TIRMAN: --to this,
what will prove
to be a very interesting
session with Will McCants.
Before we get started
with that, first of all,
welcome you on
behalf of the Center
for International Studies,
which has organized this event.
I'm John Tim Tirman, Executive
Director of the Center,
and I want to point out a
couple of events coming up
which may interest you.
The first one will be a Starr
Forum on the global refugee
crisis.
That's on October 21, a
Wednesday, in E25, room 111.
That's the Medical
Building, right?
Next to the MIT Medical.
Jennifer Leaning
from Harvard, Serena
Parekh-- not sure how
to pronounce that--
at Northeastern.
And two people
from Oxfam, should
be a good session on this.
There are seats
down here, people.
If you don't want
to sit on the floor,
there are plenty
of seats down here.
So that's the next Starr Forum.
And then, on November 9, at 7:00
PM in the Kirsch Auditorium,
we have a film
documentary called Partner
with the Enemy about women in
Israeli and Palestinian women
working on behalf
of peace, I think.
You can always get our
events on our website.
And we have a calendar
on the website.
You can check that out.
Today, we have, as I
said, Will McCants,
speaking about his new
book, and the subject
of ISIS, which is on
everybody's agenda these days.
His book is being
sold here in the back,
and there will be a book
signing after the talk.
So you're welcome to stick
around and buy a book
and get it signed.
Will will speak for
about 30 minutes,
and then we will take some
questions from all of you.
If you would go to the
microphones on either side,
it would be helpful because
we are having this videotaped
and want to be sure to
capture your words of wisdom,
which we hope will be in the
form of a short question.
[LAUGHTER]
But you can be wise
in a short question.
William McCants is a fellow
in the Center for Middle East
Policy and director
of its project
on US relations with the
Islamic world at the Brookings
Institution.
He's adjunct faculty
at Johns Hopkins
and has held various
government think
tank positions related to Islam,
the Middle East, and terrorism.
He was in the State
Department for two years,
from 2009 to 2011.
Senior advisor for
countering violent extremism.
And he has held a long
list of other things, jobs
and responsibilities.
He's written quite a bit.
And I think it's fair to say
that this book has gotten
as much positive
buzz as I've seen
on a book about these kinds of
topics in a long, long time.
So our expectations are high.
Please help me
welcome Will McCants.
[APPLAUSE]
MCCANTS: Thank you, John.
And thank you to the Center and
the Starr Forum for having me.
I appreciate it.
I'm happy to be here with you.
I'm just trying to think about
what to talk about tonight.
There's so many different
facets of the Islamic state
that are interesting.
Some more interesting to me as
a historian than they would be,
I think, to the lay person.
But I think the uppermost
question on everyone's mind,
regardless of their
background, is
how has this organization
been so successful?
If you measure success
by control of territory,
establishing a
government, staring down
one of the most powerful
militaries on earth,
a decent measure of success,
I think, for anyone.
How has it been so successful?
And I ask myself this question
in the context of its earlier
ignominious outright
defeat in 2008, 2009.
How is it that an
organization that
was defeated so soundly
just a few years prior
makes a roaring comeback and is
able to take so much territory,
despite the wishes of the people
who live in that territory,
and despite the wishes
of the governments that
are surrounding?
So that's the question I
want to answer tonight.
I come at this from a little
bit of a different angle
than most people.
My training is as an
intellectual historian,
so of course I tend to put
a very high value on ideas.
And when you're looking
at militant organizations,
it's not always apparent
that ideas matter too much.
And particularly, when
you get to studying
their tactics and their
behavior, a lot of them
can bleed together and look
very similar, regardless
of their ideological makeup.
So I want to make
an argument to you
tonight that for
the Islamic State,
ideas have mattered a lot.
Or they might not have
mattered for some other groups,
and in the Q and A, you
can pick apart my argument.
The Islamic State
has a basic formula,
which it has adhered to
since its founding in 2006.
I'll give you the formula, and
then I'll walk us through it.
The formula is establish God's
kingdom on Earth immediately.
So caliphate now,
rather than later.
Teaching and preaching
that the end of the world
is coming immediately,
not later.
So Apocalypse now and not later.
And they preach
their own version
of Machiavelli's
dictum, it is better
to be feared than to be loved.
They have a very brutal style
of insurgency and philosophy
of government, that cuts
against the hearts and minds
approach that might be used
by some other insurgent group.
So that's the basic
formula, right?
It is caliphate now, Apocalypse
now, and intense brutality.
This is the formula they had
when they declared themselves
a state in 2006.
It's the same basic
formula they have today.
Why, then, does the formula fail
so badly in its early years,
and proves to be so much
of a success in the group's
later years?
And I will argue that the
change in political context
had a lot to do with it.
But also, their
consistency in this formula
gave them an edge in this
changed political context,
that the other groups lacked
because they didn't have
this particular configuration.
So let's go back to the Islamic
states founding in 2006.
As you can tell by its
name, the organization
thought of itself
as a state in 2006,
even though it did not
control any territory.
Its predecessor organization,
Al Qaeda in Iraq,
at least controlled a
few towns sometimes.
With the Islamic State
went and established itself
in October 2006.
It didn't control any territory,
yet it put out the message
that it was a state.
And even if you go
back and look carefully
at their propaganda, both the
written word, even the flag,
and the design
that they chose, it
wanted other Muslims to think
of it also as the caliphate.
They wouldn't quite
come out and say it,
but they were dropping a lot of
hints, that that's what it was.
They called their Emir, the
commander of the faithful,
which in medieval Islam is a
title reserved for the caliph.
They talked about their flag
as the caliphate's flag.
Their flag has the seal, the
stamp of the prophet on it,
which was carried by the caliphs
as a sign of their authority.
The establishment
of the Islamic State
went against the wishes
of al Qaeda Central.
It went against the wishes
of bin Laden and Zawahiri.
Their philosophy
was caliphate later.
Their priorities were
exactly the opposite.
What's most important
first, get the West
out of the Middle East,
particularly the Americans.
Carry out strikes in
the American homeland
until the Americans leave
and their allies leave.
Next, go after local
regimes and remove them.
Then finally, you can establish
emirates and network them
together to become
the caliphate.
So exactly the opposite
of the Islamic State.
And they strongly
discouraged the Islamic State
from declaring itself as
such, and discouraged them
from moving to declare
themselves a caliphate
until they got the
Americans out of Iraq,
and until they had built
a broad base of support
among Sunni Muslims.
And you're going to
see this as a theme
throughout the
discussion tonight,
that in al Qaeda's
mind, the key to victory
always is winning over broad
Muslim populace support.
And their differences
with the Islamic State
mainly had to do with
this question, how much do
you need popular
support in order
to successfully prosecute an
insurgency and then govern?
So they discouraged them from
declaring an Islamic State.
The Islamic State's leaders
did it without their knowledge.
And we now have the
inside private letters
that were being exchanged
at the time between al Qaeda
central and the Islamic State.
And we can see that al
Qaeda's leaders were totally
caught by surprise.
So that's step one.
Step two was the
apocalyptic stuff.
Now this is not an aspect
of the Islamic State
that anyone has
focused on before.
And, in general, militant groups
that espouse apocalyptic ideas,
people tend to
look past the ideas
and focus more on behavior.
With good reason,
because the behavior
gives you a lot of insight.
But sometimes, these groups
that espouse apocalyptic ideas
aren't just doing it
for propaganda reasons.
Sometimes they
really believe it.
And this is especially true
of the early Islamic State.
So I found some
interesting letters that
had been exchanged
between a chief judge who
had been in the Islamic State
in its early years and al Qaeda
Central, and this
chief judge was,
in a sense, a
whistleblower and was
telling al Qaeda's leadership
what had been going on.
And one of the things he talks
about at length in his letter
is the fact that
the Islamic State's
founder, a guy by the
name Abu Ayyub al-Masri.
That he was an
apocalypse addled.
That he totally and completely
believed that a Muslim savior
figure, the Madhi,
who's supposed
to come at the end of time and
restore justice to the world,
that the Madhi was going
to appear at any moment.
And this chief judge documents
that in the first year
of the Islamic
State's existence,
its leader was making
decisions based
on the apocalyptic timetable.
The early establishment
of the Islamic State
was on an apocalyptic timetable.
They rushed it
because they believed
the Madhi was going
to come any day
and the proto-caliphate had
to be there to greet him.
They also sent their
chief emirs across Iraq,
and had their forces spread
out because they anticipated
that the Madhi would
arrive at any moment
and help them conquer
the whole country.
Now of course, none
of that pans out,
and he's horribly humiliated
as a consequence of it.
But it just goes to show
him that the Islamic State's
very early days, its
leadership, was making
some pretty big
military decisions based
on his apocalyptic beliefs.
Al Qaeda's leadership
gets word of this
and is furious, because
al Qaeda's leadership is
of an older
generation of Sunnis,
and they're also more
cosmopolitan, right?
Zawahiri comes from an elite
family in Cairo, bin Laden
from an elite family
in Saudi Arabia.
Upper class Sunnis tend to look
down on this kind of stuff.
And until the last
decade, a lot of Sunnis
looked down on
this kind of stuff.
Yes, there are Islamic
prophecies of the end times.
Yes, the end of the
world is going to come.
But the only people that
really get wound up about this,
they would say, are the Shia.
It's the Shia that get
excited about this stuff.
Right thinking Sunnis,
we don't really
focus on this sort of thing.
And then if you look at
Zawahiri and bin Laden,
there was also a class
element to it, as well.
This is something the riff
raff do, not proper-thinking,
respectable folk.
So they chastise the
founder of the Islamic State
for making decisions on
an apocalyptic timetable.
And they pointed
out the obvious,
that this is a terrible way
to do military planning.
And you're leading your
organization to disaster.
Cut it out.
The third thing that
really differentiated
the Islamic State from
al Qaeda was its focus on
and its use of very
brutal forms of violence,
and very visible forms of
violence, televised violence.
You'll remember that Zarqawi
pioneered the beheading videos.
Soon after the Abu
Ghraib revelations,
he would dress prisoners
in the orange jumpsuits,
like they were dressed in Abu
Ghraib, and deliver a message,
and then behead them.
He was waging a war
against Shia civilians.
He was going after
ordinary Sunnis
and being very harsh in the
implementation of the fixed
punishments in
Islamic scripture.
All of this, al
Qaeda objected to.
They wrote him about
the Shias, saying look,
if you want to go after
the leadership, okay.
That makes sense, they're
working with the Americans.
But don't go after
the civilians.
They've done nothing wrong.
Treat the Sunni population well.
You propose to
rule over them, we
want to build a broad-based
coalition with them.
How can we ever hope to
rule this country one
day if we've angered everyone
that we hope to govern?
And Zawahiri, in one
letter, chastises Zarqawi,
even uses the language
hearts and minds.
The other point he
makes is that this
is a struggle in the media, and
this is a war of perceptions.
And we're trying to win
over popular support.
These beheading videos
are a PR disaster.
He says, you may be exciting
young men by doing this,
but you are horrifying
normal Muslims.
And it is tarnishing
the al Qaeda name,
and it is also undermining
your insurgency.
The combination of these three
things seemed at the time
to have been a
recipe for disaster,
because if you look
at what happened,
there was an uprising
of Sunni Arab tribes,
particularly in Anbar
Province, helped
by the American forces and
the Shia-dominated government
in Baghdad.
And they put an end
to any pretensions
that the Islamic State may have
had to actually be a state.
The fact that the Islamic State
insisted that others consider
it a state really alienated
the other Sunni rebels
that didn't want to bend a
knee to this organization, that
didn't really control
the territory.
The fact that it was so
focused on the apocalypse
meant that it was making
bad military decisions.
And the fact that
it was so brutal
to the other insurgent
groups, but also to the Sunni
population meant that they
undermined their cause.
So Western analysts,
from the outside,
saw and interpreted this as
the Islamic State really sowed
the seeds of its own demise.
And this is also incidentally
how bin Laden and Zawahiri
read it, as well.
That you guys didn't
listen, we told you
about the brutality stuff.
We told you about moving
too quickly to statehood.
You are reaping
what you have sowed.
And there's a number of letters
in the following years in which
Zawahiri, bin Laden,
and others hold up
the Islamic State as an
example of what not to do.
So it's an appealing narrative.
The one thing it elides,
and I'll come back
to this, the one
thing it elides,
though, is the fact that there
was a very large American army
present to work with the Sunni
tribes that were rising up.
So the Islamic State is, for
all intents and purposes,
really defeated as an
insurgent organization by 2009.
They have been pushed
back underground,
still capable of carrying out
some pretty big terror attacks.
But were a classical
clandestine terror organization
by the time the
new guy took over
in 2010, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
What's interesting is
that, in the meantime,
before the Islamic State makes
its comeback, a number of al
Qaeda's affiliates,
rather than taking
the lesson that the Islamic
State had been foolish to try,
they took the lesson that
the Islamic State maybe
hadn't tried hard enough.
So in defiance of
bin Laden's wishes,
they began to attempt to
establish their own emirates,
their own states.
And there's this
fascinating correlation
that I document between when
they adopt the Islamic State's
flag and when they begin
to wage an insurgency
to establish their own state.
So one group after another
begins to take up its flag.
Not formally pledging
allegiance, but taking up
its flag, then they take up
its cause just months later.
We see this happen in Yemen.
It happens in Somalia
with the Shabaab.
It happens again in Mali.
Everywhere there are
security vacuums,
you can see the al
Qaeda affiliates begin
to move in a similar direction.
And it was driving
bin Laden nuts.
He was telling them,
we're not ready for this.
The plan is, get
the Americans out,
get rid of these local
governments, then we do this.
But if you must do
this, do it smart.
Think about hearts and minds.
If you are governing people,
be lenient in your application
of Islamic law.
Don't just rush in and
start chopping off hands.
We'll get to it eventually.
It's prescribed in
Islamic scripture.
But little by little.
The people aren't
going to be used to it.
They're not going
to be ready for it.
Some of the groups accepted the
advice, some of them didn't.
AQAP tried to hew
closely to the advice,
the Shabaab, for example,
went in the other direction.
But they never quite get to
finish running the experiment.
Their states always fail.
And they never can
quite figure out,
did they fail because
we were too harsh?
Or did they fail
because we angered
too many powerful outsiders?
Because being global
jihadists, they
were always at least verbally
threatening powerful neighbors
and making powerful
enemies, whether they had
any intent behind it or not.
So they were always
inviting intervention.
And so they're all
eventually overthrown.
So they can never quite decide
which was the right way to go.
Did the Islamic State
have the right of it?
Or did bin Laden
have the right of it?
So then we come to 2011, 2012.
Syria begins to
descend into chaos.
And the Islamic State
sees an opening.
It's still been pushed
underground in Iraq,
but it's finding that it has
much more freedom of action
in the Sunni hinterland,
in eastern Syria.
So here is where the formula
comes into play again.
While all the other
rebel groups in Syria
focus on overthrowing
the existing government,
the Islamic State
focuses on establishing
its own government.
It thought of itself as a state.
It was in the Sunni
tribal heartland.
It set about
building that state.
If you are Bashar
al-Assad, and you
are prioritizing who you're
going to go after first,
who do you choose?
The guys that are coming
right after you in Damascus?
Or are you going to go after
the yahoos that are building
the state in the countryside?
You're going to go after the
guys that are going after you.
So there is an
alignment of interests
between the Islamic State
and the Assad regime.
And the Assad regime,
90% of its bombings
were carried out
against the rebels that
were pressing in on
Damascus and Aleppo
and the other major cities.
Very rarely did they go
after the Islamic State.
Was also a reason,
a propaganda reason
for leaving the
Islamic State alone,
because Assad had an interest in
cultivating a greater evil out
there so he could frame
the entire rebellion as one
big terrorist movement.
All that's to say that the
Islamic State benefited
a great deal by the fact
that they didn't immediately
go after the Assad regime, that
they focused on state building.
Whereas the other rebels threw
themselves into the melee.
It also helped that
they were waging a very
brutal form of insurgency.
I think we forget,
because of our experience
over the past decade
and the emphasis
in the counterinsurgency
community on hearts and minds
being the center
of the struggle,
we forget just how many
successful insurgencies have
been fought and won by
brutal insurgents who
are very similar to the Islamic
State, regardless of ideology.
That really didn't care too
much for winning over hearts
and minds, they cared more about
scaring the hell out of people.
And they also adopted very
brutal forms of government.
And I think-- we
would like-- I would
like to think that
brutal governments sow
the seeds of their own demise,
and that the people will
ultimately rise up.
But if you think about it,
it's often not the case.
But rather, the people
are scared to death,
and absent finding a very
powerful ally on the outside,
they are unable or
unwilling to rise up.
It's also true that a
brutal form of insurgency
can be quite efficient
in the short term.
You cut through a
lot of the red tape
when it's either you're on
my team, or you're dead.
If you want a contrast,
look at how Nusra operated.
This is al Qaeda's
affiliate in Syria.
And it was following
the al Qaeda line,
try and win over the hearts
and minds of the Sunni Muslims.
Collaborate with
the other rebels.
Be sensitive to the
needs of civilians.
All of that makes a lot of
sense if you're waging a hearts
and minds style insurgency.
But it also brings
a lot of problems.
In one city after
another, they proved
to be inefficient and
ineffective at governing.
Why?
Because they were too
worried about working
with the other
groups-- consultation,
making sure everybody's
needs were taken care of.
It led to a lot of chaos.
Whereas the Islamic State,
when it would go into a city,
it would initially
work with groups,
but then gradually eliminate
them and put itself in charge.
And it became much
more efficient
than the other groups,
and subdued the population
much more quickly.
If you want historical examples
of where this has worked,
at least in the Muslim world,
think about the Taliban.
The Taliban waged a
similar style of campaign.
It governed in a similar way.
And if you think
about it, the Taliban
would probably still
be with us had it not
angered the United States.
There was no rebellion in
the offing in Afghanistan.
So this kind of insurgency
can work, regrettably.
And it can be
enduring, regrettably.
So caliphate now
gives them a state
and is somewhat aligned
with Assad's interests,
so they get a toehold.
A brutal form of
insurgency helps
them establish it and run the
state quickly and efficiently.
What about the
apocalyptic stuff?
The Islamic State over time
modified its apocalypticism,
because this early
messianic stuff
was like any sort of
messianism-- very unstable.
Right?
If you think the Messiah
is going to come every day,
you're going to be making
some very rash decisions.
But it had also been
a great boon in terms
of recruiting foreign fighters.
So you don't want to
lose the appeal, either.
Teaching people that
the end of the world
is right around
the corner, and oh,
by the way, all of
the Islamic prophesies
that say the end of the world
is going to happen in Syria
and Iraq, just look around.
Look at the cataclysm.
Because of the
political turmoil,
that apocalyptic
framework was ready made.
Now the other groups
would not use it.
The other Sunni groups would
downplay the apocalyptic stuff.
The Islamic State is really
unique in the Syrian insurgency
and in the Iraqi insurgency
in that they really
play up the apocalyptic
stuff in their propaganda.
The name of their English
language magazine,
directed towards
English-speaking foreign
fighters, is called Dabiq,
which is the name of a tiny town
outside of Aleppo
where one prophecy
says the final battle
with the infidels
is going to take place.
So they use it as part
of the recruiting pitch.
But what did they do
about the messianic stuff,
that had proven to be
so destabilizing early
in their history?
How did they fix it?
What happened over time
is the Islamic State
began to shift from the Madhi
as a fulfillment of prophecy
to the appearance
of the caliphate
as the fulfillment of prophecy.
So it focused then
the foreign fighters
who were excited about the
fulfillment of prophecy,
it focused them
on state building.
And at the same time,
they are able to maintain
the apocalyptic
expectation that's drawing
in so many foreign fighters.
Now how does this matter
in practical terms?
In practical terms, it means
that because of-- not solely
because of, but largely
because of-- this apocalyptic
recruiting pitch,
and the emphasis
on the return of the caliphate
as a fulfillment of prophecy,
they are able to pull
in more foreign fighters
than the other groups.
And there is one report after
another of journalists talking
to young men and women going to
the Islamic State asking them,
why are you going?
Because the end times are here.
And the caliphate has returned.
There's a great
article just last week
by Martin Chulov
in The Guardian,
reporting the same thing.
But these kind of
articles have been
circulating for the
last two or three years.
It matters a lot.
So they were able to then
recruit these foreign fighters,
which means they were able
to replenish their ranks,
and they got an army
of shock troops.
Think about the utility
of foreign fighters.
Foreign fighters are
not tied to the land
and they don't really
have ties to the people.
They might share a common
religious identity,
but they don't have the tribal
ties, it's not their neighbors.
If you want somebody to
administer rough justice
and to wage this kind
of brutal insurgency,
foreign fighters are
very handy in the way
that local fighters are not.
So this basic formula
then of caliphate now,
apocalypse now, and
brutality ends up
being the formula for success
over the past two years,
whereas previously, it had
been a recipe for disaster.
What had changed, of course,
was the political context.
The Sunnis in Iraq
and in Syria have
been alienated from
their governments,
no longer trusted them.
They didn't particularly
like the Islamic State,
but they also had
nowhere else to turn.
And the Islamic
State then was very
capable at suppressing
any dissent, absence
of a large military that was
willing to really take them on.
So the upshot is that
the Islamic State
has demonstrated a model for
other jihadists to follow.
And my worry is that because
of the spread of chaos
in the Middle East, in the
Arabic-speaking world, that you
are going to see more
and more jihadist
insurgencies adopt the
Islamic States model,
rather than trying to hew to
the al Qaeda model of hearts
and minds, which I think
means at the end of the day,
you're going to see far
more brutal insurgencies
in the future.
So I'm happy to take questions
on that very downer note.
And I'll try and find
a way to bring us up.
[APPLAUSE]
I think if you have
questions you're supposed
to make your way to the mics.
Don't all rush at once, I know.
AUDIENCE: Hello, Will.
How are you?
MCCANTS: Hey, how's it going?
AUDIENCE: Good to see you.
So I've been wondering
about one thing
in the now aspect of all this.
Do you have any sense that
they have to keep advancing?
In other words, if they don't
keep attacking and winning,
that the air goes out
of the balloon somehow.
And as they sort of come
up to in their expansion,
they've come up to centers
and groups of folk that
are actually willing
to brawl, not
like them, not easy to absorb.
It seems like the wave
is breaking on shoals.
So it seems to be breaking
on Shiite shoals in Iraq.
It seems to be breaking
on Kurdish shoals.
Some of that is
backed by us, right?
So what happens if the
dynamism kind of peters out?
So the foreign
fighters are coming,
they're expecting action, and
nothing much is happening,
and every time they
go to fight, basically
they get hit by massive
numbers of airstrikes.
So the success goes
out of the thing.
Do you think the
organization can take this?
Can it roll with the punches?
Or is it likely to have
deep contradictions?
MCCANTS: Right, thanks.
So the Islamic State has
a two-word slogan that
directly bears on your point.
And the two-word slogan
is enduring, expanding.
Both of those have to do
with survival and momentum.
Controlling territory
and pushing it out.
So you can see then that the
Islamic State's legitimacy
is very much tied to
the control of territory
and its constant expansion.
And you take that away from
them, you remove the success,
you strike at the heart
of their legitimacy.
But it's easier said than done.
I would note, back in 2009,
when the Islamic State never
controlled any
territory, and they
had been pushed back
underground as an insurgency,
other al Qaeda affiliates took
up its flag and its project.
So it mitigated the
damage to its credibility
because others took up its flag
metaphorically and literally.
The Islamic State is pursuing
a similar mitigation strategy.
And that's why you have this
phenomenon of the franchising
happening, where you have other
jihadist groups-- some of them
major, some of them no-names--
who are also taking up
the Islamic State flag.
This does not so
far as we know have
to do with raising new human
or financial resources,
because those groups
are not contributing
much to ISIS-- Syria and Iraq.
But it's a way to keep scoring
new propaganda victories
and to mitigate any
potential territorial loss
in their future.
Yes, please.
AUDIENCE: Thank you
for your analysis.
So one of the most
disturbing things about ISIS,
in my opinion, is how successful
they are at recruiting.
And in particular, like the
diversity and how widespread
their recruiting
efforts have become,
and I'll just give
you one example.
Like last year-- I'm
Egyptian-- and last year,
this-- in the lack
of a better word--
this hipster middle class
Egyptian guy, [INAUDIBLE]
who just left his life
in suburban Cairo to join
ISIS and became just
like a phenomenon.
And it's not a
unique phenomenon.
It happened from people
coming from Western countries,
coming from Europe, from the US.
So what do you think is the
thing that these recruitment
efforts are stepping
to, and what
can be done to sort of curb
this sort of phenomenon?
MCCANTS: Thank you.
The Islamic State's recruitment
and its messaging strategy is
different from al Qaeda's.
Al Qaeda's, as I said, had
focused for its whole history
on trying to win over broad
Muslim popular support
for its effort.
And so the US government
had a basic understanding
of what to do in response.
Not always good at executing,
but had a basic understanding
if your opponent is trying
to get their poll numbers up
with the masses, the goal for
you is to drive them down.
That's not the
Islamic State's game.
The Islamic State is
not trying to cultivate
broad popular Muslim support.
It is appealing to a
very narrow segment
of the population, namely
and primarily, young men
who get excited about
the kind of violence
that it's perpetrating.
Because it needs those
kind of young men
to wage the sort of brutal
insurgency that it's waging.
And it's difficult
then, given that they
are narrow casting
in that way, it's
difficult to
formulate a response.
I think one of the best
responses I've seen
is getting the stories
out of people who
have defected from
the Islamic State, who
are giving a real window
into how the group actually
operates.
But it's a real challenge.
And the motives for people
going are very idiosyncratic.
But the Islamic State has
this Field of Dreams approach.
If you build it, they will come.
And they will read into
your project, whatever hopes
and desires they may have.
But their emphasis
is on rebuilding
God's kingdom on Earth
and coming to a land
where finally authentic Islam
is going to be practiced.
And so people respond
for a variety of reasons.
In the West, I think there's
something a little bit
different going on.
And I think that is the
Islamic State has cultivated
its counter-cultural appeal.
It has embraced
its pariah status.
And so if you're a young Muslim
in the West looking for a way
to rebel, not just against
the dominant culture,
but your parents' Islam
and mainstream Islam,
what could be more
counter-cultural and offensive
to everybody than joining
the Islamic State?
So I think that's part of
the perverse appeal as well.
Yes, please.
AUDIENCE: Well,
first I'd like to say
it's nice to see another
historian on this campus.
It's pretty rare.
Anyways, I'm a coach here.
So anyways, I actually,
before I came to this talk,
had planned a myriad of
things I'd like to ask,
but in light of recent
events, I would just
like to know your
thoughts on, I mean, I,
myself, because I sort of know
the history of the region,
I think I know why the Obama
administration kind of kept out
of Syria for a while.
Obviously, with the
recent developments
with Russia starting air strikes
within the last 48 hours,
in your opinion, now that
Russia has basically stepped up
their involvement in
Syria, and despite the fact
that the first airstrikes
weren't, according
to a lot of experts,
ISIS targets,
do you think this
is going to help
precipitate the end of ISIS?
Or do you think it will
have no difference?
Or do you think it might
actually make them stronger?
MCCANTS: I think it's either
it makes no difference
or it makes them
slightly stronger,
because Russia's primary
interest is shoring up
the Assad regime
and its stronghold
along the Mediterranean coast.
It's framing this as
an anti-ISIS campaign
to justify its
military involvement,
but that's not really the game.
And as you say, we
can see from where
they're striking that
it's focused primarily
on rebels that are
fighting Assad,
but close into territory
that matters to him, Damascus
and Latakia.
So it doesn't do much to
damage the Islamic State,
and if anything, if the pace
of airstrikes on the rebels
continues, it will
weaken those rebels,
not that are just
fighting against Assad,
but are also fighting
against the Islamic State.
So it could be a windfall
for them, as well.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] Let's
say they start eliminating
a lot of [? Assad's ?]
rebels, do
you think perhaps Russia might
create a little bit more,
and actually start
generally attacking ISIS?
MCCANTS: Right, so the question
is, if they succeed or make
headway against the rebels
that threaten Assad,
would they turn against
the Islamic State?
Yeah, eventually, if they
want to reconstitute Syria,
they would have to.
But the reason why the
Islamic State persists
is it is nobody's top priority
among the countries and groups
that ring the Islamic State,
with the possible exception
of Jordan.
Now it's a priority, but
it is not a top priority.
It's a top priority for the
United States and Europe,
but for no one
that surrounds it.
So it continues to persist
while everybody else is
pursuing their top priorities.
Yes, please.
AUDIENCE: I'm not a
historian, but I like history.
And one thing that's disturbed
me is the kind of ahistoricity
that the United States
has indulged in.
So, for instance, the
caliphate movement
of the 1920s, barely
mentioned in any
of the reportage on what's
been happening since 2001.
Abu [? Rafi ?] [? Kahn ?]
and [INAUDIBLE],
who I think in some way was
an example to the Taliban,
[? Kahn ?] establishing schools
and 20 years later establishing
what some call the world's
first nonviolent army.
And these kinds of
strains in history,
the caliphate movement
after World War I,
and the Islamic nonviolence of
the Abu [? Rafi ?] [? Kahn, ?]
seem to be completely forgotten.
Am I right in that?
Does any of that have
any relevance to today?
MCCANTS: I can tell
you that I mentioned
the caliphate movement in my
book, so, if that covers me.
Yeah, certainly
it has relevance.
And one of the things
I try to do in the book
is to point out that the way
the Islamic State does things,
and the way that the Islamic
State justifies the things
that it does are not
done by others, right?
So you have the same
political context,
but you have a variety of
responses to that context,
by pious Muslims
and impious Muslims.
And I think the contrast
is, as you're alluding to,
the contrast is useful because
you're able to tease out then
what is unique about
the Islamic State,
and what it shares
with the others that
are pushing for change.
Yes, please.
AUDIENCE: Is there evidence
that wealthy donors in countries
like Saudi Arabia
and the Emirates
have helped fund ISIS and get
it to a stronger position?
MCCANTS: There is not a
lot of evidence, actually.
This is something I
followed really closely.
And it turns out that the
wealthy private donors
in the Gulf have sent
most of their money
to the ultra conservative
Islamists that are fighting
but that are not ISIS.
So Nusra, [INAUDIBLE],
the other major parts
of the Sunni rebellion,
the ultra conservatives,
that's where the money's going.
And it had been quite public.
And a lot of it
had been transiting
through banks in Kuwait because
their counter-terror finance
laws were terrible.
And the US Treasury really
lashed them for it in public
and they made some
positive changes.
But that's where the money went.
The Islamic State, since
its founding in 2006,
has been very good
at cultivating
local sources of revenue.
They are great at extortion,
kidnapping for ransom.
They've now acquired
some oil fields.
But, like any state, they
raise most of their money
now from taxes.
So the people who really track
Islamic state finances closely
say they get next to nothing
from the outside, actually.
Which makes it so
difficult, then,
for us to turn off the
money, because there's
no spigot to turn off.
They have their own.
Please.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
So a few weeks ago,
I read an article
talking about the effect
of the European refugee
crisis on ISIS.
And, of course, some
people speculate
that there are ISIS militants
infiltrating in the refugees,
coming into Europe.
My question is, how likely is
that in terms of, as you said,
ISIS's focus is on
building the caliphate,
not so much on killing
off the West now.
MCCANTS: Right.
AUDIENCE: So how likely is it
that they're trying to expand
or infiltrating into the
West through the refugees?
MCCANTS: Thank you.
So there have been a number
of reports, journalists
talking to Islamic State
operatives and asking them,
are you trying to get
people into the West?
And the operatives
say yes, we've
gotten thousands into the West.
But the problem is there's
been no evidence of it yet.
So it's difficult to parse
then, is this really happening?
And is this something we
should be worried about?
Or is this just more
disinformation and propaganda?
And really the
intelligence community
is the one that's ultimately
going to have to figure it out.
Because it is being
done in secret
if it's being done at all.
I would highlight a
different worry that I have,
and that's not that Islamic
State fighters are coming in,
although should be
concerned and vigilant.
But it's rather that the
refugees that are coming,
many of them are
going to experience,
especially the young
people, severe dislocation.
It will be very hard for them to
assimilate in these societies.
The more refugees
that are taken in,
of course, the
political discourse
will become more
toxic, surrounded.
This is a very ripe recruiting
ground for extremists
that are already in Europe.
So my worry is not necessarily
that the extremists are coming
in, but the extremists
that are already in there
are going to find this a
good opportunity to recruit
and send the recruits in
the opposite direction.
Yes, please.
AUDIENCE: Thank you
Professor, for your lecture.
And before I came
to MIT last month,
I was working in the
Iraq for three years.
But in south region, so
it's relatively safe.
From there I look at how
ISIS started from zero
and then took most of the
place on the northwest.
So I'm particularly
interested on the effect
of ISIS on the Iraqi,
like, as a country.
Because before, it was
Kurdistan in the north
and central government, and
south is mostly the Shia areas.
Once ISIS started
taking a lot of place,
I could feel that actually
all the groups from north,
from central
government, from south,
they are more like working
together towards ISIS.
So do you think that ISIS is
like a positive thing for Iraq
as a country, maybe
helping them to unite more?
Or do you think this is
just the current situation.
Once ISIS threat was gone, there
would be maybe even more split.
MCCANTS: That's a good
counterintuitive point, though.
I could just see it
in foreignpolicy.com.
In the short term, right,
the north, the south,
they have to collaborate.
The Kurds and the Shia
have to work together.
But what the Islamic
State has done
is really almost the de
facto partition of Iraq.
And you can even
see this in the fact
that the government
still continues
to pay the salaries of
government employees
who are living in ISIS land.
But yet they don't
control the land at all.
I mean it's almost as if the
federalism has come into being.
So to me, I think this hastens,
if not the breakup of Iraq,
then the further
decentralization of the country
in the long term.
AUDIENCE: I will have-- I have
a question about the history
part of your title.
So as we said before, like
in the report, people,
don't really talk about
the Islamic State part
one, which started
like 2006, 2007,
2008, which was not really
a state, but [INAUDIBLE].
So my question is
about the period,
the interim period
between let's say 2011
when the crisis here
started and then 2014
when they took up Mosul.
There were many reports
that were saying generally--
I mean general reports
that the Islamic State
is like coming back.
And was totally ignored
by US government,
all the Western governments.
They took [INAUDIBLE] from
the rebels, no intervention
whatsoever.
And so, from your reporting from
interviews with intelligence
services, like what were they
thinking like, in that period?
I mean, if some journalist
and blogger saw it coming,
it's really hard for me to
understand how the policy
makers didn't see it coming.
MCCANTS: Right, so-- thank you.
So the reporting has been
that the intelligence
services in the United States
really let down the president.
That is not true.
That is not how it happened.
The intelligence community was
raising all kinds of red flags.
There were more junior staffers
on the National Security
Council that were
raising red flags.
This has to do
with the president.
The president was very reluctant
to get involved in another war.
And you have to remember
he had just drawn down
the troops from Iraq.
He did not want a reason
to plus them back up again.
So I think the decision making
on this, and the blind spots,
was really the president's.
It was not the
intelligence community.
It was him.
Yes.
AUDIENCE: Sir, thanks
so much for your talk.
And I see your Twitter
handle up there,
maybe I really ought to be
tweeting this question at you.
But I was wondering
if you could speak
to the role of social
media, in particular,
in ISIS's recruitment strategy.
Then maybe from your experience,
adviser with the State
Department if you might be able
to shed some light on the US's
efforts in countering their
information campaign online?
MCCANTS: Thank you.
So the Islamic
State in the media
are portrayed as social
media wizards, right?
There's never been
an organization,
violent or otherwise,
that has ever used Twitter
in so effective a manner.
I don't think
that's quite right.
I think that when you take
over a lot of territory,
and you set people
on fire on camera,
folks are going to
look at it online.
You look at a car
wreck, you're going
to look at the same kind
of horrific stuff online.
That's why they attract
so many eyeballs.
It doesn't have a lot to do
with how well they tweet,
how many bots they have, any of
the normal stuff that's cited.
The other answer
to your question,
what can the US
government do about it?
When I was at
State Department, I
helped set up the
organization that
does the online
counter-propaganda work.
And they have tried a
variety of different things.
They were most
effective when they
were just tweeting
and on Facebook
in non-English
languages, because nobody
at State Department really
knows non-English languages.
Western journalists
don't really know it.
And so they were left alone.
And they could
experiment, right?
But the minute that they
started tweeting in English,
someone described it to
me is the Eye of Sauron.
All of a sudden turning, laser
focused on what was going on.
So everybody in the
building could read it,
Western journalists based in
DC and New York could read it,
and all of a sudden the
criticism started coming in.
Some of it justified, right?
But the downside is that they
have no more room to maneuver,
because everything
they do is scrutinized.
It's written about in the media.
And then that in turn
effects Congress.
Congress gets really
worked up about it,
and everything grinds to
a halt, which is basically
where we are today.
But what they have
tried to do that
has not worked very well
for them is to highlight
the Islamic State's atrocities.
The problem is that
the Islamic State
highlights its own atrocities.
It wants people to see this
stuff, because, as I said,
its propaganda strategy is
quite different from al Qaeda's.
So when we repeat the talking
points, we just help them.
The better stuff we do
is trying to get out
the stories of people who
have left the organization
and can talk about
its hypocrisies
and what really goes
on in the inside.
AUDIENCE: Of course,
thank you for the talk.
You introduce yourself
as someone who
enjoys the history of ideas.
And so I'd like to
ask you about ideas,
but of course, I'm
unfortunately asking
you talk about the future
as opposed to history.
And in fact, what I'd
like to talk about
is imagining a future
20 years from now,
where for whatever
reason, that the world
has seen the
well-publicized collapse
of this messianic organization.
And this is now a
well-known sort of a thing.
What sort of effect
does that have
on, if I can call it extremist
Islam, Islamic thought?
MCCANTS: I think the defeat
would have to be resounding,
and it would have
to be long lasting.
The challenge is that, given
the instability in the region,
there's always someone
else there to try.
So you never reach a point
where the project is utterly
defeated.
And the Islamic State itself is
building in those redundancies.
But to answer your question,
let's say it does happen,
the hypothetical happens
and it's soundly defeated.
You know, I do think
it takes the wind out
of the sails of people who
have signed on for the project.
Not all of them.
We know from history from
other apocalyptic groups,
the other impulse
is to double down,
to say we didn't
try hard enough.
But many more people leave.
But my worry is that we
never reach that point.
Because of the
continued instability,
there's always someone,
another opportunity to try.
Yes.
AUDIENCE: Thank you for having
this kind of discussion.
My name is [INAUDIBLE],
and I am a person
who is very well interested
to know, we as a society,
what we can do to approach
this kind of situation,
that it's not just
affecting obviously
the Muslim population, but also
on a global stage to unite?
What would be your thoughts,
what we can do as a society,
including or giving
inclusive opportunity
to all people of
different backgrounds
to face this kind of threat?
MCCANTS: Thank you.
So working on this
kind of book, my mind
is not always in the
right place to answer
these kind of questions about
bringing people together,
because I focus on guys
that split them apart.
But I will say that I think the
more that we frame this effort
to stop Islamic State
recruitment in the West,
the more we frame it as
saving our young people
and making sure they
don't ruin their lives,
the better off we will be.
And the more we talk
about it in the same way
we talk about stopping
gang recruitment,
or recruitment to neo-Nazi
groups, violent extremist
groups of all kinds, the
better off we will be.
My worry is that
currently, at least
in this country and
some European countries,
we use euphemisms to
talk about the problem,
like violent extremism.
But what we really
mean is Muslims.
And it puts the Muslim
community on edge
and makes them feel like the
government views all of them
as a security threat.
And with good reason.
Because many in government
do see the community
as a potential threat.
They're worried about the
whole community radicalizing.
But if you look
at the community,
especially in this
country-- Europe
is a different
creature-- but if you
look at the Muslim
community in this country,
very few people have gotten
interested in this stuff.
There have been some, right?
I think I've heard a number
200 people had either
tried to travel abroad to join
or tried to do something here.
And that 200 sounds like a lot.
But if you think about the
millions of Muslim youth
in this country,
that is nothing.
That's not even a
statistical blip.
So I think there is a natural
disinclination of Muslim youth
to get involved with this stuff.
And I think the more we
frame it in that way,
and focus our efforts
to stop recruitment
on people who are
actually getting
interested in the
propaganda, tweeting about it
online, talking
about it on Facebook,
the more we focus on
them and intervening
with them, the better
we are, rather than
framing this as a problem
that a whole community is
facing when it's not.
Yes.
And have much more time
have I got for Q and A?
AUDIENCE: 21 minutes?
MCCANTS: 21.
Okay, I'll go
somewhere in there.
Yes, please.
AUDIENCE: You mentioned
that Assad distinguished
between those rebel groups
that were fighting against him
and the Islamic State
and he took advantage
of the ISIS presence in Syria.
And also in response
to one of the questions
about the financial
support of ISIS,
you mentioned that
those money that
were coming from countries
like Saudi Arabia
weren't basically directly going
into bank accounts of ISIS.
MCCANTS: Yup.
AUDIENCE: My thought was that,
things weren't that much clear,
considering the timeline on
the conflict in that region,
things weren't that much
clear at the beginning,
maybe those countries that
were against Assad regime.
They were more thinking
about collapsing the regime
[INAUDIBLE] that was happening.
So maybe the monies
that were going there,
all the support,
military support,
really wasn't going
to those groups,
and ISIS took advantage of that.
I mean, wasn't things kind
of blurrier at that point?
MCCANTS: I don't
think the money.
But I will say,
where I do think you
are right is that at
least one country turned
a blind eye to the foreign
fighters that were streaming in
to fight on behalf of
ISIS, and that's Turkey.
Turkey for two years just
said come on, come on in.
Because they were worried about
two other things more than
they were worried about ISIS.
Yes, ISIS is a problem,
but not as much
of a problem as the Kurds.
Not as much of a
problem as Assad.
And there you can see still,
even though they are nominally
working with the United
States to go after ISIS,
most of their bombings
are being carried out
on Kurdish positions.
So, in that case, in the case of
manpower, I think you're right.
Yes.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
Good evening.
My question is primarily on
your assessment of the US
military campaign against
ISIS, and specifically
in the context of
the discussion that's
going on between using
military power, mostly
airpower, a limited
amount of ground power,
as a deterrent to
ISIS as a model
against other non-state
actors, or pseudo-state actors.
And if you assess ISIS foot
soldiers and leadership,
potentially different
as rational actors
that can be deterred via
conventional military means.
MCCANTS: Thank you.
I mean, there's only so much
you can do with airpower, right?
And particularly when your rules
of engagement are very strict.
We worry a lot about
civilian casualties.
The Islamic State knows that
and puts a lot of its personnel
and material in urban areas.
So there is not a lot
you can do from the air.
But there's a document I
talk about in the book that
was written by the
Islamic State in 2010.
And the document is--
it's really interesting.
It looks like a Washington
DC think tank report.
And it has a series
of recommendations
for how the Islamic State
can make a comeback, right?
I mean this is the kind of
thing I might have written.
The thing that they focus on
most, over everything else,
here is how we
make the comeback.
Here's why we screwed up before,
how we do it right this time.
What they focus on is winning
over the Sunni Arab tribes.
This is the center
of gravity, they say.
They identify a model
for how to do that.
And the model for how to
win over the Sunni Arab
tribes that they talk about
explicitly in this text
is what the Americans had
done in the Anbar Province.
And so they go on for several
pages, ugh, the Americans,
they're infidels,
but this was genius.
And this was really
terrible for us.
And we should exactly
copy what they
were doing, building
popular committees,
having tribal militias that were
protecting their own people,
those sorts of things.
So I think whatever the mix
of airpower, special forces we
adopt, I think a big part
of the ultimate solution
to the ISIS problem has to do
with empowering the Sunni Arab
tribes to push back
against the Islamic State.
And maybe we have to do this
by nibbling at the edges
of the Islamic State, say, in
Syria, working with the Kurds
up in the north to
liberate those areas
and then arming tribal militias.
But that's, my guess
is that's going
to be part of a more enduring
and effective strategy
against the Islamic State,
rather than airpower.
One more question.
You're it.
Sorry everybody else.
AUDIENCE: Okay, what do
you think about the fact
that former Iraqi
Ba'ath officials might
have participated in ISIS?
And might have directed
its military operations?
Is it [INAUDIBLE] effective, or
like is it something invisible?
MCCANTS: Thank you.
So, as many of you
know, the dominant party
in Iraq under Saddam Hussein
was a Socialist Party
named the Ba'ath Party.
And if you wanted to work in
government, Sunni or Shia,
you had to join
the Ba'ath Party.
Now, you'll remember also that
in the aftermath of the US
invasion, we decided to make
sure that Ba'athists were
no longer able to hold
government office,
and we disbanded the military,
which in effect meant
you had a lot of very
senior intelligence officers
and military officers that
no longer had pensions
and no work.
And many of them got
involved in the insurgency.
Over time, a number of these men
ended up in the Islamic State.
And they occupy many of
the senior-most positions
in the Islamic State.
And if you think about it,
it makes good sense, just
from a human
resources standpoint.
Who has experience in running
an authoritarian state
and an intel service in
an authoritarian state?
Who has now 10
years of experience
waging an insurgency?
It's these guys, right?
So they are handy
to have around.
The question-- and
I think this is
part of the motive
behind your question--
is how can these guys who
are part of a Socialist Party
sign on with this nominally
ultra Islamic project?
It is an enduring question,
but I would offer you
a couple things to think about.
One is that many of these
guys came of age as officers
during the early 1990s, when
Saddam Hussein initiated
his faith campaign.
And this is when, as a result
of his defeat in the Iraq War,
Saddam Hussein really started
to emphasize Sunni identity
and encourage his officers
to become more religious.
But even if these guys didn't
get religion then, many of them
did in US detainment camps.
And there is one report after
another of these officers
who had been part
of the insurgency,
when they get to
places like Camp Bucca,
of being radicalized by
the other jihadists that
were already there.
There was a great interview with
a guy I found in Arabic where
he's talking about all these
officers that had gone through,
and they were reading
jihadist texts with them,
and the Americans had no idea
what was being circulated.
So a lot of these guys went out
fully committed to the cause.
But even say that didn't
matter and these guys are just
using religion cynically to come
to power, one can't dismiss it.
I'd also observe that at
least the guy at the top, who
is a very capable leader, he
is very committed to the cause.
I wrote a profile of him a
few weeks ago for Brookings
called "The Believer."
The Believer was his
nickname growing up as a kid,
because he was hyperreligious,
so his friends and family
called him the believer.
But he was also very
into telling other people
how to practice their faith.
So he would come home,
tell his sisters,
tell his brothers that they're
not being proper Muslims.
And this desire to control
other people's behavior,
and this interest in
ultraconservative Islam,
led him to become radicalized
on his own by the year 2000.
So three years before
the US invasion,
he was already a
committed jihadist.
And so this is the guy at
the top of the organization,
and it's his vision that
they are really realizing.
Now if he dies, maybe
some of that changes
and the complexion
of it changes.
But he's setting
the overall tone.
So, that's it.
Thank you very
much for having me.
[APPLAUSE]
