Although few wondered how the reconstituted Iraqi Army and Kurdish Peshmerga forces were outmanned and outgunned by rag-tag Daesh (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) elements, the seemingly unstoppable onslaught in Syria’s Kobani area necessitated airdrops and, perhaps, secret accords with Turkey. What emerged was a tale weaved around a wild narrative that saw a few hundred fighters successfully recruit, train and deploy thousands of motivated extremists across two countries — with pretensions to several more — and, in a moment of sheer fantasy, acquire weapons of mass destruction and an air force.
At this rate, the Daesh historical fantasy promised to surpass the fictitious movie 300, which was based on the 1998 comic series that retold the Battle of Thermopylae within the Persian wars, when 300 Spartans fought Xerxes and his 300,000 soldiers. Though King Leonidas eventually lost, his heroism gained legendary popularity, which ‘Caliph’ Ebrahim Al Baghdadi may be contemplating for himself.
Irony aside, it was eminently clear that the latest chapter in the ongoing war against extremism hit the proverbial “escalation” clause, because few contemplated a quick resolution. On the contrary, seasoned military officers in leading western powers, including the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin E. Dempsey, and General Sir David Richards, the former chief of the Defence Staff in the United Kingdom, believed that air strikes alone would not defeat Daesh. Richards called for boots on the ground, something that Dempsey did not rule out, even if no immediate plans existed to go that route. Rather, the US-led coalition relied on Kurdish fighters in the short-term while it accelerated plans to rehabilitate the Iraqi Army and draft Syrians, ostensibly to defeat and destroy Daesh.
Of course, there was little said about the $25 billion (Dh91.95 billion) spent during the past eight years to reorganise and re-equip the Iraqi military that, truth be told, was all for naught because the institution was marred by corruption and sectarian divisions. Even less was uttered about the many soldiers who shed their uniforms in a few minutes and joined Daesh. Ironically, and while he ruled out foreign boots on the ground, the Iraqi Prime Minister, Haidar Al Abadi, requested western assistance to help form National Guard units to retake lost territory. Presumably, such loyal forces would drive a wedge between Daesh and alienated Sunnis who perceived their government as little more than an Iranian tool.
It remained to be determined whether similar training of Syrian opposition fighters, above and beyond those allegedly qualified in Jordan during the past few years, would in fact make a difference. Both Saudi Arabia and Turkey offered to help in that regard although such efforts were time-consuming on account of painstaking vetting, whose primary goal was to weed out genuine trainees from terrorists. That explained the long timeframe, compared with Daesh’s own staffing initiatives, which somehow managed to outfit and deploy brutal characters without much of a delay.
In fact, and because coalition member-states lacked the “will” to effectively destroy Daesh and its acolytes, atrocities increased in scope and frequency even if little of what actually occurred on the ground was known. What was available was the cybernews variety that showed beheadings, aerial bombardments, refugees fleeing for their lives and destroyed places of worship. To be sure, the world was privy to countless YouTube videos that gained notoriety on account of depicted gore, though those did not compare with ongoing battles. That is why the narrative delved into weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
Starting in mid-August, carefully planted stories in leading media outlets “confirmed” that Daesh had access to old stockpiles of Saddam Hussain’s WMDs, thus scoring two hits with a single stone: Exonerate former president George W. Bush who fought a war based on lies and raise the fear that Daesh was about to launch fresh terrorist attacks against western targets. No credible evidence was presented as to what was found, especially since Washington spent billions of dollars looking for such weapons, without any success. Still, the very idea that WMDs were in Daesh hands was sufficient to embellish the narrative, irrespective of its veracity.
Even worse was the emergence of a Daesh Air Force after the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed that militants flew warplanes at the Al Jarrah military airport east of the city of Aleppo. It was not clear what kind of jets were involved or whether they were equipped with weaponry or who the pilots were — Syrian, Iraqi or any other nationality? Video clips of obsolete MiG-15s on grass and two wrapped Czechoslovakia-made Aero L-39 Albatros trainers did not seem to pose a threat to anyone except those handling them. Be that as it may, and even if they were MiG-21 or MiG-23 models, one wondered whether these outdated fighters could even takeoff — much less engage their modern opponents.
One should not minimise the actual fighting under way but, like the heroes in 300, it is clear that Daesh will be defeated. Consequently, it may be far better to cut it down quickly and spare innocent lives, instead of weaving fairy-tales around its invincibility.
Dr Joseph A. Kechichian is the author of the forthcoming Iffat Al Thunayan: An Arabian Queen, London: Sussex Academic Press, 2015.
