Going the distance: does Islamic State have staying power?

Lastly, the legitimacy gained fighting holy wars is often lost as warriors transition to governing and new-found power corrupts. The Taliban in Afghanistan came to power in response to the chaos of a country in disintegration, divided into fiefdoms run by warlords where random threats to life, criminal activity and corruption ruled. Its original proposition to the people was as simple students restoring peace and order.

Less than five years later, the Taliban’s welcome was worn thin. The corruption driven by the opium trade and a perception of being Pakistani puppets undermined its legitimacy.

For IS, anecdotal reports suggest it has succeeded in re-establishing a functional economy with markets and goods available to residents across areas of their control. It has pushed out warlords and profiteers and punished criminals. According to one report, tax officials offer receipts for payments that are less than the bribes previously paid to the Assad regime.

Fundamentalist edicts determining the law may seem antiquated and counterproductive. However, if the perception of purity and holiness is applied, for example to combat corruption — a particularly hated element of life in Iraq and Syria — the results can be very effective. This transition to governing has been made all the more viable with IS’s takeover of Mosul. Its considerable financial resources have made IS one of the richest terrorist organizations in the world.

Snippets of information such as these suggest that IS is likely to last, especially as its power is buttressed by considerable support from Iraq’s disenfranchised Sunni Arabs.

Returning to the three critical factors for a functional state, any direct military involvement would only contribute to strengthening IS’s legitimacy in the eyes of its constituency, while the extreme brand of sharia law is unlikely to create a security vacuum that would weaken public security. The only remaining option to decision-makers is to weaken IS’s ability to monopolize the provision of basic needs to the people.

This option is morally fraught. It impacts those who are passive bystanders swept up in the turmoil of the Middle East rather than the active participants — the militants. But considering the extreme nature of the threat to this and future generations under their rule and those within their reach, as well as IS’s breaches of the most basic and universally held codes of morality, it may well be that in this case, the ends could justify the means.

Denis Dragovic is Adjunct Lecturer in International Development at University of Melbourne. This story is published courtesy of The Conversation (under Creative Commons-Attribution/No derivatives).