Comment: Why Islamic State Will Ultimately Lose

 

IS will lose for a number of reasons, among them that they are mostly a bunch of losers. Many of the Arab fighters are poorly educated, poorly trained, and relative to what is increasingly coming up against them, poorly armed. The outsiders, from Europe, or America, sometimes converts, sometimes born into the Muslim faith, are often, but not always, society’s misfits, former low-life thieves and drug pushers, alienated from even their own communities and considered odd – especially by women.  

 

Jihad offers them redemption from their sad lives and to make amends in the name of God. They also get to wear cool neck scarves and carry Kalashnikovs. In Bradford and Brussels they couldn’t get a date – in Raqqa there are dates aplenty and Yazidi sex slaves or child brides thrown in for good measure. But what happens, after they reach peak apocalypse – and there is no caliphate, no end of days?

 

It could be argued that IS reached its high point in May of this year when they took the city of Ramadi in Iraq’s Anbar province. Since then though, there have been few serious territorial gains, but several losses. It has already lost the Syrian town of Kobani and over the past two months has lost further territory along the Syria/Turkish border.

 

 

All this time IS has been coming under intense pressure from air strikes, albeit mostly from the Americans. These will now intensify as the French step up what were limited strikes in Syria. Russia will also be hitting more IS targets given the news that they accept the Russian jet in Sinai was brought down by what was probably an IS bomb.

 

 

The Kurds are on the front foot against IS in both Syria and Iraq, and the US now have several Special Forces units inside Syria. There are unconfirmed reports that some of the IS leadership in Raqqa is fleeing – possibly heading across to Mosul in Iraq which is the biggest city they hold.

 

IS is strongest in Sunni areas, but even here intelligence suggests that the local populations are sick of their brutality and strange ways. The leadership cannot build a real state. They lack the basics of nation building including legitimacy and a unity of purpose.

 

All the above poses a difficult question for the leadership. If their ‘Caliphate’ shrinks, (as it has by at least 10%) how do they keep convincing the cannon fodder of the rank and file that they are carrying out God's plan? IS says it is fulfilling Islamic prophecy, especially in Syria where the end of days will begin, but running away, having the leadership taken out, being killed in large numbers, being rejected by local populations, and losing territory doesn’t quite fit that narrative. 

 

For months now we have been hearing reports of large numbers of defections, or of fighters being executed for trying to leave the front lines. It’s possible some of these are stories planted by their enemies, however, given the situation IS finds itself in, they ring true.

 

 

IS will go the same way as the gang it replaced as the poster boys of Jihad – Al Qaeda. Its leadership will be killed or kept on the run, and it is destined to lose more territory next year. It will still be able to carry out atrocities in Paris and elsewhere, but gradually it will be taken apart.

 

The problem is – the tens of thousands of fighters it leaves behind, and its ideology, will remain to feed the next version of IS. That is because this 'is to do with Islam’. The politicians who say 'it is not' are usually just trying to buy themselves some peace and quiet. They know what everyone else does, and if they didn’t they would not bother to spend millions on anti-radicalisation programmes.  

 

The next time you hear a political leader say ‘This is nothing to do with Islam’ listen carefully. Almost always, within a couple of sentences, they will go on to say ‘This warped version of Islam’, and thus contradict themselves. 

 

It is wholly wrong to say ‘This is Islam’. That is horribly offensive to hundreds of millions of people who take the spirituality, kindness, and hospitality of their faith very seriously. However, unless the link between people blowing themselves up due to certain teachings of the faith is made with that faith – how can the issue be tackled? It is like trying to solve a problem without defining what the problem is. 

 

The military battles will play out, and IS will lose. But unless the Islamist ideology is acknowledged and confronted, diluted, and softened – it will still be with us, infecting generation after generation.