Short: Why is Libya Important to the Islamic State?

Reader Nathan asked if I would make a Libya post and then, helpfully, gave me some truly awesome source information. Thanks, Nathan!

The big question here is: why ISIS is putting so much effort into expanding into Libya when it's losing ground in Iraq and having mixed success in Syria? (To elaborate a bit: ISIS does need to put recruiting, training, and physical resources into Libya, and foreign Jihadis going to Libya aren't going to Iraq/Syria to reinforce there, so it's definitely an investment.)

The article starts with a translation of an ISIS strategy document, which outlines to ISIS and fellow Islamic extremist groups the motivations for going to Libya.

I'll briefly sum up the main points below, but the key takeaway is that ISIS isn't looking to Libya primarily or urgently for attacks in Italy. Despite its apocalyptic machinations, ISIS' first priority is to actually establish the Caliphate: to them, that includes a very ambitious plan that is way bigger than the previous Caliphate of the dark/middle ages.

Adding to this of course are the gains that the Ottomans made in the 1200s-1400s that included areas in India, the rest of Turkey, the known Muslim areas in northern Africa, and some of the Balkans. IS wants all of this stuff and, for whatever reason, all of India. Why IS would want to rule India is not yet clear to me.

via The Daily Mail

The summary of the strategic document, in short:

• The Islamic State really does want to cover all of the Muslim World
• Libya is a window of opportunity: the strength of militants, rise of Jihadi groups, and government division mean that IS can establish a foothold there
• It's under less pressure than Iraq and is a pretty free operating space for regional operations (where IS is on the defensive in Iraq and still under lots of bombing/Kurdish pressure in Syria)
• It has access to nearby states that IS wants to spread to, many of which have potential allies (particularly Niger, Mail, and Algeria)
• It has access to battle-hardened recruits in Libya, Algeria, and Sudan [added after post]
• Indeed it does have access to Southern Europe--there are human trafficking operations that could more easily move militants to Italy and elsewhere for expanded terror operations--probably "some 20 militants shooting up Rome for a few hours" kind of mayhem

The Atlantic's Must-Read Article on ISIS

For all that my (and everyone else's) general disgust of ISIS tends to cause us to only see the psychotic thuggery of their movement, it is very much worth getting into the heads of these guys in order to consider how to defeat them. Tens of thousands have flocked to the "Caliphate" to wage an endless religious war of constant expansion, very much trying to mimic the expansion of the Caliphate during and after the reign of Muhammed himself. There is something terrifyingly appealing about ISIS in a way that previous extremists just did not have, and it is important to understand their appeal and purpose: these have been the reasons that ISIS has been so frighteningly successful where other attempts at creating extremist Islamic states have failed.

While I am a bit bashful at my own previous lack of curiosity around the theology behind ISIS, I was finally enlightened when a friend shared an article by The Atlantic that is, I think, the most impressive single foreign policy article that I have read in years.

Throughout, the article has a great discussion about the appeal of ISIS's extreme (but not out-of-left-field) interpretation of the Koran.

An interesting digression one could have in response is philosophical. Nietzsche predicted that the modern age (after the "death" of God) would bring about, on the one hand, a sad sort of hedonism ("just enjoy life") and on the other, incredibly destructive fanaticism as a reaction. The natural human need to be part of something bigger than having material comfort and enjoyment--as offered in the West--makes the kind of insanity that is fascism, communism, or religious extremism appealing. The desperate human craving for meaning to our lives makes us susceptible to giddily throwing our lives--and the lives of others--at the State, the People, or God, depending on the circumstance.

In these cases, flexibility is impossible: if someone else's creed is just as plausible as mine, then mine cannot be The Truth, and thus my sacrifice and effort are meaningless.

ISIS has much greater appeal than al-Qaeda: the latter is merely fighting, the former is creating the Caliphate itself and even bringing about the apocalypse of the crude and corrupt material world to finally create God's kingdom on Earth (which from any millenialist perspective is the most important of things).

There has been much writing on the topic (perhaps most famously by Samuel Huntington in A Clash of Civilizations), but I think we must be prepared for religious extremism to be a matter of extended worldwide ideological struggle in the way fascism was in the mid 20th century  and communism was later. The madness and barbarism that is ISIS, al-Qaeda, and all of its fellow affiliates plaguing almost the entire Muslim world will not be stamped out by drone strikes, and the message of "freedom" will do worse than fall on deaf ears: it will reinforce their concept of the total moral bankruptcy in the modern "just have fun" society.