Two months after President Obama launched air strikes in an effort to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the militant group known as Islamic State or ISIS, the operation now has a name—”Enduring Resolve”—a reference to the long, difficult task of combating such an amorphous organization.

In an October event at the School of International Service convened by Distinguished Journalist-in-Residence, David Gregory, Ambassador Akbar Ahmed of SIS, Politico’s Susan Glasser, and The Washington Post’s David Ignatius discussed the prospects for the American-led campaign against ISIS and broader U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Moderator David Gregory began the talk by posing the question about how well the war on IS is going.

“It’s going badly. Wars often start badly,” explained Ignatius, reaffirming the need for the U.S. to form a strong coalition with other Arab nations. “Basically, we would have to tell them, ‘You have to put some skin in the game if you want the American help.’”

He also suggested that training CIA-style guerilla fighters in Syria to combat IS might be a more appropriate style campaign than the air bombing one used thus far. Ignatius expressed concern about “whether we are walking into a trap that locks us into the kind of warfare our adversaries want and how can we mitigate that danger.” He was of the firm conviction that Iraq is “as sectarian as ever. It is badly fractured and I do not see a coherent strategy in our policy to pull it together.”

Ambassador Akbar Ahmed framed ISIS in a tribal Islamic context, a topic he wrote a book about: “ISIS has very little to do with Islam. Its members are tribesmen from tribes that have imploded over the last few decades. We all tend to think of this as radical Islam without considering this is tribal Islam which espouses a code that encourages revenge for wrong-doings.”

One major distinction he made, however, is that this code has become mutated. Out of the trifecta of bravery, courage, and revenge, revenge is seen as the only thing left. He underlined that the creation of borders that split the tribes in forced ways, fanning the flames of conflict. That conflict is not Islam vs. the West but periphery versus center—societies left on the fringes fighting a central government they perceive as antagonistic to their interests.

Ambassador Ahmed explained that tribal Islam is a militaristic culture and one that is constantly in conflict with Islam itself—for example, tribal Islam eschews the inroads made for women by Islam, such as inheritance rights. “We need to understand the context of these movements and not call them Islamic movements.” In couching the conflict in center vs. periphery, Ahmed also suggested that public opinion in Pakistan, for example, is in favor of strikes against ISIS, whereas public confidence in Iraq has collapsed. He believes that Muslims worldwide support the fight against ISIS and that getting the support of the people is important in forming an alliance.

Susan Glasser spoke a bit more on the policy side of the issue, calling Obama an “extremely reluctant warrior.” “We are seeing a fairly public debate between the President and the generals on strategy. We have a lot of generals saying the war plan will not work, that it is based on false theory, premised on the notion that an air campaign on guys in pick-up trucks.”

All three panelists expressed the opinion that ISIS is an aggressive, flexible, and adapting enemy and that there is tremendous trepidation about entering into yet another quagmire of conflict in the Middle East.

David Ignatius discussed some of ISIS’ tactics, referring to the beheading of people as “their version of shock and awe. The element of raw physical intimidation, of an almost pornographic level of violence, is what is so attention-grabbing.” But he referred to the case of Al Qaeda that had grown so hated because it made so many enemies in fighting a sectarian battle against more than the U.S. “It is not possible to brutalize your way to success.” He explained that ISIS is able to gain wealth by engaging in kidnapping, selling oil, and taking over central bank branches. They also have clever strategies for gaining recruits. In addition to a powerful social media empire, they have the practice of attacking prisons, specifically in Mosul and Ambar, whereupon liberating several thousand prisoners, they gain new fighters from that cadre. “They are really smart in how they plan operations.”

Watch the entire video here.

Reporting, Reviews

E-Team Film Review

October 24, 2014 Toni Tileva

My review of the film E-Team

E-Team, co-directed by Katy Chevigny and Ross Kauffman, is an immersive look into the work of Human Rights Watch’s Emergency Team, a group of people that travel to war-torn countries, document human rights abuses world-wide, and then draw media and government attention to those crimes.

Perhaps the greatest strength of the film is in its insider look at exactly how this sort of work takes place, the perils involved, and the authenticity and rigor expected. More specifically, the team is careful to get thorough (multiple) eyewitness accounts, which preempt questions about the veracity of the reports produced by Human Rights Watch. We meet Anna Neistat and Ole Solvang, a husband-and-wife team, who are literally on the ground as bombs are going off around them in Syria. The viewer gets a keen sense that this is not the fare of an armchair philosopher IR wonk; Anna and Ole do not wait until “conditions are safe” to make their way to the conflict areas.

The film’s portrayal of the civil war in Syria is especially poignant. They smuggle themselves across the Turkey-Syria border in 2013 by literally running across a barbed wire fence. There, they take the testimony of frightened Syrian villagers who huddle with them in an apartment rattled by the explosions outside. The sense of terror is palpable, and the feeling of death ever present. In one of the most moving scenes in the film, a mother who has just lost three of her sons, says, “What is the point of talking?” as she cries. E-Team convinces us that even in the incredibly cynical world of politics, the stories of the people suffering – trapped in a situation beyond their control – have incredibly gravity and that suffering should not go unnoticed just because it is so rampant.

We also meet the E-Team’s other members: Peter Bouckaert, a weapons specialist, and Fred Abrahams, the “father” of the group. Abrahams testified against Slobodan Milosevic at the Yugoslav Tribunal, recounting the atrocities he encountered in Albania. Abrahams’ testimony against the smirking Milosevic is an illustration of what happens when the heartbreakingly human meets with the glib heartlessness of the political. The team’s work aims to simply give voice to those who were forever silenced, to shine light on the hidden.

E-Team, despite its very political matter, stays clear of pontificating asides. In fact, one gets the sense that the kind of work Human Rights Watch does is very much the kind of work that journalists should be doing: documenting stories, gathering accounts of various witnesses, and speaking on issues of concern to all of us as humans. Yet, they seem to be able to do more than journalists can. For example, it is their report on the Assad’s regime use of chemical weapons that spurs UN Security Council action on the issues and negates the rebels being blamed for the attack.

The team also visits Libya to document survivors’ accounts of Gaddafi’s attacks on civilians and protesters in 2011. Here we see how the knowledge of weapons experts like Peter is used to pinpoint who fired what weapons, when, and how. In other words, the film does a great job of illustrating the breadth and veracity of HRW’s reports and the extensive knowledge of the people compiling those reports. The organization’s mission, in its own words, is not necessarily to effect policy change per se but rather to document abuses and alert us to them. Despite the harrowing and dangerous nature of their work, the team members come across as atypically down-to-earth and not even a little bit self-righteous or arrogant. The adrenaline junkie zealot stereotype is not to be found here.

E-Team benefits from incredibly tight editing and crisp cinematography that belies the guerrilla-style film-making usually associated with this genre. The engrossing storyline and behind-the-scenes look at human rights work gives the viewer a lot to appreciate.

Reporting