What is the secret behind the success of ISIS (Daesh)?

ISIS was founded in Iraq in 2004 under the name of "Tawhid and Jihad" by Abu Musa Zarqawi. He later joined al-Qaeda led by Osama Bin Laden and changed its name to "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia". Parallel to the weakening of al-Qaeda, he left this organization again and made his own way. In this way, it was more successful than Al-Qaeda, and by 2014, ISIS' military strength in Syria alone had increased to 6-7 thousand militants. The number of armed members in Iraq was over 10 thousand.

Its strengthening was not only manifested in the increase in the number of militants. The borders of the region under his control also expanded rapidly. Thus, ISIS, which captured the settlements of Mümbiç in Syria, oil-rich Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor (Deir al-Zor) near the Iraqi border, managed to dominate Fallujah and Ramadi in Anbar province in Iraq until the beginning of 2014.

After that, he captured Mosul, which has rich oil fields and a large water reserve and a strategic location at the intersection of roads. After Mosul, he took Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein. At the end of 2014, it captured some areas in the east and south of Ayn al-Arab (Kobani), an important settlement on Syria's border with Turkey.

Thus, he had the opportunity to control the region up to the border of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, along the strategic line starting from the Turkish border, including Mesopotamia, where the Euphrates and Tigris rivers draw their borders. The dominance of ISIS, which extends from the north of Aleppo, Syria's largest city, to 40 km from the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and where the Sunni Arab population is in the majority, has effectively abolished the border between Syria and Iraq.

The Strategy Implemented by ISIS and the Developments It Caused

Things started to change after ISIS reached Turkey's borders. Until then, many countries, which were content to watch what was going on despite all the brutality, started to get directly involved in the events. The fact that the organization started to take actions in different countries while it was only killing local people until then was also effective in this. But the main reason was that his strategy was noticed. Because, thanks to this strategy, it became stronger day by day and created the danger of changing the political map of the entire region. This situation has alarmed many countries whose political, economic and military interests are under permanent threat.

These countries have started to pay closer attention to the Syrian civil war in line with their own interests. As a result, a de facto struggle emerged not only between ISIS and these countries, but also between these countries. For example, in 2015, Turkey and Russia came close to the brink of war in the downing of the aircraft.

In the following process, the alliance relationship between USA and Turkey, which has been going on for years and has been described as strategic, began to be damaged. Because the USA was saying that some of the organizations that Turkey supports in the region are affiliated with its arch-enemy, Al-Qaeda. Therefore, instead of these organizations, it preferred to support the PYD, which is an extension of the PKK and which Turkey perceives as a great threat to itself.

After that, everyone started attacking ISIS, which they considered as a terrorist organization. However, these attacks were the moves of the states that were effective in Syria, rather than the fight against terrorism, to limit each other and to pave the way for the organizations they supported.

Over time, this process brought along a very important break in the Middle East and even world politics after the Cold War. The Assad regime, which was destined to collapse, managed to survive with Russian support. In return, Russia has become a player of the global game in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean, by securing a permanent base in Syria.

When a large area in Syria came under the control of the PYD, the interests of Turkey clashed with those of the United States. Turkey, which has been under the threat of partition since 1984, defied Russia and the USA after the separatist threat grew stronger on its southern border, and despite a major crisis such as the July 15 coup d'état, it actually entered Syrian territory at the end of 2016. Later, operations were carried out in other regions and Turkey took control of a large area.

This situation, interestingly, caused the deterioration of relations with the USA rather than Russia. As a result, Turkey moved away from the United States and started to get closer to Russia. Thus, Turkey, which put forward the NATO and USA card in the plane crash crisis in late 2015, started to experience a major axis shift as of 2016. In fact, it later bought air defense missiles from Russia despite US threats.

These developments also affected Turkey's internal structure. After actually intervening in the conflicts, the number of people migrating from Syria to Anatolia grew like an avalanche. Thus, millions of Syrian refugees came to Turkey. These are mass migrations while first gathering in tent cities.

These cities fell short of time and the immigrants got out of control and spread all over the country.

Parallel to the deterioration of economic stability, these immigrants drew the reaction of different segments of the population. Nationalist rhetoric was even reflected in the speeches of the left. Meanwhile, some of the immigrants started to go to EU countries illegally. Thereupon, the EU promised to provide financial aid to Turkey in return for keeping the immigrants in its country. When this promise was not fully kept, Turkey relaxed the measures and in 2015 a large number of immigrants left for Europe.

This situation started an intense marathon of negotiations between the EU and Turkey. In addition, it was revealed that a great human tragedy was experienced when the images of the children who died in the Aegean Sea and the immigrants who were tripped by Western journalists were published in the media and social media. These events brought along accusations of human rights violations against the EU and especially the EU countries where the migration wave reached.

This situation even had an impact on the political developments in Eastern Europe. When Lukashenko, who has been ruling his country for a long time with an iron fist, declared that he had won the elections held in Belarus in 2020, things got mixed up. People took to the streets in the cities, but the Lukashenko police stood against the protesters and suppressed the events by taking drastic measures. On top of that, it faced sanctions announced by EU countries and the USA.

Lukashenko, who tried to find a basis for an agreement for a while, realized that this was not possible, and declared that he would not protect the EU borders against immigrants by imitating Turkey's 2015 experience. After this statement, migrants in Turkey and people living in other conflict zones jumped on planes to Belarus and flocked to the EU borders.

Thus, a crisis emerged between the EU, the USA, Belarus and Russia, in which the parties accused each other of using hybrid warfare methods. In recent days, this crisis has reached the stage of turning into a general war with Russia massing thousands of soldiers on the Ukrainian border.

As can be seen, ISIS managed to influence the whole world, albeit indirectly, with its success after 2004. However, when it was at the peak of its power, it weakened rapidly as a result of the attacks of the warring parties in Iraq and Syria and the countries that were party to these wars, and today it has become too narrow to be taken seriously. That's why it fell off the agenda, but the secrets of its success are still being discussed by various circles.

When the spread areas of ISIS are examined, it is understood that the success of the organization is due to its strategy that is suitable for the conditions of the region it applies. This strategy is built on three pillars. The first of these is the control of water basins, the second is the control of oil resources, and the third is the control of transportation routes.

This check was largely completed in 2014. In 2014, ISIS captured the oil-rich Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor in Syria and the oil fields of Mosul and Beyci in Iraq. The organization also gained control over the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, the largest water resources in the Middle East. Since these regions also controlled important roads, ISIS had the opportunity to control transportation as well.

The most important of these three elements was the control of watersheds. Because water has been the main reason for all developments in the Middle East throughout history. Moreover, today, the importance of water has increased even more than in the past. The reason for this is global warming, which has become increasingly serious recently, and the resulting decrease in precipitation.

In fact, one of the most important causes of the Syrian civil war is the decrease in the amount of water. Because water scarcity caused the collapse of Syria's agricultural sector, and thus the economic collapse. In Syria, the majority of the people lived in villages and made a living from agriculture and animal husbandry. But in the last five years before the civil war, precipitation rates have dropped so dramatically that farming in these villages has become extremely difficult.

Thereupon, there was a very rapid and intense migration from villages to cities. Migration from villages to cities became massive in the last five years before the war started. It can be said that the son Esat's softening the practices of the oppressive Baathist administration also had an effect on this.

Due to this migration, the population of the cities increased suddenly and excessively. Since Syrian cities are industrially backward cities, most of these immigrants could not find a job to work and make a living. The infrastructure of the cities was not in a position to support such a rapid population growth. For this reason, people who migrated to the cities began to live in crowded populations, in dilapidated slums, half-starved and half-fed. This situation created an unhappy and rebellious mass, especially among the youth.

Unlike these people, those who held the regime led a very luxurious life. I saw this luxurious life in person and with my own eyes. I say this with ease. At that time, when the newest car in the country was 20-30 years old, I was surprised to see the latest model cars in Latakia. When I asked a Syrian colonel who was accompanying me, although he was of Turkmen origin, who hid this for fear of losing his position, he told me that these cars belonged to the children of the Baath Party administrators. Luxurious houses overlooking the bay also belonged to this group.

The poor people who migrated to the city, who saw the luxurious life of the Esat family who held the administration and the members of the circles in cooperation with the regime, began to hate the Assad family and the regime when they saw this situation that they were not aware of when they were in their villages.

in Syria; Although it weakened considerably, there was a PKK Terrorist Organization that had a certain influence and control over the Kurdish population with the help of organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood from the 70s-80s and the Assad regime for years. After the 2nd Gulf Operation, radical religious organizations in neighboring Iraq also formed a certain base in some Syrian cities and tribes. In this state, Syria was like a bomb ready to explode before the civil war started. When the regime became extremely afraid of the Arab spring and turned to its brutal methods during the reign of father Assad, it lit this fuse with its own hand.

If we go back to the strategy implemented by ISIS; When ISIS seized the strategic areas on the banks of the Euphrates and the Tigris River and took control of the water basins, it first had the opportunity to solve the problem of finding militants, money and supporters. Because the people, who could not live without water, had to swear allegiance to him.

As a matter of fact, ISIS reached the peak of its power after capturing Mosul, which has a large water reserve with its dam built on the Tigris. Because ISIS did not only use this water to connect the people to itself, but also made big money by selling it to people living in remote areas by tankers or pipes.

Money is the most basic resource to grow an organization and gain militants. It is even more important than ideology. Otherwise, it would not have been possible for ISIS, the most brutal organization in the world, to spread over a wide area in a short time. It is understood that the organization is also aware of this and has determined to reach the financial resources as its first target.

Oil was the most important source of money in the region after water. That's why ISIS took over the oil fields as well. However, he had a big problem with this. That problem was the sale of oil. It was not possible for him to make a lot of money by selling oil to the people living in the area he controlled. Because the population in this region was limited and the industry was so weak that it was almost non-existent.

He was surrounded by hostile elements. Despite this, they were selling oil through smugglers in Northern Iraq, other parts of Syria, and even Assad-controlled areas. But because of its abundant resources, this market was both insufficient and risky. For this reason, they tried to seize a large area parallel to the border by spreading to the Turkish border.

At that time, politicians in Turkey described ISIS as “three or five offended youth” and saw it as a force that could be cooperated with. Because they were the local power that was the fastest advancing and had the most important resources in the region. They could have been used to overthrow the Assad regime and even redraw the borders. Moreover, monetary gain was possible. As a matter of fact, at that time, there were many reports in the press that ISIS oil was smuggled through Turkey.

Approaching the Turkish border and taking control of a large area on the border also meant controlling trade, the most important means of making money throughout history. Because, if the transportation routes leading to Turkey, northern Syria and Iraq via Latakia and Aleppo were taken under control, the trade in the region could also be brought under control. Thanks to the control of these roads; It was also possible to cut off the connection between the Assad regime and the PYD region and prevent the PYD from leaving the Mediterranean.

Conclusion:

The success of all three of its three-pronged strategies enabled ISIS to quickly dominate most of Syria and Iraq. ISIS is not an organization with the vision to determine such a strategy on its own. If it did, it would not take its actions outside the Middle East and would try to contact other countries, taking into account their interests. But he didn't. Thus, he made enemies of all parties and paid the price for this by coming to the point of extinction.

It is possible to say that ISIS is probably someone's pawn, considering that although it used such a sophisticated strategy while rising, it failed to develop any logical strategy to protect it after reaching the zenith of its power.

It is also possible to say that it is an organization that rises spontaneously and disappears at the same rate as the conjuncture changes, thanks to a small leadership team that makes good use of the vacuum created by cyclical developments.

However, whatever n ISIS has had a great influence, albeit indirectly, on the political and military developments in the Middle East and even in the world.