The Battle Against ISIS: Not America�s War

Now that we have had President Obama declare the New Global War on Terror against ISIS, or the Islamic State (IS), as it now calls itself, and been pledged moral and material support by a host of other World leaders, including probably Prime Minister Modi, it may appear heretical to suggest that the United States has once again chosen the wrong war to fight. But a dispassionate look at the evidence clearly suggests that it has. While the immediate provocation for the President’s declaration was undoubtedly the tragic and horrific execution of two of its citizens in an utterly uncivilized and gruesome manner, it certainly did not, by any stretch of imagination, constitute “clear and present danger” to either America or its allies or to its way of life. It is worth recalling that the US has never reacted so aggressively to even graver provocations earlier, be it Daniel Pearls’ execution in Pakistan or attacks against its citizens elsewhere in the world. In truth, these murders are no different from any of the “collateral damage” that the US bombings and drone strikes have caused in conflict zones around the world. Conflict zones by their very nature are inherently dangerous not only for combatants but also for innocent bystanders as well. While local inhabitants have little choice in the matter as they have no other place to go, volunteers especially foreigners, whether they are aid workers or journalists, are there by choice and fully aware of the dangers that they face.

While it has been rightly observed that the Islamic State is neither Islamic nor a state, despite the vast expanse of territory that it controls by force of arms, there can be no doubting that it is a substantive force of Sunni Arabs and their foreign supporters who strongly support the formation of an Islamic Caliphate in the Middle East. This ideological divergence from the Al Qaida’s objective of focusing on targeting western nations and now India is crucial in understanding why the United States has selected the wrong war to fight. It is also ironic that Mr. Kerry and the State Department are being praised for their diplomatic chutzpah in motivating five Sunni Arab nations to join the United States in this endeavour. In fact the alacrity with which they have joined the mission is suspect and should give us pause as by all accounts it is these very states that have financed and supported IS in the past.

The most important aspect that tends to get overlooked in any discussion of the region is the fact that most of the Arab states in the Middle East have either feudal or a dictatorial form of government in which a miniscule elite, apart from cornering all the power and pelf, has used religion to constrict and control the masses in a manner that they themselves are not subjected to. The frustration and anger that lack of freedom invariably bred was channelized and controlled by the easy expediency of providing citizens with a standard of living that they could never aspire to in most other countries. Also, the more rabid and hardline opponents were provided with the means and opportunities to take up cudgels on behalf of their less fortunate Islamic brethren in countries where Islam appeared to be under threat from infidels such as in Afghanistan, Central Asia and Africa, in effect ensuring that the status quo within their own countries was not disturbed. In this they were ably supported by the West which wanted stability at any cost in order to ensure that its voracious appetite for oil was met.

The Islamic State however morphed into something very different as it changed its focus inwards and concentrated on the Middle East. While its existing sectarian agenda poses a threat to the Shias and the Kurds, but it is the very real possibility of it turning on the Sunni ruling elites obviously poses an existentialist threat to them that they can only ignore at their peril. While there are supporters from other countries that this group has attracted, the overwhelmingmajority is from the region itself and focused on grabbing power and changing the status quo.While we may object to their brutal approach and the medieval laws they wish to impose, they are really no different from the existing regimes themselves which have done exactly that over the years and now appear to be getting a taste of their own medicine.  Interference in local matters where the people have decided to rise against their oppressors in order to protect their oil interests cannot but end badly for America and its western allies.There can also be little doubt that their involvement can only delay the inevitable as the Western Powers are in no position to put substantial boots on the ground without which no amount of advisors, drones or air power can change the reality on ground.

Other than protecting their oil interests there also appears to be fear among Western Governments and even in the Indian establishment that their citizens who have voluntarily joined this movement may in the future, create problems once they return back to their countries. Ideological wars do tend to attract volunteers from far and wide as the formation of the International Brigades fighting against Franco’s Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War showed. That those volunteers, with communist inclination at that time, were treated as subversives by their respective countries and seen as a serious threat to their internal security is a well-documented fact, as FBI reports on American volunteers now available in the public domain show. However, there were no instances of those volunteers ever creating problems in their home countries and there is therefore no reason for us to go overboard on this matter.

Finally, the most intriguing aspect of the current crisis is the fact that crude oil prices have not gone up despite all the instability. This was never the case earlier and while this situation has been blamed on the IS selling oil on the black market, to a layman this reasoning appears fallacious. One can visualize the smuggling of gold or diamonds, but how does one smuggle crude oil? Obviously there must be some other explanation for the market to believe that supplies would not be disrupted by the IS once they do replace ruling elites. Leaders in the middle of a conflict generally tend to behave very differently and care little for public opinion. Therefore, it may be worthwhile for India and the world community to adopt a policy of making haste slowly and keeping their powder dry to see how the crisis finally resolves itself and the manner in which the Islamic State behaves once it is in Government and finds itself answerable to the people.

The author is presently a consultant with the Observer Research Foundation. Views expressed are personal.