The Islamic State (IS): Power and Prognosis

States are organizations. Conversely large organizations are like States in that they are fundamentally political entities.^[i]  The Islamic State (IS) is an organization which at present is a quasi State. Organizational power flows from authority and control of an area from where resources can be extracted. In a poor lawless country power is concentrated with a few people because there are few resources, and the strong will gain control of them. These Strongmen become authoritarian leaders. As in most Third World countries, in Iraq and Syria too there were strong societies based on kinship, large tribes, sects and ethnic groups.^[ii] They were artificially divided by the Sykes-Picot Agreement^[iii] and have not disintegrated under the impact of state policies, urbanization and modernization. These countries had strong societies but were intrinsically weak states held together by Strongmen (dictators). In such countries in case the dictator becomes weak or is removed, the State unravels. The ISIS has arisen because of a vacuum that existed in the aftermath of the anarchy in Iraq and the US withdrawal. What is happening in Iraq/Syria is a churning to settle into tribal, ethnic and religious spaces which had been united by force of the Caliphate and then by artificial straight lines drawn by the Sykes-Picot Agreement.

Organizations use various means to gain and retain power. These can range from promises,to coercion. The promises have to be backed by a conviction that they will be fulfilled. This needs advertisement of the ability to deliver or a demonstration of power. Advertisement agencies use many tricks to build a brand so that a product can be sold to people. The ISIS has also built a brand. The branding has been an important stratagem of its route to Power.

The book ‘The 48 Laws of Power’^[iv] gives out the laws which must be followed by an individual to gain Power. Of these, seven laws used by the IS as an organization are:

Create Compelling Spectacles.^[v] Striking imagery and grand symbolic gestures create the aura of Power. The choreographed killings, the dresses worn by the victims and the IS, the locales which create an aura of mystery, all these have been used by the IS to follow this law. Use of the colour black whether in dress or for flags is good branding. Black is a mysterious color that is typically associated with the unknown or the negative. It also represents authority, strength, seriousness and power.

Crush Your Enemy Totally.^[vi]A feared enemy must be crushed totally. The primeval enemy of the IS are the Shia, the next most important enemy is a concept, secularism and its association with Western values. Secularism and the IS’s Salafist interpretation of the Sharia law cannot co-exist. The systematic attempt to crush all other nationalities is the result of application of this law.

Court Attention at All Costs.^[vii]Everything is judged by appearance; what is unseen counts for nothing. The effective use of social media and the use of ‘Jehadi John’^[viii] on video are among the steps taken to use this law to the hilt. Choreographed beheadings whether en masse or of individual hostages, burning of a Jordanian pilot, symbolic blowing up of Shia shrines are all done to court attention.

Keep Others in Suspended Terror: Cultivate an Air of Unpredictability.^[ix]Predictability in your actions gives your enemies a sense of control hence the actions of the IS appear deliberately illogical. Taken to an extreme this strategy can intimidate and terrorise.

Recreate Yourself.^[x]Keep on forging a new identity, one that commands attention and never bores the audience. Power will be enhanced, your enemies will keep guessing and you will seem larger than life. The evolution from AQI (Al Qaeda in Iraq), to ISIL/ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant/ Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) to just IS and frequent reference to Daesh^[xi] has had the enemies of IS, at a stage of time, wondering as to whom were they fighting.

Play on People’s Need to Believe to Create a Cult like following.^[xii] People have an overwhelming desire to believe in something. Become a focal point by offering people a cause to follow. Keep words full of promise, emphasise enthusiasm over rationality and clear thinking. Ask followers to make sacrifices.  The action of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi the head of ISIS to proclaim himself the Caliph ‘Ibrahim’ is to build up a cult.

Play to Peoples Fantasies.^[xiii]There is great Power in tapping into the fantasies of the masses. Simultaneously with naming himself the Caliph, al-Baghdadi changed the name of the group as Islamic State. This was a more apt name for a Caliphate, which by historical precedent is not restricted to a small geographical area. The emergence of fantasy maps on the internet^[xiv] after the announcement of a Caliphate attests to this.The idea of an Islamic State and a revival of a Caliphate is a nostalgic concept that promises a return to past glories.

While the IS seems to have followed the laws of Power, there are also some which it is neglecting. These are as under:

Do not build Fortresses to Protect Yourself, Isolation is dangerous.^[xv]Isolation exposes you to more dangers than it protects you from. It cuts you off from valuable information. The IS has few friends. Even its parent organization, Al Qaeda, has broken away from it.

Know who you are dealing with, do not offend the wrong person.^[xvi]The US has been loath to get involved in the messy war in Iraq/Syria. It had extricated itself with great difficulty from this region. If the IS had not gone about beheading Western hostages it would have had greater freedom of action. The IS offended the West by targeting its citizens, as a result a reluctant West led by the US has launched an air war against it.

Do not go past the mark you aimed for; learn when to stop.^[xvii]In the heat of victory, arrogance and overconfidence can push you past the goal you had aimed for, by going too far you make more enemies than you can defeat. Set a goal, and when you reach it, stop. IS has reached a stage of strategic overreach. It is fighting the Iraqi state to the South, the Kurds to the North and the Syrian State and Syrian based Shiite groups opposed to it, in the West. The US led air attacks have caused great attrition, and sources of Sunni support have been greatly choked.

Will the ISIS continue its successful run? This paper opines it will not. Its maximum successes have been in areas which are the most backward of both Syria and Iraq which the weakened regimes were not able to control. They were also areas which were Sunni predominant hence a group which projects itself as a Sunni Caliphate would have the easiest going there. The IS has not been able to make a comparable impact in the Kurdish^[xviii] areas. Further movement towards Baghdad and in the West towards Aleppo which are core regime/Shia areas is meeting stiff resistance. The reported instances of IS appearing elsewhere in the world are manifestations of local Islamist groups trying to gain advantage out of the brand image of the IS to gain through ersatz terror.

As Power can be gained it can also be lost. In a globalized world no State can exist in isolation. While the maximum foreign fighters with IS are from Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Jordan and Morocco,^[xix] these are also countries where the governments do not support the IS. If Puntland in Somalia and Iraqi Kurdistan in Northern Iraq exist as virtually independent states with their own armies and flags it is because they derive benefit in maintaining an autonomous status with a veneer of linkage to the parent entity. This enables then to have international legitimacy and linkages with the world, a prerequisite to prosper as a State. Should the IS continue in its present path it cannot become a State and may eventually disintegrate. If Iran, an infinitely more powerful entity found it difficult to live in a world of sanctions, the capability of IS to sustain in a similar environment in the long run is suspect.

Views expressed by the author are personal.