ISIS--Is It Brilliant Or Will It Cause Iran And US To Join Together To Defeat It?

David Blair

David Blair became Chief Foreign Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph in November 2011. He previously worked for the paper as Diplomatic Editor, Africa Correspondent and Middle East Correspondent.

ISIS moved too far, too fast in Iraq. Al-Qaeda's followers have made this mistake before

By David Blair World Last updated: June 16th, 2014

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Al-Qaeda’s followers seem acutely vulnerable to the sin of hubris. It was only natural for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) to take advantage of Syria’s civil war to carve out a new domain inside that country. It was perfectly logical for them to turn this area into a launch pad for a grand offensive back into their old heartland in Iraq. But was it really necessary for them to move so far and so fast?

In particular, the rationale behind capturing Mosul, a city of 1.8 million people, and then advancing another few hundred miles to threaten Baghdad itself is highly questionable. With only a few thousand fighters, how can ISIS hold all of this territory? True enough, the Iraqi army simply collapsed before their eyes, so it must have been hugely tempting to press on and on. But the chances are that ISIS have now over-reached and made their own defeat a compelling necessity for a remarkable coalition of enemies. When you manage to unite Iran and America against you, then you know you really have gone too far.

The chances are that the ISIS surge has now reached its peak and a fightback will begin. It really is a remarkable moment when America, Iran, Bashar al-Assad and the Sunni kingdoms of the Gulf all find themselves on the same side. Can there ever have been a more unlikely coalition, or more compelling evidence for the truth of the old dictum that "my enemy's enemy is my friend"?

But there is a precedent for this spectacular feat of al-Qaeda hubris. Back in 2012, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the movement’s affiliate in North Africa, managed to capture the whole of northern Mali. In the space of a few weeks, it achieved mastery over 300,000 square miles, including airports, arms dumps, ready-made training bases and, for good measure, a lucrative trans-Saharan smuggling route. Even better, Mali’s tiny army had collapsed and there was not a single military force ready and willing to contest AQIM’s dominance. A sensible movement would have consolidated its control and wrung everything it could from this vast new terrorist state.

But ruling two thirds of Mali was not enough for AQIM. In January 2013, its leaders tried to grab the rest of the country. The result was that they provoked the French military intervention which swiftly broke their grip on the north. AQIM tried to have everything and ended up with almost nothing.

The situation in Iraq is far more complex and a swift and clean Western intervention on the French model is not an option. Nonetheless, ISIS have probably fallen prey to temptation and grabbed too much territory for their own good.

The unlikely alliance between America and Iran is one outcome. But let’s remember that cooperation between these two enemies against al-Qaeda also has a precedent. Back in 2001, Iran quietly helped the US to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan and destroy al-Qaeda’s network of training camps. At one meeting between the two adversaries in Geneva, an Iranian official unrolled a map in front of his American counterparts and told them exactly where they should bomb Taliban positions. That map found its way back to Central Command and was used in US planning. Something similar may soon be happening in Iraq.