In Part IV of this series I considered two of the three possible options for dealing with ISIS: all-out war to destroy it and the middle route, to use the Western air force to contain and degrade the Islamic caliphate, with the view of eventually destroying it, especially if the local forces on the ground (Syrian and Iraqi Shiites, Kurds) prove to be effective in battling ISIS. My conclusion was that these two options are not really different. The main problem is that they perpetuate the West-Islamic metaethnic frontier, and thus an evolutionary pressure cooker that selects for the most capable and most ruthless armed groups.
We can find a fitting historical analogy for what to expect in the previous period that this region was on a West-Islam metaethnic frontier — the 12th century, after the First Crusade (1099) resulted in the establishment of Christian principalities in the Holy Land.
That frontier became an incubating ground for jihadist groups of which the most successful were the Ayyubids. This family of Kurdish origins, whose most famous member was Saladin, came to prominence in Tikrit and Mosul (do these place names sound familiar?) as generals leading Islamic troops against the Crusaders. When Saladin died in 1194, he was a ruler of a huge state that extended from Syria and northern Iraq to Egypt and Yemen.
Saladin after the battle of Hattin, in which he destroyed the Crusader army. Source
Metaethnic frontiers breed strong, expansionary states. Thus, on both theoretical grounds and in light of historical analogies, it appears that military pressure from the U.S. and allies, whether constrained or aggressive, will lead to the same general outcome: an ever more cohesive, militant and predatory Islamic Caliphate. It might not be the present group, ISIS, but a successor; just like ISIS is a successor of Zarqawi’s Al Qaeda in Iraq.
What about the third option, that of complete withdrawal from the region?
A fitting historical analogy is what happened in the Middle East after 1300. That date is significant because it is roughly when this region ceased to be a metaethnic frontier. This resulted from two developments. First, the Mamluks, the Islamic “slave-soldiers” who took over Saladin’s empire, destroyed the last Crusader state, the County of Tripoli in 1289. Second, the Mongol empire of Il-Khans, which ruled Persia and most of Iraq, converted to Islam in 1295.
The disappearance of the medieval metaethnic frontier put an end to further state-building in Mesopotamia and Levant until the 19th century, when the Western Great Powers again started making inroads into this region. Syria and Iraq became backwaters of other imperial states: the Egyptian Mamluks, a series of empires built by dynasties of Central Asian origin and finally the Ottoman Turks (ultimately, all those polities, including the Mamluks, were governed by elites of Central Asian origins).
When the Ottoman Empire was dismantled after World War I, this region was known for its weak states. There was much internal instability and some interstate warfare within the region, but certainly nothing like a jihadist Caliphate with world ambitions. In other words, we see the operation of the same principle, but in reverse: Whereas metaethnic frontiers breed strong states, lack of such frontiers results in weak states.
The withdrawal of Western military presence from the Middle East will remove one of the most important factors feeding the growth of a militantly expansionary Caliphate. It will not stop wars in this region. Continuing conflicts will be driven by religious divisions between the Shiites and the Sunnis, and ethnic divisions among the Kurds, the Arabs and the Turks. Additionally, the impetus for state-building delivered by the ill-considered invasion and occupation of Iraq will take many years, indeed decades, to run its course. There is no easy solution to the tangle of challenges in the Middle East. But at least Option 3, the withdrawal, will terminate the environmental conditions favoring the evolution of cohesive and ruthless state-building groups with extra-regional ambitions.
A policy of disengagement is a difficult option to contemplate, and goes entirely against the grain of almost all mainstream discourse on the subject. I understand why this is so: everybody wants evil to be defeated. But we must consider the consequences of our actions, no matter how well-intentioned they are. In the long run, a complete withdrawal will result in much less human misery inflicted on this unfortunate region than continual attempts by the West to solve its problems by military means.
Note on the margin: It’s worth stressing that so far my focus in this series has been on Mesopotamia and Levant. The argument I make is that the best thing the West could do for people inhabiting this region is to leave them alone. That, of course, opens up other questions: what to do about the ISIS metastases outside the region? And what would the dynamics be in Mesopotamia, if the West withdraws? These are questions for other posts (assuming there is interest).