The conquest of Ramadi by ISIS has meant the occupation of the capital of Iraq’s largest province, a major defeat for the Iraqi government and its Western backers.
Ramadi was one of the last remaining districts held by government forces. Its conquest has supposed a big advance since Ramadi has been ”the first major city to be seized by the insurgents on Iraq since security forces and paramilitary groups began pushing them back last year”, as appeared published in Al Jazeera’s newspaper.
It has helped advance the Islamic State planning of future attacks since they are getting close to Bagdad, Iraq’s heavily fortified capital. This conquest is allowing them to gain more territory from Anbar. Isis is taking over more territory from Anbar, and this conquest, together with their control in Falluja, an Anbar city even closer to Bagdad, is allowing them to be closer to establishing an ISIS-controlled corridor along the Euphrates River between Ramadi and Falluja.
The International Community could help more, for example putting aside more money to cooperate with Turkey in their task of providing aid to all the Syrian refugees. The initiative has being concentrated nearly exclusively in achieving the military defeat of the armed group. Neither the Iraqi government nor its allies have dealt seriously with possible changes and measurements of justice for abuses that could contribute to get back the support of the Sunni in Iraq.
The problem is that, even though the enticements that underlie the Sunni support that was initially given to ISIS, the coalition against ISIS has focused chiefly in a campaign of air attacks, and it has been mainly the Chita’s militias the ones that, with the support of Iran, have get into the land.
Despite that for Iraq and Syria ISIS is a threat, they are other Middle Eastern Countries in danger. A clear example is the situation in Turkey. Its territorial integrity is being threaten as it is next to Syria, and there are no borders. They could be one of the main affected of this conflict.
ISIS is also a threat for Israel, and in the face of the proximity of the Islamic group to the Israelis borders and to the ones of the adjacent countries, Israel has maintain close links with Egypt and Jordan.
Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, among others, are breeding to recruit fighters at the same time that they are targets for future attacks of the organization. We can not forget that their main goal is creating an Islamic State that covers the Arab world.
The advantage of ISIS in their conquest of different areas in Iraq and Syria is that their governments are not very strong and also the support or the presence of enough sunnies in both countries.
The wish of ISIS of attack could be its Achilles heel. Michael Knights, specialist in foreign affairs said that ISIS suffers of chronic ” ‘tactic anxiety’, a necessity almost pathological of taking the initiative and attack the enemy”, even when there was very unlikely of having exit, as it happened in the Kurdish regions in the beginning of this year.
