WHY ISLAMIC STATE/DAESH* IS DOOMED TO FAIL

The reasons that Daesh is ultimately doomed to fail are multiple, they are military, psychological, ideological and political. 

IS has control of large swathes of Syria and Iraq and in late June the group declared it had created a caliphate, or ‘Islamic state.’Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, runs a ‘state’ that is larger than Lebanon or Israel. The US Central Intelligence Agency believes IS may have up to 31,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria including tens of thousands of fighters from at least 90 different countries. Capturing oil and gas fields and the second largest city in Iraq it is by far and away the richest terrorist group that has ever existed. Its hard-core fighters from Afghanistan and Chechnya are amongst the fiercest in the world. It has at its disposal captured sophisticated American weaponry from the Iraqi Army, including M1 Abrams Battle Tanks.  Yet with all this going for it ultimately IS, or to use the Arabic term Daesh, is doomed.
 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

The reasons that Daesh is ultimately doomed to fail are multiple, they are military, psychological, ideological and political. I will deal with each in turn.
Militarily Daesh is over committed and fighting on too many fronts. This means they can never concentrate enough forces to affect a decisive victory against any of it many enemies. A list of those whom Daesh are fighting [not exhaustive] demonstrates the scale of opposition the group is facing; Assad and Alawite militias, Shia’s, anti Daesh Sunni’s, Iranians, US and its allies, The Kurdish Peshmerga and YPG. For allies it has some support from within the Gulf States and some shadowy support from Turkey. As Napoleon, the Kaiser and Hitler discovered, albeit in their cases with considerably more resources, it is not really a great idea to take on the whole world.
It is however possible to fight on a number of fronts and to advance and hold ground, the prerequisite being air cover, this Daesh, for obvious reasons, does not have. Without air cover re-supply, open manoeuvres and fixed positions are all subject to constant attack from the sky. Every successful military campaign from the German Invasion of Russia and France to the Allied landings on D day and the crossing of the Rhine has demanded air superiority. Daesh are finding that prayers to Allah are no substitute for F16’s and drones.[1]
These multiple problems are compounded by the problems all armies face during long campaigns, keeping up morale and belief in victory and ensuring a flow of fresh recruits. When Daesh attacked Kobane in the Syrian Kurdish canton of Rojava it did so with hardened fighters, not least from Chechnya, who provided invaluable experience in street fighting.  Street fighting demands a very specific set of skills which are learned the hard way, with many dying in the classroom. An instinctive sense of the geography of your surroundings, of escape routes and the position of the enemy and your own side. You only get lost in street fighting once. Over time you develop a sixth sense respecting danger and the presence of enemy forces. In Kobane[2] Daesh faced an enemy as committed and as skilled at street fighting as themselves, with the added advantage that they knew the ground. As the battle for the besieged city has dragged on Daesh losses have steadily mounted, more importantly its pool of experienced fighters has dwindled as the YPG’s street fighting experience and local knowledge has taken its toll. Chechen and Afghan fighters are getting thinner on the ground and less experienced Arabs, Westerners and even conscripted locals take their place.   
Inside Kobane

Of course guerrilla armies have faced great odds before and prevailed, most famously in Vietnam. However in Vietnam they fought exactly as a guerrilla army, hit and run with the advantage of jungle cover. Daesh is seeking to fight as a conventional state, a Caliphate to be precise. To prevail it must hold onto major cities like Mosul with a population of about 1 million people, this in the face of all the military problems outlined above. It also leads to the other difficulties that Daesh face, these are political, ideological and psychological.  
Daesh is seeking to create an ultra-puritanical society based upon the most extreme interpretation of Sharia law,[3] but even such a basic religious ideological model requires that basic services be provided. Daesh is rich in would be suicide bombers but short of men, - for it would have to be men, - whose aim in life is to build power stations, or connect the water supply. In other words Daesh is short of the kind of technical skills needed to run a modern city. They can of course co-opt or coerce local technicians, but these are often ideologically unsound and lacking belief in the Daesh model of society.  From reports coming out of Mosul the situation there is a chaotic mess:-

“Most public institutions have stopped working and provide no services. Almost all private sector activity and government-funded construction projects have been put on hold. Thousands of workers have been rendered jobless.”[4]

How long such a state of affairs can endure before serious resistance and popular unrest remains to be seen. Daesh is not noted for its squeamishness and would undoubtable but down any revolt with great brutality. This would however only serve to further exacerbate Daesh’s problems and discredit the group in eyes of its supporters in the Muslim world.  As Ibrahim al-Marashi describes in an excellent article for Al Jazeera:-

The Islamic State fighters could withstand an aerial campaign as long as they melt into the urban fabric of a large city like Mosul. To expel them from this city would require street-to-street urban combat, which the Iraqi military at this stage lacks the proficiency in waging. However, it remains to be seen if the Islamic State can hold out against US attacks amid an uncooperative civilian population, unwilling to house and feed them.[5]

The cumulative impact of all these factors means that the future of Daesh, as currently constructed, is likely to be short and brutish. Not unfortunately that Daesh is likely to be destroyed quickly, or without considerable continued suffering and loss of life. More importantly the destruction of Daesh will not eliminate the virus out of which the Daesh plague emerged. This will be scattered across the Middle East, Asia and Europe.
Whilst theocratic fascism of the Daesh variety presents a threat to us all, it can only be eradicated by the Muslim community which will need to engage in some serious reformist thinking.[6]   If it wants to know what the alternative looks and feels like it need only ask the citizens of Mosul.


*Daesh is the term most of those opposed to or fighting Islamic State in the region use, it has gained negative associations. My choice of the term is consequently deliberate. 

[1] It is often said you cannot bomb ideas, which is true, however you can bomb and kill the people who hold those ideas.
[2] The Daesh obsession with Kobane, whose strategic value, given Turkish cooperation with Daesh elsewhere, is limited. When armies become obsessed by symbols, like Napoleon with Moscow or Hitler Stalingrad, rather than real strategic concerns, defeat is never very far behind.
[3] Alcohol, drugs and cigarettes are forbidden under the jihadis’ Islamic laws, and violators of ban on alcohol face harsh punishments. Earlier this year, the militants made a bonfire of confiscated alcohol and cigarettes in their Syrian capital of Raqqa. See http://rudaw.net/english/lifestyle/10112014
[5] http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/09/obama-war-mosul-variable-201491392742263820.html Ibrahim al-Marashi is an assistant professor at the Department of History, California State University, San Marcos.
[6] How much does Daesh theology differ from that of Saudi Arabia? Not much is the honest answer. One of the most serious question of the early 21st century turns out to be, can Islam reform itself? Can its followers abandon literalism? On the answer to that question much hangs. 

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