Beyond the frontline: watching ISIS

[davidbfpo]

Two different viewpoints from London. One by a Kings War Studies academic, who also lectures to Qatar's military, so may have extra value; entitled 'How to best externalize the R2P in Iraq?':http://kingsofwar.org.uk/2014/08/how...e-r2p-in-iraq/

Personally I think his option for regaining support from disaffected Sunni tribes is long past. Nor are regional 'powers' that willing to commit.

As the UK sends Tornado recce aircraft, Chinooks and Hercules transports, all ostensibly for humanitarian purposes Shashank Joshi, from RUSI, examines 'British Options in Iraq: Capabilities, Strategies, and Risks':https://www.rusi.org/analysis/commen.../#.U-t10aORcdW

His sub-title is:

Pressure is building for the government to recall parliament over the crisis in Iraq and consider intervening alongside US forces. But what are the options for Britain, and what risks do they carry?

I am not sure where this pressure is coming from - beyond Whitehall. Given this government's stance on supporting the USA, it is likely to be Washington that is applying pressure.

In anticipation of these choices, we should therefore ask – of ourselves, and of ministers – what is Britain’s strategy in any intervention? A non-exhaustive list would include:

1. One-off degradation of ISIS’ offensive capabilities;
2. One-off humanitarian relief;
3. Indirect support to Kurdish forces;
4. Indirect support to Iraqi government forces;
5. A longer mission to contain ISIS, until those local forces gain strength;
6. A direct and sustained aerial campaign to destroy ISIS – or even more broadly, 'the defeat of jihadism';
7. Some combination thereof.

[davidbfpo]

To look for the "root cause" of Isis is to miss the point. The group represents all the subterranean barbarism that every so often is apt to crawl, blinking into the light, out from the depths of the human subconscious.

Certainly an interesting POV and a reminder that ISIS is not new, nor just an extreme form of Islam IMHO:http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/...h-9664506.html

[Bill Moore]

Certainly an interesting POV and a reminder that ISIS is not new, nor just an extreme form of Islam IMHO:http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/...h-9664506.html

From the enclose article David kindly posted

despite the SS repeatedly reaffirming at its death camps that "here there is no why", for much of the left there was always a "why".

This underscores much of the debate in SWJ circles. We have those who believe the reason is failed government, economics, etc. Root causes that we can somehow address, and then the world will be all rainbows and unicorns again.

We have others, closer to my school of thought, that often there are no root causes that we can address. We waste our time and money with our various development programs when they're directed to weaken AQ and other extremists.

The left hates to hear this, but sometimes it really does come down to killing those who are trying to kill you. Alternative approaches against sadistic killers have failed us repeatedly. To those who say we can't shoot our way out of this, I offer that the collective we can and we must. BUT, and this is an important but, we must do so in a discriminate manner, and in a way that doesn't mobilize the neutrals to turn against us. The extremists are a greater threat to the majority of Muslims than they are to us, so calls to go war with Islam are frankly unethical and misguided. However, aggressively pursuing and eliminating ISIS is a necessity if value our security and way of life. In Iraq they have formed an Army, if they choose to fight us semi-symmetrically they will make our work that much easier.

These thoughts are directed towards AQ, those who embraced Al-Qaedaism, and their associates and affiliates. Those the author would call fascists. The above is not an approach to deal with insurgents that have valid political issues they're trying to fix.

But let us be clear: the "root cause" of fascism (and what Isis is practicing us clerical fascism) is an absolute rejection of a plural and democratic society. It is our existence, rather than the subtleties of how we behave, that is intolerable to Isis, hence current attempts to exterminate "un-Islamic" religious minorities in Iraq – a genocide-in the making thankfully being thwarted by the United States.

[KingJaja]

From the enclose article David kindly posted



This underscores much of the debate in SWJ circles. We have those who believe the reason is failed government, economics, etc. Root causes that we can somehow address, and then the world will be all rainbows and unicorns again.

We have others, closer to my school of thought, that often there are no root causes that we can address. We waste our time and money with our various development programs when they're directed to weaken AQ and other extremists.

In Nigeria, where I come from, Western analysts are all over the place about Boko Haram & how poverty and alienation are its root causes - but when you ask them about local Christians who are even poorer and more alienated (because the power structures the British left behind empowered the Muslims in Northern Nigeria) - they are blank.

I suspect Iraqi Christians and Yazidis would feel the same way as African Christians about the way the Western academic elite has chosen to explain away violent Islamism.

In the Middle East, the West can comfortably ignore religious minorities as they aren't likely ever have any political power (all US presidents do so; whether Republican or Democrat). In Africa, the Christians aren't likely to be politically insignificant, but as far as the West is concerned, Africa is a strategic backwater.

So the liberal narrative of Islamist terrorism is likely to persist - as these movements will never be an existential threat to the West like Hitler & Nazis.