Daily Times

The succession of recent terrorist acts, from the downing of the Russian passenger plane in Sinai, Egypt, the suicide bombing in Beirut and the carnage in Paris, can be interpreted in more than one way. The first, an Islamic State (IS) franchise of sorts by a Sinai militant group, was clearly an act of revenge for Russia’s bombing of extremist targets seen as supportive of the Bashar al-Assad regime. The second was a sectarian act against Hezbollah, a Shia militant movement with a strong hold in south Beirut, which is actively engaged against Assad’s enemies in Syria. As for the carnage in Paris, France is supposed to have committed multiple sins from its intervention in Mali, the Charlie Hebdo caricatures (its aftermath with 17 people killed in violent terrorist reprisal) and its forceful participation in bombings targeting IS positions. The multiple methods used made IS warn that it would use its own array of violent means against its enemies to fight this unequal warfare to turn its weakness (in terms of weaponry) into strength, which is to terrorise, where possible, the civil societies of their enemies.

The Paris carnage is a perfect example of this: an expanded version of the ‘lone wolf’ attack, which too would be deployed as circumstances permit. An IS video, issued after the Paris attacks, put it quite succinctly. It reportedly said, “We say to the states that take part in the crusader campaign that, by God, you will have a day, God willing, as we struck France in the centre of its abode in Paris, then we swear that we will strike the US at its centre in Washington.” In other words, IS will use a mix of methods designed to create maximum terror among civilians to create the optimal impact and thereby build up resistance among the affected societies to their governments’ ‘crusade’ against Islam. IS considers itself fighting for all the Muslims of the world.

A recent edition of the IS English language magazine, Dabiq, unfolds IS strategy to confront its enemies. Carrying the byline of the British journalist, John Cantile, taken hostage in Syria three years ago and on their mercy for his dear life, the article says that IS will “continue to expand the borders of the caliphate throughout the region…” and, “They goad the west into launching an all-out ground attack, thereby setting the scene for the final battle between Muslims and the crusaders…[IS] conducting an operation overseas that is so destructive that the US and its allies will have no alternative but to send in an army. This [operation] would have to be something on the same scale, if not bigger than, 9/11.” In other words, IS will now call the shots and “what happens over the next few years is more up to [IS] than any exterior force”.

It would appear that IS believes, as put forth in the Dabiq article, that they have put the west on the defensive both on the battlefield [of their choice] and the propaganda front. And this image of a so-called Islamic caliphate settling scores with the ‘crusaders’ for real and imagined humiliations inflicted on Muslims is a kind of clarion call for all the disaffected and alienated Muslim youth in the world, with particular resonance for those in the west.

There is an explanation that these kinds of random terrorist attacks are in fact an indication that IS is on the defensive after being pushed back in some strategic areas. That might be so but if it manages to create spectacular impact, like the Paris carnage, out of its weakness, it is likely to win more youthful adherents, especially among the alienated Muslim youth in the west.

How to deal with this “death cult”, as Australia’s former primer minister, Tony Abbott, called them? His answer, in an Australian newspaper, is to put boots on the ground to beat them. Many in the US, especially in these politically charged presidential election times and more so among the Republican presidential hopefuls, are vying with each other to smash IS, if necessary, with committing American troops on the ground. It is not that this is not already happening. For instance, there are 3,500 US special operations forces on the ground in Iraq in all sorts of roles and their numbers are likely to go up. In Syria, the US has committed what looks like a first installment of about 50 special operations commandos/operatives and that might just be the beginning. However, the Obama administration is resisting the pressure to get deeply involved on the ground with the painful experience of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Such caution is sensible, considering that deeper engagement in military warfare in far off countries is best avoided without an exit strategy to avoid getting into a ‘quagmire’, as happened with Afghanistan and Iraq, which is still pulling the US into it. For an exit strategy to be formulated and put into practice at an appropriate time, the US and its allies need local allies on the ground with some popular base, as well as local level administrative structures, that might step in to avoid a dangerous vacuum from subsequent withdrawal or thinning out of foreign forces. In other words, it is important to avoid the general impression that external forces operating in the relevant war theatre are an occupying force, as happened in Afghanistan and Iraq. At the same time, regional allies, like Saudi Arabia, will need to create cohesive strategies that do not undercut a shared objective, which is to defeat IS.

Here, there are serious problems on two levels. First: Saudi Arabia’s single-minded commitment is to keep Iran out of any constructive and meaningful role in the shared strategic goal of defeating and possibly destroying IS. It does not want Iran to have a foothold in regional Middle Eastern politics and will do everything to sabotage this. Second: Saudi Arabia is the fountainhead of the extreme Islamic ideology of Wahhabism that it has been promoting and practicing at home and abroad through the funding of madrassas (seminaries), mosques, militant rebel groups of varied descriptions, provisions of arms and in other ways. It is promoting the idea, whether wittingly or unwittingly, of an underlying clash of values between Islam and the west but is still its strategic ally. Although this contradiction is so apparent, it is and has been consistently ignored in the west.

As Kamel Daoud writes in an opinion piece in The New York Times (translated from French), ‘Black Daesh [IS], white Daesh [Saudi Arabia]’: “The former slits throats, kills… The latter is better dressed and neater but does the same things. [One is] the Islamic State, [the other] Saudi Arabia.” He adds, “In its struggle against terrorism, the west wages war on one but shakes hands with the other. This is a mechanism of denial and denial has a price”, which the world is paying.

The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia. He can be reached at sushilpseth@yahoo.co.au