The Islamic State Healthcare Paradox: A Caliphate in Crisis

Turning the Tide: Exploiting Existing Social Dynamics to Degrade and Destroy the Caliphate

In Inside Rebellion, Jeremy Weinstein argues that terrorist organizations face a core dilemma when they attempt to govern: they cannot attain their goals if they do not govern; yet, they repeatedly fail at governance efforts, exposing their greatest weaknesses (Ross and Magen). This feature of the IS caliphate is a vulnerability that Western nations and the coalition must exploit in order to win this war. Rather than prescribing solely military solutions to extremist problems, nations must carefully examine local resistance and social dynamics to amplify group resistance against IS control. IS’s narrative is not a new phenomenon in history.

“One of the first groups to engage in anticolonial jihad and state-building was the fighters led by Abd al-Qadir, who challenged the French imperial invasion of North Africa in the 1830s and 1840s. Qadir declared himself “commander of the faithful” — the title of a caliph — and founded an Islamic state in western Algeria, with a capital in Mascara, a regular army and an administration that enforcedShariah lawand provided some public services (Motadel).”

Likewise, the Mahdist state in Sudan, led by the self-proclaimed leader Muhammed Ahmad, called for Jihad while establishing state structures under a Sharia Law framework (Motadel). Both conflicts had a common theme with IS today: a caliph, a theoretically disciplined state, and a social service apparatus. They all believed in militant Islamism and denounced modernity and alternate faiths. Nevertheless, they were both completely destroyed by Western nations—France and Britain. Here’s why:

“While jihadist networks or guerrilla groups are difficult to fight, a state, which can be invaded, is far easier to confront. And once there is a theocratic state, it often becomes clear that its rulers are incapable of providing sufficient social and political solutions, gradually alienating its subjects (Motadel).”

Now, the question is how to find a solution. Many Muslims living under the caliphate’s rule regard IS as the only option for them, and thereby those individuals tacitly consent to the systematic oppression and brutality. An extensive research study involving over one million interviews across Iraq both before and after IS assumed control and Syria found that “the Islamic State is ideologically incompatible with the many of the residents of the territory it now occupies (Al-Dagher).” Unlike Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in Palestine, which are sufficiently able to provide social services in areas that the government was unable to provide those same services (Al-Dagher), the Islamic State is widely disliked; survey results indicated that more than 90 percent of Sunni Muslims living under IS control view the Islamic State as a terrorist organization—not a state—and 80 percent of citizens support the international coalition effort to degrade and destroy IS (Al-Dagher).

In 2007, the United States combined extensive military operations and social service provisions in order to oust Al Qaeda in Iraq from Anbar Province during the Awakening.

“The silence of the population, of a substantial portion thereof, is critical for insurgencies. … For many years, the residents of Anbar governorate knew who the insurgents were but lacked either the will or violent capacity to resist them. American and Iraqi security forces had the combat power but not the required information [to defeat the insurgents] (Shaver and Tenorio).”

Coupling social services with militarism created that necessary solution. In order to replicate those same results on a grander scale, it is crucial that the United States begins to shift its operations to rationalize IS as a state and not as a military entity with traditional terrorist goals. As the IS power dynamics shift with growing resilience among Sunni Muslims under IS-control, and as new outbreaks of disease and maltreatment of medical professionals is exacerbated by greater violence, Western powers can begin framing discourse under a light of health and humanitarianism coupled with military decision-making, for in the words of Sun Tzu, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

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