield successes of ISIS in Iraq, and renewed American military action there, have turned attention back to Syria. It was there that ISIS originally ramped up its appeal while fighting against the Syrian government. Today, ISIS is headquartered in Syria and uses Syrian territory to regroup and resupply.

In Western capitals there is now a renewed debate about how to deal with Syria’s brutal ruler, Bashar al-Assad. The policy options being discussed have largely been boiled down to a binary choice: jump into bed with Mr. Assad to defeat ISIS, or double down on the halfhearted existing policy of building a strong Sunni opposition.

But exclusive reliance on either of these tracks will likely fail. ISIS’ advances in Syria can’t be contained without the force that is most able to challenge it: Mr. Assad’s military. And an approach that lacks sufficient support from alienated Sunnis won’t hold back the ISIS tide over the long term.

Western policy needs to move beyond this false dichotomy.

In Iraq there is a clear understanding that military progress requires an alliance with the Shiite-dominated army and government, as well as with allies in the Kurdistan regional government. There’s no appetite for repeating the mistakes of 2003 and undertaking a full military reoccupation; any footprint today will be light — and everyone recognizes that political inclusion and empowerment of Sunnis will be crucial this time.

While Syria presents a different power equation and confessional balance, any successful containment of ISIS will require the support of Mr. Assad’s military and the Syrian Kurds. And just like in Iraq, Syrian Sunnis will ultimately need to expel ISIS from their communities.

This means creating an anti-ISIS front that draws on both regime and opposition elements and encourages both to train their guns on ISIS rather than each other. That is something that neither Mr. Assad nor the non-ISIS opposition has been willing to accept until now. As a prerequisite this will have to involve putting aside the standard Western mantra that Mr. Assad must go.

Syria needs power-sharing. Engineering a transfer of power away from Mr. Assad that repeats Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s removal in Iraq is not realistic.

But a new and remarkable convergence of regional interests is now taking shape that makes a power-sharing agreement in Syria more plausible.

Saudi Arabia and Iran, the key players in a regional cold war fueling conflict across the Middle East, are tentatively setting aside their zero-sum postures and promoting common anti-ISIS fronts. These nations are the chief patrons of the warring parties in Syria, and this hint of a new regional convergence is an opportunity to advance a coherent anti-ISIS strategy.

In Lebanon, Iranian-backed and Saudi-backed political movements, which have in the past brought the country to the verge of renewed civil war, are now working hand in hand to stop ISIS from gaining ground. The two sides are sitting together in a joint government and cooperating on security, with the Saudis committing billions of dollars of support to the Lebanese Army with the principal aim of taking on ISIS.

Similarly, in Iraq, both Saudis and Iranians are backing attempts by Haider al-Abadi to form an inclusive new government to fight ISIS.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister was in Riyadh this past week to take part in the first high-level bilateral talks between the two countries since Hassan Rouhani became president last year.

Both Iran and Saudi Arabia have been accused of stoking the ISIS phenomenon — Iran through its support for Mr. Assad, whose crackdown has had a radicalizing effect; and Saudi Arabia through the less-accountable elements of its checkbook relationship with armed opposition groups in Syria — not to mention the ways Saudi Wahabbi doctrine has been deployed to militant ends.

But both countries now seem to be recalculating. In Tehran, there are growing concerns about the fate of Iraq, a key strategic ally, as well as ISIS’ increasingly potent threat to Mr. Assad and how far a key Iranian ally, Hezbollah, might need to be deployed in the struggle with ISIS. Iranian leaders are even reaching out to certain Syrian opposition figures.

Saudi Arabia, for its part, is clearly concerned that ISIS will breed a new generation of militants ready to turn their guns on the kingdom. Earlier this year, the Saudi authorities announced they had thwarted an ISIS plot to launch attacks across the country.

The longstanding Saudi policy of seeing some extremist Salafi groups as a useful arms-length counterbalance to Iran’s regional influence has come under increasing scrutiny. Those who view ISIS as a danger to the Saudi monarchy’s rule — given its fundamental rejection of Saudi political authority and religious legitimacy — are now in the ascendancy.

The West clearly sees the ISIS threat similarly and must therefore move beyond its failed policy and seize on this regional convergence to promote a new approach in Syria.

Western leaders should stress to the Saudis that the struggle against ISIS must take precedence over regime change in Damascus.

In exchange, Iran should push Mr. Assad to accept real power-sharing and to make the defeat of ISIS his overriding military priority.

Such an approach may also resonate in Moscow, which has called for a power-sharing government in the past, and given its own concerns about Islamic extremism may be willing to use its influence toward this end, despite tensions with the West over Ukraine.

Western leaders have defined ISIS as a threat to their national security. That should now translate into a more nuanced Syria policy, including working with Iran and encouraging the nascent Saudi-Iranian opening.

Julien Barnes-Dacey is a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Daniel Levy is the director of the council’s Middle East program.
A version of this op-ed appears in print on September 2, 2014, in The International New York Times.

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