Gulan: One exact year is passing over the establishment of Islamic caliphate by ISIS terrorists. This year they are controlling more territories and they have better abilities than last year. In your opinion, the ISIS controlled territory is a land-lock with no borders and sea. In addition, they don’t have airports. What is the secret of ISIS’s strengthening and extending?

Gulan: One exact year is passing over the establishment of Islamic caliphate by ISIS terrorists. This year they are controlling more territories and they have better abilities than last year. In your opinion, the ISIS controlled territory is a land-lock with no borders and sea. In addition, they don’t have airports. What is the secret of ISIS’s strengthening and extending?

Hannah: In the first place, ISIS has proven itself to be an effective fighting force, more of an army than a mere terrorist group. Its commanders and fighters are well armed and combat hardened. They appear to have strong financing and good intelligence. They are highly motivated and prepared to do whatever is necessary to impose their will on their adversaries, including use of the most brutal, terror-inducing tactics.

Second, ISIS has been blessed by very weak enemies – principally the highly sectarian, polarizing regimes in Damascus and Baghdad, respectively, that have succeeded in alienating huge swathes of their populations, particularly the Sunni communities. ISIS succeeded in no small part because the Iraqi government failed. Most Sunnis may not have welcomed ISIS’s invasion of their cities and towns. But they didn’t oppose it either. It was this deep ambivalence among Iraqi Sunnis, the feeling that they had no stake in fighting to defend a repressive, sectarian, Iranian-dominated government in Baghdad, that created the opportunity that ISIS has masterfully exploited.

A third point worth stressing is that not only did the Maliki regime completely antagonize Iraqi Sunnis, it also hollowed out and destroyed the effectiveness of the Iraqi army and security forces. The state’s legitimate institutions of order and coercion have been decimated. They are plagued by bad leadership, endemic corruption, low morale, and sectarianism. They have proven largely incapable of standing up to ISIS, much less pushing it out of Iraq.

Finally, it must be said that ISIS has also benefitted from a relatively weak international response to its establishment of a proto-terrorist state in the heart of the Middle East. U.S. leadership in the region is at a low ebb and no other country is capable of stepping up to take America’s place. The Obama administration has identified defeating ISIS as a vital U.S. interest, but it has refused to commit the diplomatic, economic, and military resources necessary to achieve that goal in a reasonable time frame.

Gulan: Middle East has become a huge international violent zone and experts think that the region is heading towards a bloody war between Sunnis and Shiites. In your opinion, where is the violence in Middle East heading to?

Hannah: I don’t think anyone can confidently predict what the Middle East will look like one year from now, much less 10 years from now. Historic processes of war, violence, and instability have been unleashed. Lots of different scenarios are possible, most of them bad.
What I do feel comfortable stating, however, is that from the perspective of a U.S. policymaker, simply standing on the sidelines, throwing up our hands, and abandoning the Middle East to the forces of chaos is not a wise or prudent course. Withdrawing all U.S. forces from Iraq and watching the Syrian civil war escalate year after year did nothing to make Americans more secure. On the contrary, it helped create a dangerous vacuum that dramatically strengthened the two forces that pose the greatest threat to U.S. regional interests – the Sunni extremism of ISIS and Al Qaeda, on the one hand, and of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the IRGC on the other. Together, they are ripping the Middle East apart, threatening to trigger a broader Sunni-Shiite war, the violent disintegration of key states, massive refugee crises, nuclear proliferation, and an escalation in transnational terrorism – including against the West.

The future of the Middle East looks very dark right now, of that there is no doubt. But I fear it will look much darker still in the absence of determined U.S. leadership and commitment to mobilize the forces of global order to contain and marginalize the forces of unrestrained terror, anarchy, and brutality.

Gulan: States in Middle East are not just failed states, but the state system has been failed in this area in the way they cannot preserve their sovereignty. To what extent is it easy for international community to change state system or to re-organize the state borders in order to return stability to the area?

Hannah: Anyone who says that the Middle East state system can be easily altered is simply not telling the truth. History suggests quite clearly, I believe, that the birth and death of nations are not usually peaceful events. On the contrary, they are generally accompanied by high levels of violence, bloodshed, and human suffering. The full consequences and costs are often not anticipated in advance. And don’t forget that this is the Middle East, where almost nothing goes according to plan and where an Arab Spring can turn to an Arab Winter almost overnight. Things are indeed bad now. But they can get worse. Much worse.

Of course, events could deteriorate so badly that we will have no choice but to re-draw key parts of the current regional map. But no one should fool themselves into believing that the process will be easy or simple. We might hope for the best. But we should plan for the worst.
Gulan: Among the changes that are expected to happen in Middle East, we see that there are different Arabic, Turkish and Iranian projects, in particular while Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey are willing to have their trace in the future of the area. How can the west maintain a balance between all these projects in the area?

Hannah: The most important thing the United States can do is maintain its role as the region’s most powerful actor, mobilizing its friends and allies on behalf of collective policies that are designed to advance our vital interests in Middle East security, stability and reform.
The most dangerous thing we can do is allow the perception to fester that America is retrenching or withdrawing from the Middle East. That creates a dangerous vacuum in the region that both our friends and our enemies will seek to fill in ways that are unlikely to serve long-term U.S. interests.

Gulan: United States is doing its best for preserving unity of Iraq, but on the real ground Iraq has been divided in which Iraqi government has authority only in Baghdad and Shiite provinces in the south. In other words, the government is representing only Shiite people of the country. Don’t you agree that American insisting on the unity of Iraq is serving Iranian interests by letting Iraq further turn into an Iranian extension?

Hannah: The problem plaguing U.S. policy is not the goal of a democratic, federal, and unified Iraq. The problem is the failure to pursue policies that would have maximized the chances of achieving that goal. Backing Maliki for prime minister in 2010 was a move that undermined Iraq’s unity instead of strengthening it. It bolstered Iranian influence instead of weakening it. The same was true of the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in 2011. It created a massive vacuum that triggered more sectarianism, division, and Iranian interference – not less.
Similarly, today, the U.S. willingness to allow Iranian-backed Shiite militias to be the main force battling ISIS on the ground will almost surely backfire. It might achieve some tactical victories over ISIS, but at the same time it will contribute to the further alienation of Iraq’s Sunnis and the consolidation of Iranian domination in Baghdad. We might win the battle, but lose the war for a functioning Iraqi state that while highly decentralized is still sovereign, independent, and unified.

Gulan: Kurdish question is one of the suspended problems in Middle East. Currently it is only the Kurds who have been able to defeat terrorism on the ground. Moreover, Kurds are having some values in common with United States and The West and want to be independent. In your opinion, to what extent is the establishment of independent Kurdistan important for defeating ISIS terrorists?

Hannah: After some initial setbacks last August, the Kurds of Iraq have fought ISIS heroically, recovering nearly all of the KRG territory that was lost. U.S. air support has been crucial to that effort, as has the broader support of the international community. There’s no doubt in my mind that American training, assistance, and cooperation with the KRG must be deepened and expanded. Developing a truly strategic partnership between the United States and a strong, prosperous, reforming KRG should be a major goal of U.S. policy, and an important pillar for re-establishing at least a measure of stability and security in the broader region.

But while the KRG has played a crucial role in fighting ISIS, I believe the key to defeating it ultimately resides not among the Kurds, but among the Sunnis. The Kurds cannot, will not, and should not be the ones who ultimately defeat ISIS and push it out of Anbar and Ninewa. Only Iraq’s Sunni community can do that. That is their land, their cities, their towns. The United States, the KRG, the rest of the international community, and most importantly the Iraqi government need to be doing everything in their power to help mobilize Iraq’s Sunnis to defeat ISIS and take their communities back.