Century International: “A Humane Choice: Sanctions Relief for Syria’s Earthquake”

I have a new commentary out today for Century International, on the Biden administration's decision to temporarily relax Syria sanctions to facilitate earthquake relief – clearly the responsible, humane thing to do, and a move worth defending.

https://tcf.org/content/commentary/a-humane-choice-sanctions-relief-for-syrias-earthquake/

Days after the deadly earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria, the U.S. Treasury issued a general license authorizing earthquake relief to Syria that would otherwise be prohibited by sanctions. The license broadened the scope of actors permitted to contribute to the earthquake response. That helped mitigate the "chilling effect" of sanctions – which can discourage even legitimate, permitted activities – and likely ensured a bigger, faster emergency response for Syrians in need, at a moment when size and speed really mattered.

Some in Washington are, unsurprisingly, up in arms. They argue it was unnecessary given sanctions' existing humanitarian exemptions, and they claim it will enrich and encourage normalization with Damascus. They are wrong. But the Biden administration hasn't really made that case, and it hasn't communicated effectively why issuing this license was the right thing to do for disaster-stricken Syrians.

This license was the normal human way to respond to a natural disaster and humanitarian crisis. And as it comes under attack in Washington, it's worth defending – even if the Biden administration may be reluctant to do that itself.

War on the Rocks: “Turkey's Russian Red Light in Syria”

I have a new article out today at War on the Rocks, this time on how Russia – despite Turkish officials’ protests to the contrary – has, in fact, had an effective veto on Turkish military interventions in Syria; and how Moscow has now used that to maneuver Ankara into normalizing with Damascus.

https://warontherocks.com/2022/12/turkeys-russian-red-light-in-syria/

Turkey and Syria's ministers of defense met alongside their Russian counterpart in Moscow this week. It was their first meeting in more than a decade, and a major step towards the normalization of Turkish-Syrian relations.

Moscow has been pushing Ankara to normalize with Damascus for years now. To that end, Russia has used a) its veto on another Turkish ground offensive in Syria and b) Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan's insistence on another intervention against Kurdish-led Syrian militants ahead of next year's Turkish elections to finally get normalization in motion.

Turkish officials claim they don't need "permission" or a "green light" to take new counterterrorism action in Syria. But it's not true. For years, Turkey has needed a nod from Russia to intervene in Syria – in the article, I lay out the accumulated evidence – and now Russia has translated that into a political breakthrough.

Century International: “The Mysterious Pipeline for ISIS Recruits from Northern Lebanon”

I have a new report out today for The Century Foundation's Century International, this time on how dozens of young men from Lebanon's Tripoli disappeared last year, apparently to join the Islamic State in Iraq.

https://tcf.org/content/report/the-mysterious-pipeline-for-isis-recruits-from-northern-lebanon/

Media reports earlier this year largely attributed these Tripoli youths’ enlistment in the Islamic State to poverty, and to Sunni marginalization and grievance; Lebanese officials told media that the young men had been lured with promises of dollar wages. But I think this narrative missed key aspects of the story, including how these men’s mobilization to Iraq really worked. It also reinforced Tripoli’s unfair reputation as an incubator for extremism.

What happened to these young Lebanese men seems less about why they decided to go to Iraq, and more about who took them there, and how. It's also about the particularities of these young men's backgrounds – something more specific than general Sunni grievance – that made them vulnerable to bad actors.

These young men’s recruitment by the Islamic State, properly understood, can help us better grasp why and how people are drawn into jihadist groups, and how to view a place like Tripoli.

Century International: “Syrian Prisoner Amnesty Could Be a Breakthrough—If Damascus Is Ready to Do More”

I have a new report out today for The Century Foundation’s Century International, this time on a newly expansive amnesty announced by Syrian authorities. This amnesty decree could, potentially, allow for some diplomatic opening – but only if Damascus takes its implementation further:

https://tcf.org/content/report/syrian-prisoner-amnesty-could-be-a-breakthrough-if-damascus-is-ready-to-do-more/

On April 30, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad announced an unprecedentedly broad amnesty for Syrians accused of "terror" offenses – a charge Syrian authorities have used to prosecute not just opposition militants, but dissidents more generally. Assad has announced more than a dozen amnesties since 2011, but past amnesties have been more limited and conditional. This new amnesty, by contrast, could benefit thousands of detainees and other Syrians wanted on "terror" charges.

In the days following the decree, Syrian authorities released hundreds of detainees, but in haphazard fashion; bogus lists of names circulated online, and the families of Syria's detained and missing congregated in central Damascus and elsewhere in hopes of seeing their loved ones. Releases have since slowed, maybe because Damascus is rationalizing the system of review and release – or maybe because releases are effectively over. The numbers released under the amnesty so far remain small compared to the tens of thousands detained or missing in Syria.

In the meantime, Syrian officials have communicated to external audiences – in public and in private – that this amnesty is a turning point in Syria's efforts at domestic reconciliation. They've also seemed to imply, in meetings with foreign interlocutors, that they are looking to open up a more reciprocal dynamic with outside countries.

International diplomats and officials following the amnesty's implementation and familiar with Syrian officials' outreach say that the decree's implementation has not, so far, been sufficient to merit some action in return – but that it could be, if Syrian government is prepared to go farther. Now it's on Damascus to decide if it's ready to implement this amnesty more fully and transparently, and to involve international organizations like the International Committee for the Red Cross that could lend the measure real credibility.

Century International: “Economic Collapse—Not Elections—Will Shape Lebanon’s Future”

I have a new commentary for The Century Foundation’s Century International today, on what I think this weekend's Lebanese elections do and do not mean for the country's politics:

https://tcf.org/content/commentary/economic-collapse-not-elections-will-shape-lebanons-future

Lebanon's parliamentary elections on Sunday are the first since the country's mass anti-government protests, beginning in October 2019; its economic crisis, among the worst in modern history; and the August 2020 explosion at Beirut port, which devastated the capital and killed more than two hundred people. The country has changed substantially since its last elections in 2018. And yet: despite all that, most people inside and outside the country expect this vote to deliver more of the same, and to reproduce the country's existing political leadership.

In this commentary, I expand on the ways I think these elections will and will not matter for Lebanon, and how an ordinary citizen's vote actually seems to relate to the country's trajectory. I also talk about where I believe real change in Lebanon will come from – namely, the country's ongoing economic collapse, which will make things in Lebanon different, and probably worse.

Foreign Affairs: “The Ponzi Scheme That Broke Lebanon”

I have a new article at Foreign Affairs today, on the United States' newfound commitment to fighting corruption in Lebanon:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/lebanon/2022-04-18/ponzi-scheme-broke-lebanon

The Biden administration has declared combating corruption a national security priority. Lebanon is somewhere the administration's commitment to fighting corruption really matters – corruption is central to Lebanon's economic collapse, and any effort at national rescue, to be successful, will require steps to root out corruption.

Unfortunately, though, the United States faces a major credibility problem on corruption in Lebanon. If Biden administration officials want to demonstrate they're really serious about fighting corruption in Lebanon, they'll have to do more. And they'll need to fix the United States' seeming blind spot on Lebanon's grandest corruption: its central bank's disastrous "Ponzi scheme," and, more generally, the incestuous relationship between Lebanon's political and financial elites that ultimately bankrupted the country.

Century International: “Russia’s War in Ukraine Will Also Hurt Syria”

Out today for Century International, I have a new report on the Ukraine conflict's ramifications for Syria:

https://tcf.org/content/report/russias-war-in-ukraine-will-also-hurt-syria/

I see Russia's invasion of Ukraine having two main (and related) impacts on Syria, on both the humanitarian situation in the country and Syria-related diplomacy:

First, the war in Ukraine threatens a global food crisis, and already food-insecure Syria seems especially vulnerable to those effects. The Ukraine conflict has disrupted world grain and energy markets and interrupted supplies of commodities essential to Syrians' diets, including wheat and sunflower oil. Now it's unclear if Syria's government and de facto authorities can import enough wheat to produce the local bread on which Syrians rely, and higher food prices more generally will make it even harder for Syrians to feed their families.

Second, the war in Ukraine also marks the apparent end of a U.S.-Russian humanitarian dialogue that, over the past year, had yielded important compromises on aid to Syria. Whatever potential existed for further agreements that might have benefited Syrians now seems lost. Moreover, as the U.S. and Russia explored other possible humanitarian compromises, they had been jointly interested in stability and relative calm in Syria. Now that seems over, with uncertain, potentially dangerous consequences.

Century International: “U.S. Policy Finally Distinguishes Between Lebanon and Hezbollah”

I have a new piece for Century International, this time on how U.S. policymakers ought to understand Lebanon's present crisis and to balance the United States' main policy aims in the country: preventing a failed state, and countering Hizbullah.

https://tcf.org/content/report/u-s-policy-finally-distinguishes-lebanon-hezbollah/

Countering the influence of Lebanese political party and militant organization Hizbullah has often overshadowed other U.S. priorities in Lebanon. Now, though, Lebanon is suffering a political-economic crisis that ranks among the worst in modern history. That crisis requires attention in its own right, if U.S. policymakers hope to prevent Lebanon from becoming an even more thoroughly failed state and source of instability regionally.

That crisis, moreover, is not mainly about Hizbullah. Rather, those most responsible for Lebanon's implosion are a combined political-financial elite that some Lebanese have termed "Hizb al-Masref," or the "Bank Party." These elites ruined Lebanon's state and economy. Now they're fighting to defend their own equities in Lebanon's national bankruptcy, and destroying Lebanese society in the process.

For U.S. policy purposes, Hizbullah is a mostly different, separate problem. And that seems to be how the Biden administration has approached it, for the most part – one policy for Lebanon; and one for countering Hizbullah.

I say: good. Preventing a failed state in Lebanon and countering Hizbullah are mostly distinct lines of effort, which policymakers ought to consider on their own terms and pursue in parallel. Trying to combine these two objectives, on other hand, is a recipe for muddled, ineffective policy. If U.S. policymakers hope to address Lebanon's crisis at all usefully, they'll need to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Century International: “‘Early Recovery’ Aid Can Provide Vital Relief to Syrians—If Donors Follow Through”

I have a new piece for The Century Foundation’s Century International, this time on “early recovery” aid to Syria and the contentious politics around it:

https://tcf.org/content/commentary/early-recovery-aid-can-provide-vital-relief-syrians-donors-follow/

In July, the UN Security Council unanimously endorsed humanitarian “early recovery” assistance in Syria as part of a larger compromise on aid to Syria. Early recovery (or "resilience") aid is aid intended to bolster recipients' ability to support themselves, and thus sustainably reduce humanitarian need. It often involves support for basic services. Previously, the U.S. and some other donors had resisted early recovery aid, which they saw as too close to support for Syria's reconstruction.

After July's Security Council vote, we're seemingly past that. Every major donor country supports early recovery assistance to Syria, at least in theory. There are still questions about the practice, though: donors are debating amongst themselves over how to define "early recovery" and avoid contributing to reconstruction that buttresses the Syrian government; and it's not clear where the money for early recovery will actually come from.

Despite all that: this latest international endorsement of early recovery opens up new possibilities for donor aid to beleaguered Syrians, including, in seemingly the most ambitious early recovery initiative so far, a proposed effort to rescue water facilities on which millions of Syrians depend. Now it's on donors to follow through and deliver the support that Syrians need.

War on the Rocks: “Lights on in Lebanon: Limiting the Fallout from U.S. Sanctions on Syria”

For War on the Rocks, my new article on how the Biden administration's handling of a Lebanon energy project's sanctions implications seemingly fits into a more careful, precise approach to Syria sanctions, and a larger effort to mitigate sanctions' collateral damage:

https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/lights-on-in-lebanon-limiting-the-fallout-from-u-s-sanctions-on-syria/

The Century Foundation: “Lebanon Is in Free Fall. Opposition Groups Have Radically Different Ideas about How to Save It.”

My new report for Century International, on how members of Lebanon's opposition envision political change in a country that's collapsing around them:

https://tcf.org/content/report/lebanon-free-fall-opposition-groups-radically-different-ideas-save/

For nearly two years, Lebanon has been experiencing an economic implosion almost unparalleled in modern history. Foreign donors have conditioned a bailout on reform measures that contravene the interests of the country's sectarian political elites, who have been unwilling to play along. Yet those same elites remain solidly in control of the country, having withstood the challenge of Lebanon's 2019 nationwide protest movement. Today they preside over a country that is becoming steadily poorer and more desperate.

Saving Lebanon seemingly comes down to either convincing the country's political establishment to do what's responsible and necessary, even at the expense of its members' interests; or, failing that, producing some new national political leadership capable of managing Lebanon's existential crisis.

I talked to the opposition parties and activist groups that identify with that 2019 protest movement – the "17 October Revolution" – to hear how, in practice, they're aiming to achieve political change. These "17 October" groups' various theories of change are a main distinction between them, maybe more than their substantive political differences. Some are pursuing an immediate pacted transition with Lebanon's regime; others are focusing on next year's parliamentary and municipal elections; and still others are prioritizing more long-term grassroots change. All of them are attempting to theorize political change in Lebanon, from Lebanon.

DAWN’s Democracy in Exile: “The Dire Costs of Ending the U.N.'s Cross-Border Aid Into Syria”

My new piece for DAWN’s Democracy in Exile on the upcoming Security Council vote to renew the UN cross-border aid mandate in Syria:

https://dawnmena.org/the-dire-costs-of-ending-the-u-n-s-cross-border-aid-into-syria

The Security Council vote is important, first of all, for its life-and-death human stakes. If Syria's northwest loses the UN's contribution to the cross-border aid response from Turkey, the humanitarian implications will be disastrous. To take just one key example: other aid organizations insist they can replace only a fraction of the food assistance the UN provides to these vulnerable Syrians, densely packed into the country's most food-insecure region. (And for more on Syria's hunger crisis nationwide: https://tcf.org/content/report/syrians-going-hungry-will-west-act/)

Yet the renewal vote is also important as a test of the Biden administration's early Syria policy, which has prioritized alleviating humanitarian suffering inside Syria. To that end, the administration has seemingly adopted a more-carrot-than-stick approach to winning Russia's assent to cross-border renewal – because, given how the Security Council works, there is no good alternative to achieving some minimum consensus among the council's members.

The Century Foundation: “Syrians Are Going Hungry. Will the West Act?”

My new report for The Century Foundation: Syrians are going hungry, and in unprecedented, alarming numbers – WFP reports that nearly 60 percent of the country's population is food insecure. So what's behind Syria's hunger crisis? And what can U.S. and other Western policymakers do about it?

https://tcf.org/content/report/syrians-going-hungry-will-west-act/

The Daily Beast: “Biden’s Syria Airstrikes May Feel Like Trump Déjà Vu. Here’s What’s Different.”

I wrote a quick piece for The Daily Beast on how to read the Biden Administration's airstrikes on Iran-linked paramilitaries in Syria this week:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/bidens-syria-airstrikes-may-feel-like-trump-deja-vu-heres-why-its-different

Thursday evening's U.S. airstrikes on Iraqi paramilitaries on the Syrian-Iraqi border were a response to persistent attacks on U.S. and partner forces in Iraq. Yet the strikes – in both their execution and messaging – also seem to have been a conscious attempt by the new Biden Administration to distinguish itself from Trump's wild, dangerous approach to Iraq and Iran, which nearly led to regional war. Even as the Biden team tries to adopt a more deliberate, calibrated approach, though, it's not clear that will be enough to deal with the mess Trump left for the U.S. in Iraq.

War on the Rocks: “Redefining Victory in America’s War Against the Islamic State in Syria”

At War on the Rocks today, I have a new article urging the incoming Biden team to revisit U.S. counter-ISIS aims in Syria, after the Trump Administration twisted the definition of counter-ISIS victory to justify pursuing all sorts of other, unrelated policy ends.

https://warontherocks.com/2021/01/redefining-victory-in-americas-war-against-the-islamic-state-in-syria/

Under President Obama, America originally set out to "degrade and ultimately destroy" (or "ultimately defeat") the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria and neighboring Iraq. In 2017, though, the Trump Administration changed the United States' stated aim to ISIS's "enduring defeat." "Enduring defeat," as Trump officials defined it, entailed not only the effective incapacitation of ISIS but also preventing its notional future return. "Enduring defeat" thus also meant addressing supposed "root causes" behind ISIS's rise, which, these officials argued, required dramatic change to Syria's political system and the removal of Iran-commanded forces from the country – things that will not happen, by all indications. The Trump administration had adopted an expansive, rubberized definition of "enduring defeat," stretched to cover all the United States' other, non-ISIS policy aims in Syria and to justify open-ended U.S. military involvement in the country.

The incoming Biden Administration's initial review of U.S. policy in Syria is a chance to revisit this elasticized definition of U.S. counter-ISIS objectives. "Enduring defeat," in the all-encompassing terms with which the Trump Administration defined it, is not achievable in Syria. The Biden team ought to ask, then: What does it really mean, for U.S. national security purposes, to "defeat" ISIS in Syria? And what level of U.S. involvement does that require?

ناس نيوز: “أزمة النزوح … وأصعب تحدياتها”

مقالي لموقع “ناس نيوز” حول أزمة النزوح في العراق، وأصعب أوجهها: العوائل النازحة التي يُنظر إليها على أنها مرتبطة بتنظيم "الدولة"، والتي تتطلب معضلتها جهود خاصة من قبل الحكومة العراقية وشركائها، ليس فقط من أجل ضمان حقوق تلك العوائل كمواطنين عراقيين، بل من أجل تجاوز العراق لتجربة التنظيم وتحقيق الاستقرار الدائم:

https://www.nasnews.com/view.php?cat=44214

War on the Rocks: “What Are America’s Sanctions on Syria Good for?”

I have a new article at War on the Rocks today, this time on U.S. sanctions on Syria:

https://warontherocks.com/2020/09/what-are-americas-sanctions-on-syria-good-for/

Proponents of Syria sanctions tend to advocate for them in moralistic, hortatory terms: "To stop the Assad regime's atrocities, we have to try."

But U.S. sanctions on Syria won't "stop atrocities." No one seriously expects them to, or to accomplish any of their other stated aims. The supposed objective of these sanctions, then, is illusory and unreal. What is real is the sanctions' civilian collateral damage, as sanctions both exacerbate Syria's current economic desperation and frustrate the country's postwar recovery.

The result is that while U.S. policymakers and sanctions boosters posture and performatively "try," Syrian civilians pay the price. It's emblematic of Washington's tendency towards misconceived, "do something" policy. And it's nuts, and wrong.

The Islamic State Conceptualizes Guerrilla Warfare

Below is a translation of the editorial from issue 236 of the Islamic State’s weekly newsletter al-Naba, in which the group theorizes guerrilla warfare.

In the editorial, the Islamic State offers its membership a religious-jurisprudential justification for hit-and-run guerrilla warfare when they are outmatched conventionally. Though the group’s ultimate goal remains a territorial “state” – akin to what it realized in Syria and Iraq 2014 – it also recognizes the need for extended irregular warfare below that semi-conventional threshold, in order to create conditions appropriate for territorial control. The editorial thus instructs the group’s membership not to attempt to hold and defend territory prematurely, and not to squander manpower and resources. Rather, the editorial makes clear that in the long lead-up to open, semi-conventional warfare, hit-and-run attacks are advisable and entirely legitimate.

The editorial comes as the Islamic State is midway through the third iteration of a global campaign titled “the Raid of Attrition,” and thus synergistically offers religious support for that campaign. (As with the Islamic State’s other announced campaigns, I tend to be skeptical that they amount to anything other than a branding exercise, and a label applied to affiliates’ activities that were already underway.)

As with other instances in which the organization has issued strategic or tactical guidance to its affiliates worldwide, the thinking in this editorial is not hugely novel or inventive – the Islamic State has not necessarily innovated irregular warfare. What the group does seem to have done is compile and synthesize sound foundational ideas, then rationalize them in religious terms. I don’t see any reason to think the group’s tactics derive originally from the religious textual basis in this editorial, as opposed to, say, the accumulated know-how of veterans of the pre-2003 Iraqi military and security forces, or the other diverse militants who have cycled through the Islamic State and the broader transnational jihadist movement over the last several decades. If I had to guess, I would assume the group is mainly finding religious validation for guerrilla warfare fundamentals that it assimilated from other sources.

The editorial’s guidance to avoid the pointless, self-destructive defense of territory seems logical, and consistent with the behavior of Islamic State affiliates globally, including in West Africa and, most recently, Mozambique. On the other hand, that guidance seems inconsistent with the group’s seizure of large sections of territory in Iraq and Syria in 2014, followed by its invitation of an international military intervention against itself and costly, losing defense of that territory, part of a series of decisions that are difficult to explain in retrospect.

Still, the editorial is a further reminder that we shouldn’t assume the Islamic State will imminently attempt a return to territorial control, and that we shouldn’t use that as our measure of the group’s capability. For more on how to gauge the Islamic State’s strength, see my recent Crisis Group commentary, “When Measuring ISIS’s ‘Resurgence’, Use the Right Standard.”

Translation follows:

“Except for one maneuvering for battle, or retreating to [another fighting] company”

Al-Naba, no. 236, 28 May 2020

The mujahid may use every permissible weapon or means of combat to realize the aim of his jihad: the defeat of his enemy, and the establishment of the law of God almighty in the land in which He grants him tamkin [literally “empowerment,” here meaning territorial control and administration.] [The mujahid] works to choose from [those means of combat] that which suits him at every stage, among the stages of his long jihad.

And even if the Islamic State has lost tamkin in most regions, the establishment of religion has not come to a halt, praise be to God, Lord of worlds. For the mujahideen still institute, everywhere, that which their Lord prescribed them, in terms of jihad against the polytheists. And that is – without a doubt – among the highest degrees of enjoining virtue and discouraging vice.

And if the combat of static fronts and marching armies to conquer the country was the appropriate mode of combat for the stage of tamkin, in terms of what it offered of the possibility to control territory and establish God’s law in it, and protect it from the polytheists seizing it and establishing on it their polytheism and unbelief in awesome God; then the style of hit-and-run guerrilla warfare is the most appropriate, without a doubt, for the mujahideen in areas which the polytheists have seized totally and that have come under their dominion.

For the basic aim of guerrilla warfare is realizing the nikayah [injury, vexation] of one’s enemies. This aim is legitimate, if it is understood to be for the sake of God almighty. And glorious God enjoined this, for He said: “Fight them; God will torment them by your hands, humiliate them, and grant you victory over them, and heal the breasts of believers” (Quran 9:14). Nikayah is accomplished by killing, injuring and capturing them, as well as capturing their wealth or destroying it.

Thus, the [guerrilla] bands of mujahideen focus their efforts on dealing the greatest possible losses to the enemy, in terms of lives and wealth; while they are diligent not to offer more than the minimum possible losses [in their own ranks], in terms of lives and wealth. To the contrary, they work to increase their stock of both. To the extent those two conditions are realized, their nikayah of the enemy continues, such that the enemy grows weaker, and [these bands] grow stronger, until the conditions become appropriate to transition from the stage of guerrilla warfare to other stages necessary to realize tamkin in the land.

These blessed [guerrilla] bands, at their inception, are not tasked with holding territory, because that is beyond their capacity. Nor are [they tasked with] holding their ground against the enemy in battles in which they think they do not have superiority. That is because the mujahideen in those areas are typically few in number and weak in means, and they do not possess territory in which to organize their affairs, and to which their supporters can mass. They face an enemy holding territory, large in number and materiel, and prepared to crush any indication of activity by the mujahideen – to eradicate them and prevent their plant from growing and standing upright on its stalk, such that it might fasten its roots in the ground and its branches might tower in the sky, leaving [the enemy] weak and defeated before it.

Given the [mujahideen’s] condition, they do not need to burden themselves beyond their capacity, and to hold territory for the sake of tamkin when they are a weak few, and their enemy is greater than them by hundreds or, sometimes, thousands of times. For their almighty Lord has permitted them to turn their backs and flee to safety, then return to attack anew at the time and place that permits them to realize the nikayah of [their enemy], and superiority over him, and then to return to hiding once more before [the enemy] can converge on them and harm them. This is the type of maneuver in battle in which the Lord of worlds permitted the believers to turn their backs in war. For the Almighty said: “O you believers, when you meet those who disbelieve marching [into battle], do not turn your backs to them For whoever turns his back to them on that day – except for one maneuvering for battle, or retreating to [another fighting] company – has incurred God’s wrath, and his abode is Hell, a miserable fate” (Quran 8:15-16). The Imam Tabari, may God have mercy on him, said: “‘Except for one maneuvering for battle,’ says, ‘Except for one going on to fight his enemy, and who requires a weakness from [his enemy] that he might strike, and then descend upon him” (Jami’ al-Bayyan). And the Imam Baghawi, may God have mercy on him, said: “Any juncture at which he sees [it incumbent on] himself to retreat, when his aim is to seek a moment of inattentiveness, so that he might attack” (Ma’alim al-Tanzil). Thus, he, the mujahid, believes he will be defeated in battle opposite his enemy, so he retreats from opposite [that enemy] to avoid losses, with the intent of descending upon [the enemy] when he sees in himself strength and in his enemy weakness.

And so, the soldiers of the Islamic State must focus their efforts on attriting their enemy as much as possible at this stage, and not preoccupy themselves with rushing to realize tamkin in the land. For it is the inevitable result of their jihad – with the permission of God almighty – which will be realized for them soon, and the reason for its realization is that which now occupies them, this fighting and nikayah of the enemies of religion.

By “attrition,” we do not mean merely weakening the enemy until we compel him to withdraw from some territory, so that we might seize it and enjoy tamkin in it. Rather, we aim to deliver [the enemy] to a state in which his bleeding brings him to the point of destruction, or to exhaust him to such a great degree that he can only muster the strength to rise up and fight us again after a long time, during which we have prepared to repel him and break his power. [We aim for] his costly war with us to sow desperation and despair of victory in his heart and mind, such that he views our victory over him in any possible confrontation as a fait accompli, something inescapable.

So raid your enemies constantly, o soldiers of the State of Islam. Do not come to them except in their moment of inattentiveness, so they do not gain from you what they covet: pushing you into a [head-on] confrontation in a circumstance that is better for them than for you. And safeguard your capital – your men, and your arms – and do not hazard it, so that your profits continue and increase over time, with the permission of God almighty. For we are at an act of worship, in which God almighty has not charged us with what is beyond our capacity, and for which He did not constrain us in terms of time. God does not charge any soul except with what is within its ability, praise be to God, Lord of worlds.

International Crisis Group: “When Measuring ISIS’s ‘Resurgence,’ Use the Right Standard”

Out today, I have a new commentary for International Crisis Group:

https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/iraq/when-measuring-isiss-resurgence-use-right-standard

Too often our discussion of ISIS's capabilities in Iraq and the group's "resurgence" is couched in terms of its 2014-15 apex – not only with hyperbolic claims that its operations have returned to the 2013-14 levels that immediately preceded that peak, but also with attempts to tamp down that sort of alarmism by pointing how diminished the group is now compared to its bygone "caliphate."

Thinking and arguing in these terms is a mistake, I argue. The confluence of factors that led to 2014 is unlikely to reappear. And in the meantime, talking in terms of renewed territorial control, 2014 and the "caliphate" can distract us from the sort of incremental but nonetheless important shifts in ISIS's insurgency that might herald an actual "resurgence" – shifts like the one we saw in April, which seemingly anticipated ISIS's deadly attack in Salahuddin province on 1 May.

War on the Rocks: “Leak Reveals Jihadists’ Weakening Grip in Syria’s Idlib”

I have a new article today, for War on the Rocks:

https://warontherocks.com/2020/04/leak-reveals-jihadists-weakening-grip-in-syrias-idlib/

I wrote about a leaked recording of an address by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) official Abu al-Fateh al-Farghali to a gathering of the Syrian jihadist group's fighters earlier this year. Farghali lectured them as rebels were reeling from months of losses in Syria's northwestern Idlib province, and as Turkey was escalating its direct involvement to prevent the opposition-held enclave's collapse – apparently, Farghali had to convince these HTS fighters they weren't dying for a Turkish secularist occupation.

The recording seems to reveal how the group has internally justified Turkey's intervention in Idlib since 2017, but also – as HTS and other rebels have been depleted, and as Turkey has unilaterally injected troops and stepped up its direct role – how HTS may have lost its grip inside Idlib.