To neutralise Islamic State, create a just society

The dramatic pace at which the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) has gained recruits from around the world since it declared the establishment of a cross-border Islamic Caliphate in July indicates that the growing conflict in the Middle East has tapped into a vein of deep discontent over a multitude of issues that is troubling us today.

To give an indication of the extent of the problem, the US State Department estimates that so far, about 12,000 foreigners have travelled to Syria from at least 50 countries to join a number of groups, including Isis.

The ranks of these jihadists include an indeterminate number from Malaysia, officials have reported, prompting fears that militant elements may bring violence to our shores on their return to our country.

Today, perhaps more than ever before, these developments show that no nation can remain unaffected by conflicts elsewhere, and certainly not when it involves a pivotal region like the Middle East.

More crucially, we must develop better clarity about what is underlying the current conflict in order to chalk an effective way out of this horrific blood-letting.

This is important in order to make sense of the actions and statements of the key players in the arena.

At the outset, it must be acknowledged that there are various elements at play in the geopolitics of the region, and consequently, the clarity that can be expected would consist of numerous shades of grey rather than black-and-white scenarios.

In this context, a question arises about the battlefront strategy of the US and its allies at this point in time: what is the value of the airstrikes that they have launched against Isis fighters in the battle for Kobani, a strategic Syrian town that holds the key to a long stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border

The US and UK have both admitted that aerial attacks alone will not be able to prevent the jihadists from seizing the strategic town.

So what purpose is served by three weeks of fighting over Kobani that have cost the lives of at least 400 people, and forced more than 160,000 Syrians to flee across the border to Turkey?

To put the air campaign into context, the American strategy appeared to be to build up the support of Syria’s Sunni groups to isolate the extremists and eventually defeat them, as the Economist reported on October 4 (“The war against Islamic State: Unintended consequences”).

Cooperating with President Bashar Assad’s government was not an option.

After two weeks of aerial bombardment, however, some complained that the attacks were not hurting Assad, but his enemies, and that civilians rather than the Isis were being hit, while others spread the idea that “the whole business is a war against Islam”.

On face value then, it would mean that either the US strategists are incredibly inept.

Alternatively, the current campaign must be viewed in a broader context in order for it to make sense.

A recent commentary by Middle East analyst Sami Ramadani in the Guardian sheds some light on this background.

“The so-called war on Isis (Islamic State) is, in reality, the same war that the US and Britain abandoned last year due to public opposition, the anti-war vote in Britain’s Parliament, and the determination of Iran and Russia to back Syria. But the savagery of Isis and the beheading of two American hostages have dampened public opposition to further military intervention in the region, and has boosted hawks in Washington and London,” he wrote on September 11.

Seen in this light, the apparent ineffectiveness of the Western response to Islamic State takes on a different strategic significance – one that exposes a long-term agenda of exercising control over the region and its resources, and recognises the threats to its hegemony by other powers.

Sami further reminds us that the policies of the Western powers helped to create Islamic State and al-Qaeda in the first place, and that pursuing the same strategy could have similar consequences and cost many more lives.

He notes that for three years, US allies Qatar and Saudi Arabia supplied billions of dollars to fund armed groups in Syria, while Nato member Turkey opened its borders for US and Nato supplies, as well as terrorists from across the world, to pour into Syria.

All this is not lost on the wider Muslim world, which has been painfully aware of the injustices perpetrated against its peoples, particularly the endless inequities suffered by the Palestinians at the hands of Israel, with the backing of the US.

The ideological ground for an entity like the Islamic State to flourish has, therefore, been laid over many decades, and it is not difficult to see how its recruits can be persuaded to join a cause that purports to promote justice in a deeply unfair world.

Add to this, the impulsiveness of youth and its tendency to romanticise about a better future, along with the well-developed PR strategies of the Islamic State’s agents, and we have a war machine that is spectacularly successful in drawing in fodder for its deadly mission.

To dissuade the young and disaffected, as well as socially alienated, from subscribing to the messages of such an ideologically driven organisation, it will require society’s leaders to make a genuine attempt to build an alternative world that is predicated on justice and inclusiveness.

Islamic State shows us that an economic paradigm that is built on exploitation and acquisitiveness at all costs is bound to boomerang in due time, with deadly consequences. – October 11, 2014.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.