That’s how Jennifer Keister characterizes the declaration of the so-called Islamic State. Good luck, she says, finding skilled technocrats to govern the “caliphate”:
As the BBC’s Jim Muir notes, “if the caliphate project is to take root, it will need administrators and experts in many fields, whom Abu Bakr al Baghdadi is clearly hoping will flood to heed his call.” ISIS has demonstrated some capacity to do this in Syrian cities like Raqqa, where observers note its extensive and coercive reach into residents’ lives. But as any administrator will tell you, competent technocrats are not necessarily easy to come by. For ISIS, much may depend on how its declaration of the caliphate is taken among well-qualified individuals elsewhere, and the group’s willingness to engage in the compromise and politicking to build alliances. It is possible well-qualified personnel may find ISIS’s announcement attractive (augmented by the group’s ability to pay them, at least for now). But such individuals often bring with them their own political and religious preferences. If ISIS refuses to compromise, it will be fishing for administrators in a doubly shallow pool of those with sufficient competence and affinity for its particular ideological brand. Moreover, if ISIS does attract quality personnel, using them for administrative demands means the group cannot simultaneously use their skills in leading or planning attacks to expand or defend ISIS territory.
Thomas Hegghammer analyzes the Islamic State’s long-term position:
Judged by the standards of transnational jihadi groups, ISIS is doing exceptionally well. Never before has an Islamist group this radical had so much territory, so much money, and so many Western recruits. Even if ISIS was literally decimated—that is, reduced to a tenth of its current size—it would still be one of the largest jihadi groups in the world. However, by the standards of national insurgencies, ISIS is in some trouble.
Further expansion—to Baghdad, Saudi Arabia, or Jordan—is highly unlikely given the obstacles in their way. They may preserve much of their territorial gains in Iraq in the next few months, but within a year the Iraqi government should, with U.S. assistance, be able to push them back to where they were in early 2014. In the longer term, ISIS may face governance strain in its remaining areas as locals tire of strict moral policing and economic stagnation. In addition, they face a broad alliance of intelligence services that knows more and more about them. Three years from now, ISIS will probably be substantially weaker than it is today, but for reasons other than the caliphate declaration.
The jihadis’ targeting of shrines, Juan Cole adds, is threatening to undermine its popular support:
Although the so-called “Islamic State” has destroyed several Sunni, Sufi and Shiite shrines and places of worship in the past month, probably the most significant is the tomb of medieval saint Ahmad al-Rifa`i (d. 1183 AD). The Rifa`i Sufi order claims him as its founder. Sufis practice meditation and chanting and they seek mystical union with God. There are plenty of Rifa`is in Syria and the order is popular in Egypt, and still has adherents throughout the Muslim world,from Bosnia to Gujarat. IS is not making a good reputation for itself in most of the Sunni world, where there is still respect for mystics like Rifa`i. One of its allies of convenience is the Naqshbandi Sufi order in Mosul, members of which won’t be happy about all this shrine-bashing.
