Small Wars Journal

Fears of an Islamic State Breakout Fuel Trump’s Strategy

Fri, 02/10/2017 - 5:28am

Fears of an Islamic State Breakout Fuel Trump’s Strategy by David Ignatius, Wall Street Journal

Michael Flynn, the national security adviser to President Trump, shows visitors a map predicting what will happen to the Islamic State after its stronghold in Mosul is captured. It shows menacing black arrows reaching west toward future battlefronts in Iraq, Syria and beyond.

That’s the worry that motivates the Trump administration as it plans strategy against the terrorist group: Rather than a shattering defeat for the adversary, Mosul may be the start of a breakout to other regions. That may be one rationale for Trump’s controversial ban on travel from Iraq and six other Muslim-majority countries, which was rejected Thursday night by a federal appeals court. Defenders of the ban could argue that it might prevent a metastasis of the Islamic State into the West after its capitals are crushed.

“As Mosul falls, everyone [in the Islamic State] will move out,” said a senior Trump administration official. “ISIS will fall back into different areas. You could get suicide attacks again in Ramadi,” an Iraqi city that was liberated 14 months ago.

But many experts outside the administration see holes in Trump’s counterterrorism approach and worry that it could backfire. His rhetoric about “Islamic terrorism” has turned up the ideological heat, but it has frightened some potential Muslim allies at home and abroad. Trump has denounced the Obama administration’s strategy - which, however cautious, was slowly throttling the Islamic State - without having a clear alternative…

Read on.