We may be witnessing the end of the extremist group Islamic State (IS) as we know it.
Over the weekend, the coalition of Turkish military soldiers and Syrian rebel groups, backed by a small number of U.S. Special Operations Forces and air support, captured the Syrian city of Dabiq from IS. In and of itself, this would be an important battle. The Turkish-led coalition is now set to advance toward Al-Bab, IS's westernmost stronghold in northern Syria, a position that lies on the most important road that runs between Aleppo city and Turkey.
Perhaps even more importantly, IS's propaganda states that Dabiq is the city from which the apocalypse will start. The city is so important to the extremist group that its English-language magazine, one of IS's most important recruiting tools beyond the physical borders of its "state," shares the city's name.
And yet, there was no epic battle for Dabiq. The last 100 IS militants withdrew without a fight. There will be no apocalypse, it seems.
But that wasn't even the main headline. On the morning of October 17, the world awoke to find that a full-throated effort to dislodge IS from its most important stronghold in Iraq, Mosul, had been launched by Kurdish Peshmerga forces and the Iraqi military, bolstered by U.S. air strikes and Special Operations Forces.
An animation made by LiveUAMap shows how IS's easternmost flank began crumbling in just a few hours. Iraqi Kurdish leader Masud Barzani told Al-Jazeera that the operation had captured over 200 square kilometers of territory from IS on Day 1. Al-Jazeera also reported that this included nine villages outside the main city. Progress on Day Two was slower, but still steady.
Simply put, the "dawla," the state controlled by IS, is collapsing. To be sure, the fight for Mosul will be very tough. Videos taken by international media organizations like CNN show IS fighters dug in. One fighter is seen jumping out of a hole and shooting Peshmerga fighters in an ambush before blowing himself up in an unsuccessful suicide attack. IS also launched several waves of car-bomb attacks against the Peshmerga front lines. Despite the hopes of many in the anti-IS coalition, it seems the extremists are going to fight for the villages outside Mosul, and everyone seems to fear that the fighting inside the city will be even worse.
But Mosul will fall. The crumbling of the dawla is now inevitable.
Turkish forces are rolling across IS's territory in Syria in the west, the battle rages in Mosul in the east, and at IS's center, Kurdish forces, backed by the United States, are within 50 kilometers from the extremist group's headquarters, Raqqa.
A World War II Land Grab
This situation has a historic parallel. In 1944 and 1945, the defeat of the Axis powers was already nearly guaranteed. In Europe in particular, what transpired then was a race between competing interests to capture as much territory as they could before the war came to a close. The Soviet Union stormed into German-occupied territory from the east, the allied powers of the United States, United Kingdom, and a coalition of fighters from across the world pushed from the Atlantic Ocean in the west. After the war was over, the United States sought to shape the territory it controlled through the Marshall Plan, a bid to rebuild and unify Western Europe in order to prevent future conflicts there and stop the spread of communism. The Soviets in the east were less subtle, opting to directly control the territory they had captured in the hopes of advancing their own imperial goals. The result of the final days of the war with Germany thus shaped the entire future of geopolitical and regional power dynamics, which resonate to this day.
With such grand consequences, it's easy to forget that all of this was determined inch by inch, foxhole by foxhole, region by town by neighborhood, by the actions and reactions of individual soldiers and commanders on both sides.
In the Middle East, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq are all competing for power, but so, too, are various sectarian groups -- Sunnis, Shi'a, and Kurds. What may appear like a united front to end IS is really a fractured coalition of powers, each with competing interests.
Inside Iraq, the Kurdish Peshmerga are clearly making a power play, asserting its military might while wrangling for political -- and perhaps physical -- territory. Iraq's Kurds have wanted greater autonomy or independence from Baghdad for a very long time, and the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq granted them that opportunity. IS poses an existential threat to that autonomy, but it also presents a great asset. By the end of this campaign, the Kurds will have played a major role in the reestablishing of order in the country, and they will have proven their military effectiveness.
Against this backdrop, the besieged government of Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi is struggling to win the narrative. Abadi has been locked in a prolonged battle with those who oppose his reform agenda, including his predecessor, Nuri al-Maliki, who has undermined him at nearly every opportunity. But Abadi has also had to placate Shi'ite militiamen, many loyal to the infamous Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who are frustrated at the lack of reforms and Abadi's desire to free Iraq from sectarian politics, which hard-line sectarians like Sadr blame for the growing influence of the Kurds and the previously unchecked power of IS: Sunni militants. Abadi has attempted to stress the involvement of Iraq's military in the victories over IS. In reality, Shi'ite militias played a major role in the victory over IS in Fallujah and are likely to be heavily involved in the Mosul campaign, as well. While the extent of the ties between the various Shi'ite militia groups and Iran is a complicated issue, clearly Iran is also seeking to increase or at least maintain its own level of influence in Iraq through Shi'ite dominance.
Further complicating the picture: the involvement of Turkey in both the Syrian and Iraqi fronts. In August, just one month after a failed coup attempt aimed to topple the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish forces crossed the border into Syria to launch their own offensive against IS. At the time, however, I wrote that Turkey's primary motive was obviously not the fight against Islamic State. After all, Turkey has shared a border with IS for two years. Instead, Turkey was reacting to U.S.-backed Kurdish groups that were rapidly advancing deep into IS territory, occupying space that was once controlled by moderate Syrian rebel groups that Turkey has supported for years.
Not only was Turkey watching its proxies lose territory to IS and the coalition that supports the Syrian government, Erdogan was also watching one of his principal rivals -- Kurdish groups with ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) -- fill that vacuum.
In the short term, Erdogan's gamble in Syria has produced exactly the results he had hoped. IS is retreating, almost without a fight. The Kurdish groups have withdrawn from some of the territory right on Turkey's border.
About one month ago, I sat down with Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek on the sidelines of the Yalta European Strategy meeting in Kyiv. He was enthusiastically bragging about Turkey's intervention in Syria and broke the news to me that U.S. special operations forces were assisting the mission, dubbed Operation Euphrates Shield. But in comments made during a panel earlier that day, Simsek stressed that the Erdogan government is beset by enemies on all sides -- IS and Kurdish extremists had both ramped up terrorist attacks in the months preceding the coup, and then there was the coup itself. Simsek stressed the narrative that followers of Fethullah Gulen had infiltrated all levels of the Turkish government and the crackdown on dissenters and the purge of suspected Gulenists that many in the West claimed was authoritarian was really the reestablishment of democratic values.
Journalists and experts present for Simsek's comments were rightfully skeptical. Still, the exchange was a clear illustration of the central issue in Turkish politics: Many aspects of Turkish society -- from the economy to the security situation to Turkey's regional standing -- have been challenged in recent years. Turkey's intervention in Syria, and the Turkish government's purge of suspected Gulenists, are Erdogan's attempt to reestablish some element of control, at least over the narrative, if nothing else.
RFE/RL spoke with Ilhan Tanir, a Turkish analyst and journalist based in Washington, D.C., who stressed that Erdogan is busy creating a narrative.
"The economy is doing terribly," Tanir said. In order to distract from Turkey's problems, Erdogan, much like Putin, has created external crises for him to fight, whether that be Gulenists and the Kurdish PKK at home, or IS and the Kurdish groups affiliated with the PKK beyond Turkey's borders. One consequence of the coup, Tanir explained, is that the Turkish media have either been targeted by the postcoup purge or are now echoing the Turkish government's party line.
"There is no critical media left in Turkey, and so whatever Erdogan says right now goes straight to the public," he said.
Erdogan, however, will soon face another problem with this narrative: His intervention in Syria is literally running out of room. With Dabiq having been liberated from IS, Turkey will set its sights on Al-Bab, a large and strategic town on a key road that runs from Aleppo city to the Turkish border. However, once Al-Bab is in Turkish control, Erdogan will have a new problem: In order to advance to IS's next stronghold, Raqqa, Turkey may have to move through territory currently controlled by U.S.-backed Kurdish groups or by the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. At the moment, neither of those options is attractive to Turkey as they could broaden the conflict and alienate either Russia or the United States -- or both. There may be nowhere to go.
In other words, if Erdogan is dependent on external crises to serve his political needs, he may run out of crises. It is for this reason that Erdogan wants the Turkish military to get involved in the fight for Mosul.
On October 18, Erdogan said that Turkey has a "historical responsibility" in Mosul and Kirkuk, as they were both historically Turkish land, therefore, "If we say we want to be both at the table and in the field, there is a reason."
He also warned Iraq's Shi'ite militias, which have been accused of anti-Sunni atrocities, to not get involved in the fight. As of right now, however, the government in Baghdad has rejected Turkey's request to join the fight in Mosul, and on October 18 thousands protested outside the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad against a Turkish military presence in Iraq. Two of Turkey's best-known media organizations, Daily Sabah and Anadolu, said that the protests were "dangerous" and had been organized by Muqtada al-Sadr.
If Turkey is not allowed to intervene in Mosul, will it try to anyway? Will Turkey attack Kurdish forces in Syria, even if it angers the United States?
"What's going on in Iraq and Syria is a land grab," Tanir told RFE/RL. Various factions -- the Kurds, the Turks, the Shi'a -- are all using the fight against Islamic State to advance their own causes. And just like how the 1945 land grab in Europe and Asia set the stage for the Cold War, so, too, will the events in the Middle East impact the power struggle in the region for years to come.
