The beheading of American journalist James Foley this week is the latest in a series of brutal attacks in Iraq and Syria perpetrated by the Islamic State (ISIS).
The killing comes in response to President Obama's decision to provide aerial and tactical support to Iraqi government forces and Kurdish Peshmerga as they attempt to retake areas seized by IS in recent weeks.
“The jihadists have created their own state,” says Joshua Landis, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and the author of the widely read blog Syria Comment. “Today they own a third of Syria and Iraq, an area the size of Maryland.”
The Islamic State’s violence is infamous. As it swept into Iraq from Syria, the group targeted religious and ethnic minorities as well as moderate Muslims, killing thousands and forcing thousands more to convert or flee.
“They're trying to use the same tactics they've used successfully against Syrian tribes and other rebels, which is to terrify them,” Landis says. “And people have submitted to them and joined them because they can't fight them.”
So far it seems President Obama is only pursuing a policy of containment against ISIS.
“Push them out of Iraq, contain them in Syria. That's been our strategy for the last three and a half years,” Landis says. “He's going to try to hurt ISIS badly and roll them back in Iraq because we have partners in Iraq, we have the Kurdish Peshmerga and we have this new prime minister that we seem to be holding a lot of stock by, al-Abadi in Baghdad. We don’t have partners in Syria.”
Syria has been in the midst of civil war since 2011, which has caused the partial collapse of the state. Landis says this chaos allowed for the consolidation and growth of IS in the first place. Obama administration, though, is not likely to get involved.
“Contain violence in Syria. Don't try to solve it,” Landis says. “And chances are Obama's going to stick to his script.”
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