How al Qaeda lost Iraq

Abstract

Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has suffered a grave setback in the context of its ongoing campaign there. Since late 2006 Sunni tribal militias working in conjunction with Coalition forces have decimated AQI's ranks, and the organisation has been largely expelled from its former sanctuaries in western Iraq. This article seeks to explain the causes of al Qaeda's defeat with a view towards drawing out their broader implications for the ongoing struggle against jihadist terrorism. I argue that AQI's defeat can be ascribed to its ideological inflexibility, its penchant for indiscriminate violence, and its absolute unwillingness to accommodate the sensitivities and political interests of its host communities. Furthermore, I argue that, far from being exceptional, al Qaeda's mishandling of its local allies in Iraq represents merely the latest instance of a tendency to alienate host communities that has long been evident in its involvement in conflicts in the Islamic world. My analysis confirms that al Qaeda's ideological extremism constitutes a vital point of vulnerability, and that it remains possible to pry global jihadists away from their host communities even in the context of ongoing high-intensity conflicts.

Abstract

Notes

1. Abd al-Rahman al Qaysi, spokesman of the Mujahedin Army in Iraq, an indigenous force opposed to al Qaeda in Iraq, cited in Ridolfo (2008).

2. Unnamed emir of al Qaeda in Iraq, cited in Fletcher (2008).

3. It is necessary to qualify my portrayal of the shift from the ‘near enemy’ to the ‘far enemy’ by noting that this shift in focus was conditioned by circumstantial factors (specifically the jihadists’ experience of the constraints and opportunities of exile in the 1990s) as well as by the ideological imperatives of Salafi–jihadism. My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this observation.

4. It is nevertheless worth noting that the Iraqi government has subsequently substantially revised upwards its estimates of existing oil and natural gas deposits on Sunni territory. Given the preliminary nature of these findings and the many years it will take to effectively extract these resources, however, Sunni fears of economic marginalisation will continue to be a salient factor governing their relations with Baghdad for the foreseeable future. See Glanz (2007).

5. My thanks to Barak Mendelsohn for drawing my attention to the negative international reaction that AQI elicited with its declaration of an Islamic State of Iraq.

6. Figures on the United States’ financial support for the Sunni tribal groups are taken from Simon (2008: 65).

7. While Bosnians had accepted the military support of foreign jihadists during the course of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, relations between the Bosnians and the foreign jihadists were marked by persistent friction. Consequently, the government of President Izetbegovitch proved only too happy to implement the provisions of the Dayton Peace Accords mandating the expulsion of foreign jihadists from Bosnia-Herzegovina, incurring the jihadists’ enduring enmity. See Williams (2007b: 55).

8. My thanks to Barak Mendelsohn for drawing my attention to this point.

9. My thanks to one of the anonymous reviewers for encouraging me to clarify my thoughts on the strategic consequences of the trade-off between al Qaeda's geographically broad appeal and its limited capacity to strike up enduring alliances with local communities.

10. This approach is inspired by David Kilcullen's advocacy of ‘disaggregation’ as a preferred strategy for combating the global insurgent threat posed by al Qaeda and its affiliates. See generally Kilcullen (2005).

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Notes on contributors

Andrew Phillips

Andrew Phillips is a lecturer in international relations at the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland. His research interests focus broadly on the evolution of the global state system from 1500 to the present, and concentrate specifically on the challenges that ‘new’ security threats such as religiously motivated terrorism, the spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and state failure pose to the contemporary global state system. His published works include a co-authored article on the relationship between nationalism, tribalism and Islam in post-Soviet Central Asia, as well as an article contrasting the dynamics of transnational religious military mobilisation in Reformation Europe and the contemporary Middle East (Review of International Studies, forthcoming). Before his postgraduate studies Andrew worked as a policy advisor in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.