{"id":4138,"date":"2017-10-25T17:48:38","date_gmt":"2017-10-25T21:48:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacy\/?p=4138"},"modified":"2018-04-19T17:05:37","modified_gmt":"2018-04-19T21:05:37","slug":"diplomacy-brief-the-fall-of-raqqa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/journalofdiplomacy\/2017\/10\/diplomacy-brief-the-fall-of-raqqa\/","title":{"rendered":"Diplomacy Brief: The Fall of Raqqa"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Fall of the Caliphate<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Three years of occupation of the Syrian city of Raqqa ended this month and left fighters of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria running for refuge in other strongholds.<\/p>\n

The liberation of ISIS\u2019s first self-claimed capital is considered a huge win towards eradicating the radical group, but there are big concerns about whether that is an achievable goal in the near future.<\/p>\n

The anti-ISIS camp in Syria and Iraq is a large\u00a0coalition of competing\u00a0interests\u00a0that were all briefly united by the desire to rid the region of the caliphate. Now, all of them seek to gain credit over any victory against the group and maximise their gains before the dust settles. The first outgrowth of this “post-war” period was the independence referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani and the Kurdistan Regional\u00a0 Government,\u00a0emboldened by the Kurdish Peshmerga’s\u00a0successful fight against ISIS, overplayed there hand and this week Baghdad reasserted control of regions like Kirkuk liberated by the peshmerga. This prompted clashes between Peshmerga fighter and security forces, a harbinger of things to come as one-time allies turn their guns on each other.<\/p>\n

The consequences of Raqqa’s fall are felt beyond the Middle East.\u00a0 There are strong arguments suggesting that, with thousands of fighters still loyal to ISIS, fighting them might be even more difficult than before and will need a much stronger<\/a> and more comprehensive counterterrorism strategy. Sources in the UK have already warned<\/a> that more than 400 ISIS fighters have returned to this country following the liberation of Raqqa. As a populist revival roiled the political\u00a0scene in the west, largely driven by fears of Islamic migration, the possibility of a wave of future jihadist\u00a0attacks portends a future of further instability.<\/p>\n

Opinions on the Fall of Raqqa<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Stephan Walt in Foreign Policy<\/em> warns against \u201cMission accomplished\u201d postures and writes a thorough explanation<\/a> of what end of ISIS actually means and when we can declare victory over the group.<\/p>\n

Steve LeVine Shannon Vavra from the Centre for a New American Security, co-authored a piece titled \u201cISIS may be dispersed, not destroyed<\/a>\u201d. They say, \u201cThe trouble with dancing on the grave of ISIS is that it fails to understand the history of fights with Islamic extremists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason Burke<\/a> in Guardian<\/em> explains how ISIS was defeated<\/a> in Raqqa and highlights three main weaknesses that led to the group\u2019s loss. He also explains how and where ISIS loyalists can cause a threat to people across the globe.<\/p>\n

He writes, \u201cThere have been four big waves of Islamist militancy over the past 50 years. The first two \u2013 in the late 1970s and early 80s, and then in the early 90s \u2013 remained largely limited to the Muslim world. The third and the fourth \u2013 from the mid-90s through to 2010, and from then until now \u2013 have combined great violence in Muslim-majority countries with a series of spectacular attacks in the west. All four have followed a similar trajectory: a slow, unnoticed period of growth, a spectacular event bringing the new threat to public attention, a phase of brutal struggle, then retreat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daniel L. Byman<\/a> from Brookings<\/em> lays out possible future moves by the group to survive<\/a>. He says that, \u201cAs it attempts to regroup, the Islamic State could benefit from the power vacuum created in its absence.\u201d Byman adds, \u201dTo defeat the Islamic State, someone must develop good governance in its former territories in Iraq and Syria to persuade locals to help uproot the group\u2014an unlikely task that has no credible volunteers.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What We are Reading in IR<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Atlantic<\/em><\/p>\n

America Has Become Dispensable in Iraq<\/a><\/p>\n

Emma Sky writes about American missed opportunities in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. She laments that the US has ceded its politcal power in the country to regional actors like Turkey and Iran.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/em><\/p>\n

How the Kurdish independence referendum backfired spectacularly<\/a><\/p>\n

Loveday Morris explains how the Kurdish Regional Govemrtn overreached with its independence push, alienating both the government\u00a0Baghdad and its US patrons.<\/p>\n

Foreign Affairs<\/em><\/p>\n

Is Beijing Adopting an Ethnonationalist Foreign Policy?<\/a><\/p>\n

Harry Krejsa and Anthony Cho of the Center for New American <\/em>Security write about China’s engagement with its diaspora, which may lead down the road to a more interventionist foreign policy in the region.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Fall of the Caliphate Three years of occupation of the Syrian city of Raqqa ended this month and left<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3410,"featured_media":4144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[620,175,98,634],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diplomacy-brief","category-editors-pick","category-middle-east","category-editorial-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/journalofdiplomacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/journalofdiplomacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/journalofdiplomacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/journalofdiplomacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3410"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/journalofdiplomacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4138"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/journalofdiplomacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4147,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/journalofdiplomacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4138\/revisions\/4147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/journalofdiplomacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/journalofdiplomacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/journalofdiplomacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/journalofdiplomacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}