After much deliberation, President Barack Obama has decided to bomb the east Syrian city of Raqqa. It is said to be the headquarters of the operations of the terrorist group Islamic State (Isis) in both Syria and Iraq. In the US, neocon hawks have for weeks been urging Obama to begin bombing and, if necessary, think later. Were the neocons right, for once?
Obama’s hesitation was understandable, even though his former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was among those urging strikes on Syria. Although Isis controls large parts of Syria, as a military force it has been largely an Iraqi group, according to Obama’s close advisers. Besides, it provides no easy targets, moving fluidly and covertly across territory, living up to its leader’s aim to “move like a serpent between the rocks”.
Bombing Isis runs the risk of hitting civilians and, hence, increasing local sympathies for Isis fighters. Raqqa is also the only provincial Syrian capital in rebel hands. Bombing Isis out of Syria would immensely help Bashar al-Assad, the ruler whom the US is trying to get rid of.
But a great deal has changed in the region since June. Instability in Syria has greatly weakened the Iraqi government’s fight against Isis, given the fighters and weapons pouring in over the border. Weapons given to ostensibly US allies in Syria have turned up in jihadi hands in Iraq. The two countries are becoming indistinguishable for the purposes of war.
And Isis fighters are increasing in Syria. The dramatic successes in Iraq have attracted fighters from other rebel groups, not only rival jihadis. There is glamour to belonging to a force that is well equipped, trained, intelligently led - and which now controls a territory spanning Iraq and Syria that is the size of the UK.
The savvy use and manipulation of the media have been a powerful recruitment tool. It is estimated that there are some 12,000 foreign fighters, from 81 nations, of whom between 2,000 and 3,000 are Europeans. The largest number, a quarter, is from the UK, but Belgium and Denmark provide more fighters per capita.
Such facts and figures would seem to bolster the neocon narrative of the Middle East. Picking the wrong country to invade - say, Iraq in 2003 - doesn’t matter so much anymore because all Muslims secretly hate us anyway: proto-Nazis biding their time to strike at us. They are all snakes moving between rocks.
Witness the fighters videoed burning their European passport and vowing war on their own respective country. Then there is the Sunni civilian support for Isis, without which the successes would have been a lot harder to achieve. It’s a clash not between states but civilisations.
It’s a satisfyingly simple explanation but, alas, dissatisfying when confronted with the facts. First, there is the matter of numbers. Twelve thousand foreign fighters is an arresting figure, but still amounts to less than 0.1 per cent of Muslims worldwide.
It’s a clash not between states but civilisations
Second, the neocons use a rhetoric of tough-mindedness but their grasp of what’s really going on is feeble. Byconflating three different kinds of battle going on in the Arab world - Sunnis versus Shia, Sunni jihadis versus ordinary Sunnis, and jihadis against non-Muslims - they make it more difficult for us to exercise real vigilance.
In his new book (updated till August), The Jihadis Return: Isis and the New Sunni Uprising (www.orbooks.com), war journalist Patrick Cockburn demonstrates what a real explanation of the morass, and a proper allocation of responsibilities, should look like.
He underlines, first, the role played by corruption and Shiite discrimination and violence against Sunnis in Iraq. The scale of corruption is staggering. One buys a place in the army, whether as a commander or an ordinary soldier, in order to secure a salary and access to bribes. An army of 350,000 troops, and $41.6 billion invested in it since 2011, has been helpless before the few thousand Isis fighters because it was a sham army to begin with.
Nor is it a national army. Well-trained Sunni officers have been put aside. Many of them have offered their services to Isis, despite being secularist Baathists.
The Sunni community has aided Isis fighters moving in its midst. It is a measure of its political displacement and the brutality it has suffered at the hands ofShia militias, that Sunnis see Isis as the lesser evil.
But share the same religious attitudes? Try telling that to the wedding guests who bore the brunt of Isis thugs who gate crashed, beating women dressed ‘immodestly’ and enjoying inappropriate music. Cockburn predicts a disaster for ordinary Sunnis at the hands of the alien Isis.
Next, he shows that the behaviour of particular states, not a single civilisation, needs to be the focus of security attention. Al-Qaeda’s best friends, before and after 9/11, were Saudi Arabia and the Pakistani military (itself with strong ties to the US), not Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet, no real action was taken against the real culprits. Just as Turkey has not really been called to account for allowing jihadis (for reasons of State not religion) to cross over its borders.
Indeed, Western intervention played an important role in shaping the situation today. The ‘war on terror’ - conducted according to the neocon playbook - has seen support for Al-Qaeda flourish as a direct result.
It suited Western politicians, for domestic purposes, to demonise Al-Qaeda, but that attracted recruits. Meanwhile, the real connections to Al-Qaeda of groups aided (directly or indirectly) in Libya and Syria were played down.
Finally, Cockburn points out that if jihadist ideology - hatred for unbelievers, Shiites and ‘lax’ Sunnis - has attracted recruits from around the Muslim world, a big part of the blame lies with Saudi Arabia, which has funded the spread of a bigoted stream of Islam, Wahhabism. But one cannot understand this insidious process, let alone take action, if one assumes all Muslims are fundamentally similar.
It is against this complex background that Obama took the decision to bomb Isis in Syria. No wonder he hesitated.
ranierfsadni@europe.com