MeiJade Hsu

Honors English 9B
Period 7
May 11, 2015
Critical Thinking Paper

On June 5, 2014, an Islamist extremist rebel group called the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant launched a major offensive against the Iraqi government in Northern Iraq. The Northern
Iraq offensive, as it came to be known, resulted in a decisive insurgent victory, in which ISIS and
aligned forces captured several cities and towns in Northern Iraq, the largest of which was
Mosul, a city of nearly two million approximately 400 kilometers north of the Iraqi capital of
Baghdad. In less than three weeks, the Iraqi government rapidly lost large swathes of territory in
northeastern Iraq. Emboldened by its unprecedented success in the offensive, ISIS announced the
creation of a caliphate, claiming religious, political, and military authority over the estimated 1.5
billion Muslims in the world, and naming as caliph its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (ISIS Fast
Facts). What soon followed was a devastating Internet beheading video campaign of Westerners
and Japanese, revealing the extreme evilness and brutality of the group, accompanied by
unrelenting reports of gruesome atrocities committed against Christians, Yazidis, and other nonMuslim minorities in conquered areas, as well as grisly Internet videos of mass executions of
hostages (UN Report Details Alleged). Iraq has been thrown into chaos, and the situation has
also turned into a massive humanitarian crisis, with millions of Iraqis displaced. On June 15, at
the invitation of the Iraqi government, the United States launched an intervention into Iraq to
help the resisting Iraqis and Kurds to counter the rapid progress of ISIS (Iraq ProfileTimeline).
While American involvement in the intervention has been confined to military advisors, training,
and airstrikes, debate has erupted on the extent to which the United States must involve itself in
the conflict, with policymakers breaking party boundaries to advocate their opinions. Some call
for a more active involvement in the intervention, foremost of which is the deployment of ground
troops to Iraq to battle ISIS. Others, however, wary of the risks involved in a second American
intervention in Iraq and of lessons learned in the Iraq War, advocate for limited or no

involvement in the conflict (Pianin). Because of the high costs associated with an American
intervention in Iraq, the potential radicalization of Islamist extremists brought forth by the further
militarization of the Middle East, and the possibility of increased destabilization in Iraq after a
second American intervention, the United States must not send ground troops into Iraq but
instead continue providing airstrikes, military advisors, and training to the forces currently
engaging the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in ground combat in Iraq.
The most relevant U.S. intervention in Iraq began in 2003, when President George W.
Bush ordered the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The invasion, which was a coalition effort spearheaded
by the United States and Great Britain, was launched with the intention of overthrowing the
oppressive Baath Party government of then-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, with the goals of
destroying Saddams alleged stockpile of weapons of mass destruction and bringing democracy
to the people of Iraq (Timeline: The Iraq War). As it turned out, the Iraqis did not possess any
WMDs, and the invasion did not turn out to be as simple, quick, and efficient as President Bush
had imagined (Krayewski). What had been predicted to be a days- or weeks-long invasion and
conquest devolved into an eight year, nine month-long struggle against Saddams forces as well
as other insurgent groups, that ended with the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from the country on
December 18, 2011 (Timeline: The Iraq War).
Although the invasion and occupation of Iraq did result in the overthrow of the Baath
Party government, the execution of Saddam Hussein, the establishment of a democratic, Shia-led
government, and the dramatic weakening of al-Qaeda in the country, the consequences of the war
outnumber all of these positive outcomes, resulting in increased destabilization in the region as a
whole in the form of the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant made possible by the
destruction of Saddams iron grip on his country (Katz).

Two months into the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and two weeks after President Bush declared
the end of major combat operations in Iraq, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, L.
Paul Bremer, signed an order disbanding the Iraqi army and intelligence services (Timeline: The
Iraq War). The break-up of Saddams security forces poured hundreds of thousands of
disgruntled soldiers and police officers onto the streets (US Invasion of Iraq). Unable to serve
under the new government, these former soldiers many of them high-ranking and skilled
officers joined ISIS. As the Middle East expert Fawaz Gerges told CNN, [This] has allowed
ISIS to basically have skills, to have motivation, to have command and control. Its a mini-army
fighting both in Iraq and Syria (Botelho).
Even before the disbandment of Saddam Husseins security forces, a group calling itself
Jamaat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (TJ), led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had been part of a coalition of
Sunni resistance groups fighting the American-led occupying forces. After swearing allegiance to
Osama bin Laden in 2004, al-Zarqawi changed the groups name to Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi
Bilad al-Rafidayn, informally known in the Western world as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). AQI
briefly became the Mujahedeen Shura Council in 2006, then the Islamic State of Iraq from 2006
to 2013, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant from 2013 to 2014, and finally the current selfproclaimed Islamic State in June 2014 (Hussain). Although it has continually proved itself to be
ruthless and inhumane beyond comparison, ISIS has still attracted thousands of Islamist radicals
and disillusioned Westerners into his ranks. Most of these young men and women many of
them Muslims had been lured into ISIS by its fatally effective propaganda, a sizable amount
of which exploits the generally bad results of American interventions in the Middle East to
portray the United States as an imperialistic, anti-Muslim monster that is one of the ultimate
enemies of Islam and Muslims as a whole. As Stephen Kinzer writes in The Boston Globe,

[ISIS] knows that the presence of American soldiers in the Middle East will attract more
radicals and misguided idealists to its cause. For many of these young men and women, fighting
Kurds or Shiite militias may not seem especially glorious. To face the mighty United States on
Middle Eastern soil, and if possible to kill an American or die at American hands, is their
dream. The destruction of Saddam Husseins iron grip over his country ended the stability Iraq
had enjoyed under his dictatorial rule. As Sajad Jiyad of the Iraqi Institute for Economic Reform
explains to Fox News, Obviously, there is a threat that you can trace that shows Daesh [another
acronym for ISIS] emerged because of the [2003] invasion. Its the lack of rule of law,
randomness of the violence and brutality that we see on a daily basis today that shocks people
(For Conflict-Weary Iraqis). The instability, chaos, and lack of rule of law in Iraq after the Iraq
War created a favorable environment in which extremism could and does thrive.
The high costs of the Iraq War must be taken into account as well. The U.S. government
spent a total of $1.7 trillion on the war, with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to
veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 billion over the next four decades (Trotta).
As has become apparent, the war only created far more and greater problems than it had sought
to solve, problems that the U.S. is seeking to resolve in the intervention it launched in June 2014.
As with the 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent Iraq War, the current American-led
intervention in Iraq to combat ISIS will turn out to last much longer than expected. Even then, as
with the Iraq War, there is no guarantee that the American-led coalition will score a decisive
victory against ISIS and resolve all of the issues it is intervening to resolve. The high costs
associated with an intervention will therefore all come to waste when the failure to accomplish
the goals of the intervention and the subsequent increased destabilization in the country of the
intervention are factored in.

As ISIS seeks to bring large swathes of the Middle East under its control, the anti-ISIS
forces must not let it achieve these goals. The more territory that falls to ISIS, the greater ISISs
power, the more difficult to defeat the group, the more humans under threat, and the greater the
humanitarian crisis. ISIS may even turn its sights on a nearby, predominantly Muslim state,
Saudi Arabia, the largest exporter of oil in the world, on which dozens of nations rely on for fuel.
ISIS must be contained before it expands and conquers more of the Middle East.
U.S. airstrikes, military advisors, and training, however, have proven beneficial for the
Iraqis and Kurds battling ISIS on the ground. Airstrikes are much safer for U.S. troops in Iraq, as
troops fire from targets from the air instead of engaging ISIS fighters in ground combat, where
there are far higher risks of death, injury, or capture. As has been seen with captured Iraqi troops,
ISIS applies its ruthless methods of execution on prisoners-of-war as well (ISIS Fast Facts).
Continued airstrikes, military advising, and training for the anti-ISIS forces will perhaps see the
tide turn against ISIS in the near future. Aggressive virtual media campaigns, such as the
hacktivist group Anonymouss current war against ISIS and Twitters shutting down of all ISISaffiliated accounts, will cripple the rebel groups power and outreach as well.
Because of the high costs associated with an American intervention in Iraq, the potential
radicalization of Islamist extremists brought forth by the further militarization of the Middle
East, and the possibility of increased destabilization in Iraq after a second American intervention,
the United States must not send ground troops into Iraq but instead continue providing airstrikes,
military advisors, and training to the forces currently engaging the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant in ground combat in Iraq. The Islamist State of Iraq and the Levant must be dealt with
accordingly and prudently, and destroyed.