The Independent features an op-ed recommending that the world offer diplomatic recognition to ISIS.
The rationales for the recommendation are:
- the bombing campaign has failed to arrest ISIS’s consolidation of territorial gains
- ISIS has a 24-page plan for forming a state (huh?)
- ISIS is providing governmental services in the territory it controls
- ISIS has a monopoly on force in the territory it controls
- diplomatic recognition and inclusion in the Intergovernmental Organizations that constitute the institutional expression of the current liberal order would moderate ISIS as it did for the USSR
First, diplomatic recognition had no causal relationship with moderation of the USSR. What moderated the international relations of the Soviet Union was the re-emergence of Germany as a continental power, the Second World War, western occupation of Germany, and the creation of NATO. It had nothing to do with diplomatic recognition. Internal repression was moderated solely by the demise of Stalin and the fact that by the outbreak of the Second World War, the totalitarian one-party state had been consolidated.
Second, while it is true that ISIS is a proto-state, and the bombing campaign has failed to achieve any meaningful military objective (air power never does by itself), that is no argument for diplomatic recognition that would constrain options for confronting ISIS should it be in the interest of the West or any other actor.
If the international community wanted to defeat ISIS, a Marine Expeditionary Force could do it. The question becomes, “Now what?” There is no credible replacement to provide government for that territory currently. For all its neo-Ottoman pretentions, Turkey would not want to incorporate the region, nor would the international community support a resumption of the mandate system in the Middle East even if a suitable great power were willing to take on that responsibility. Colonialism has ceased to be a viable tool to bring order to ungoverned regions.