A path forward in Syria and Iraq, post-IS

The Manchester terror attack by an alleged IS ‘soldier’ will accelerate the push by the US and its allies to capture the terror group’s strongholds in Mosul and Raqqah. But it should also focus some urgent discussions about a post-IS strategy for stabilizing Iraq and Syria.
For all President Trump’s bombast about obliterating the IS, the Raqqah campaign has been delayed for months while US policymakers debated the wisdom of relying on a Syrian Kurdish militia known as the YPG that Turkey regards as a terrorist group. That group and allied Sunni fighters have been poised less than 10 miles from Raqqah, waiting for a decision.
All the while, the clock has been ticking on terror plots hatched by IS and directed from Raqqah. US officials told me a few weeks ago they were aware of at least five IS operations directed against targets in Europe. European allies have been urging the US to finish the job in Raqqah as soon as possible.
The horrific Manchester bombing is a reminder of the difficulty of containing the plots hatched in IS — and the cost of waiting to strike the final blows. IS is battered and in retreat, and its caliphate is nearly destroyed on the ground. But a virtual caliphate survives in the network that spawned Salman Abedi, the alleged Manchester bomber, and others who seek
to avenge the group’s slow
eradication.
The Raqqah assault should move ahead quickly, now that the Trump administration has rejected Turkish protests and opted to back the YPG as the backbone of a broader coalition known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. These are committed, well-led fighters, as I saw during a visit to a special forces training camp in northern Syria a year ago.
The Trump administration listened patiently to Turkish arguments for an alternative force backed by Ankara. But the Pentagon concluded that this force didn’t have any real battlefield presence, and that the real choice was either relying on the Kurdish-led coalition to clear Raqqah or sending in thousands of US troops to do the job.
The White House rightly opted for the first approach
several weeks ago.
To ease Ankara’s worries, the US is offering assurances that the Kurdish military presence will be contained, and that newly recruited Sunni tribal forces will help manage
security in Raqqah and nearby Deir el-Zour.
The endgame is near in Mosul, too. Commanders say that only about 6 percent of the city remains to be captured, with 500 to 700 IS extremists hunkered down in the old city west of the Tigris River.
Once Raqqah and Mosul are cleared, the challenge will be rebuilding the Sunni areas of Syria and Iraq — with real governance and security — so that follow-on extremist groups don’t quickly emerge. This idea of preparing for the ‘day after’ IS has gotten lip service from US policymakers for three years, but very little serious planning or funding. It should be an urgent priority for the US and its key Sunni partners.
Intelligence services from several key allies are said to have met in recent weeks with Sunni leaders from Iraq to form a core leadership that can take the initiative. But so far, this effort is said to have produced more internal bickering than clear strategy — a depressing rewind of failed efforts to build a coherent Sunni opposition
in Syria.
CIA Director Mike Pompeo told me and several other journalists in an interview on Tuesday that he plans to move the agency to a more aggressive, risk-taking stance. Here’s a place to start.
The Kurds are the wild cards in both Iraq and Syria. The Syrian Kurds are already governing the ethnic enclave they call “Rojava.” That should be an incentive for Syria’s Sunnis to develop similar strong government in their liberated areas. Meanwhile, Iraqi Kurds have told U.S. officials they plan to hold a referendum on Kurdish independence soon, perhaps as early
as September.
US officials feel a deep gratitude towards Iraqi Kurds, who have been reliable allies since the early 1990s. But the independence referendum is a potential flashpoint, and US officials may try to defer the Kurdish question until well after Iraqi provincial elections scheduled in September.
Iraq and Syria need to be reimagined as looser, better governed, more inclusive confederal states that give minorities room to breathe. The trick for policymakers is to make the post-IS transition a pathway toward progress, rather than a continuation of the sectarian catastrophe that has befallen both nations.

— Washington Post Writers Group

David R. Ignatius, is an American journalist and novelist. He is an associate editor and columnist for The Washington Post. He also co-hosts PostGlobal, an online discussion of international issues at Washingtonpost.com, with Fareed Zakaria