Two Perpetual Wars are Unfolding on Familiar Turf in the Middle East
The Revolt Against Civilization
While many in the Western intelligentsia inveighed against Israel’s offensive against Gaza in July, a far bloodier ordeal gripped the countrysides of Syria and Iraq.
A wayward cult of Sunni militia made its way across Northern and Western Iraq, razing villages, seizing American-made munitiations, capturing strategic garrisons and sending the largely Shiite Iraqi army (such that it is) in a tail-spin.
Ancient Christian communities – predating the arrival of Islam in Iraq – were systematically terrorized and massacred, with members of the Islamic State gleefully showcasing their gorry handy-work on social media. Crucifictions and beheadings of Christians, Shiite Arabs, Sunni Kurds and Yazidis left little doubt about the manancial nature of the Islamic State’s intentions. The death toll has surpassed several thousand in Iraq since early June. The death toll in the mirroring Syria conflict is rapidly approaching 200,000.
Despite reports that the Islamic State (IS, also know as ISIS or ISIL) is meeting reversals at the hands of American airstrikes and hard-nosed Kurdish counteroffensive, this well-funded, well-trained, and well-armed group of 17,000 self-described “holy warriors” shows little sign of abating in its quest to establish its draconian “Islamic Caliphate.”. Under this regime, all opposition is to be swiftly crushed, with little regard for human compassion, and with utter contempt for the laws of war.
Painful Irony
The Islamic State’s base of operations, Syria, will remain a refuge for its fighters IS regardless of what occurs in Iraq. IS now guards its front against the equally ruthless Bashar Al-Assad. Because its stronghold in Eastern Syria is far less tenuous than is its control in Northern and Western Iraq, US military and intelligence officials are now recommending airstrikes against Syria’s Sunni extremists.
Because such intervention would undoubtedly divert pressure from the Syrian despot’s Iranian-backed regime in Syria, the thought of intervention in Syria against IS can be greeted with a chuckle. After all, just one year ago, the US was considering intervening on behalf of some of these very same anti-Assad rebels, who’ve become more radicalized in the year since.
The Western world once stood ready to punish Assad. Now it stands ready to wage war against the dictator’s Assad’s enemies in Syria. This news comes to the delight of Iran’s Shiite proxies throughout the region (namely Hezbollah), who would love nothing more than to see the United States fight against a bitter Sunni rival.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely chuckling as well. A year ago, he warned that opposing Assad in Syria would merely empower the most radical elements in the region. His prediction proved correct. For all its faults, the Assad regime is one of the few forces of stability in this troubled region. American foreign policy analysts and pundits are now cringing, since they are now forced to flirt with the notion of partnering with the loathsome Assad against a more ferocious enemy. Putin and the Iranians are chuckling again.
With the “moderates” in Syria besieged from both the Assad regime and the Islamic State, American officials are still considering subsidizing these enfeebled groups, even though they have little potential of gaining traction and recruits. The Islamic State is gaining ground every day, while the “moderate”, Western-backed rebels cower, with little chance of retaking either Homes or Aleppo.
As noted by Fareed Zekeriya, in his Washington Post article “the Fantasy of Middle Eastern Moderates”: “the moderates [aren’t] that moderate. As they [become] authoritarian and sectarian, Sunni opposition movements [grow] and jihadi opposition groups such as ISIS [gain] tacit or active support.”
Zekeriya argues that, in a context of misery and hateful violence, “moderates” don’t thrive. They merely become extreme, or they get overshadowed.
As the bloodbath intensifies in Syria, another Putin prediction proves correct. The Arab Spring in Syria was hardly a struggle for democracy. It was, and is, part of a sectarian power struggle between Iranian-backed Shiite forces on one side and Arabian-backed Sunni extremists on the other. It has nothing to do with the traditional Western notions of “freedom” or “liberty.”
Observation on American Intervention: Interloper or Savior?
Some Muslim commentators and political figures are now urging the United States to escalate involvement in the region, and not turn back. As Islamic State laid siege to Kurdistan, and prepared to massacre thousands of Yazidis in early August, Iraqi officials begged for American support. In early June, after Iraq troops fled in the wake of Islamic State, leaving behind expensive American equipment, Iraqi officials pleaded for assistance. Even now, as Islamic State prepares to massacre Shiites in the Iraqi town Amreli, the same call for American police power rings forth. At a July White House Ramadan dinner event, Muslim attendants chided Obama for what then appeared to be hesitation to stop the sectarian violence in Iraq and Syria.
What is this?
After years of chiding the US as an imperialist interloper bent on recklessly encroaching upon the Muslim-world’s affairs, the US is the first nation whose aid is both expected and demanded by many Muslim human rights activists, by liberal idealists at the United Nations, and by the editorial board of the Washington Post. “How can you ignore the Syrian tragedy” they cried throughout 2013 and 2014. Meanwhile hardly a peep is heard for Islamic countries to fight their own wars. Where are the calls for Saudi Arabia and Iran to set aside their eternal rivalry, which is driving the sectarianism throughout the region?
The expectation – on the part of neoconservatives, liberal internationalists and many Muslim human rights activists – is that the United States insert itself in the centuries-old rivalries which plague a region at war with itself, that Americans pick-and-choose which blood-soaked faction to endorse and fund, and that Americans fight the wars started by other countries. For every bloody rivalry in the Muslim world, is it really necessary for the US to choose sides between?
In one instance, the US is named-and-shamed for not intervening to save the Middle East from the massacres which its inhabitants eagerly partake in (see: Syria), and in the next instance, the US is demonized for “meddling” in Middle Eastern affairs. This is a no-win situation for the US in the court of international opinion.
At the Doorstep of Europe and the Arab States
Puzzlingly, the United States is now fighting an enemy whose resources were supplied by American “partners” in the Arab Gulf States. That’s right. The Islamic State is the recipient of private donations from our very own “allies” in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar. These Arab states sowed the seeds of bloodshed in Syria by endorsing the Sunni militants, so why don’t we see calls for the Arab League, Saudis and other Gulf States to put boots on the ground to end the crisis enveloping in Syria?
As European states look on curiously and uselessly at their war-torn neighbors in the Near East, one wonders why they aren’t called upon to intervene against IS. After all, thousands of the fighters who comprise the Islamic State’s forcesforces are European born-and-bred. Many of the Islamic State combatants will eagerly return to Europe, inspired, equipped, trained and ready to mobilize Sunni recruits in order to form terror cells. From a security standpoint, Europe has more reason to be alarmed by the Syrian and Iraq catastrophes than does the US.
Europeans have grown complacent with respect to the problem of Salafi extremism, and they are only now beginning to consider the possibility that the US is not the only state with global responsibilities.
A Blessing in Disguise
As the US expands its aerial campaign against ISIS, one bit of good news emerges from the ashes here. We’re finally seeing signs of mutually recognized and appreciated interests between the variegated political entities of the Middle East: Turks, Saudis, Iranians, Kurds, Shiite Arabs in Iraq, Shiite militia in Lebanon, may finally find a reason to cooperate. A pariah state lays flush against each of their borders. It is held hell-bent on destroying all borders in the region. Let us hope that these rivals answer the call, rather than wait for the United States to unilaterally solve their myriad problems.
Roberto Matos is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at rlm387@cornell.edu.