Who would have thought the grisly, barbaric acts of beheading innocent journalists, aid workers, and even the co-religionists of Daesh (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) would unite the whole world under one banner: fighting terrorism once again after 13 years of the “war on terror”.
Now we have entered Phase 2 of that war, with the whole world more united, alarmed and shocked at the grotesque behaviour of the Al Qaida offshoot, which is much more violent and extreme than the mother organisation.
This pushed US President Barack Obama to shift from nation-building to being a war president, and to rally the world through his UN General Assembly speech last week: “There can be no reasoning, no negotiation, with this brand of evil... The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force.”
Long campaign
But do we know what we are getting ourselves into? According to Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron, this “mission, could take years”. It is an enduring and costly undertaking with intended and unintended consequences for us all.
When President Obama addressed America on the eve of the 13th anniversary of 9/11, he was clear: “The US with our friends and allies will degrade and destroy the terrorist group Isil [Daesh].”
Obama seemed to speak on behalf of Muslims everywhere when he noted, “Let’s be clear, while this group may call itself the ‘Islamic State’ it is not ‘Islamic’; no religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of Isil’s [Daesh’s] victims have been Muslims. Nor is it a state. It is not recognised by any government, nor by the people it subjugates.”
Obama spearheaded the largest international and Middle Eastern coalition ever assembled in history to “degrade and defeat” the “network of death”, and according to Cameron, the “mortal threat” posed by “murderous plans” of Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria.
And with the active participation of over 40 countries including 10 Arab ones led by GCC states, this is not a US war alone, but more relevantly one that pits moderate Muslims against extremist Muslims.
It is quite a change for Obama, the reluctant warrior with a non-combatant doctrine, who insisted “I was elected to end wars not to start new ones”. He ended wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; led from behind in Libya against the late Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, ending a bloody decade in Middle Eastern quagmires. Now he is by choice a war president.
It is also quite a shift since the summer of 2013 when Obama, after building up momentum to target and bomb the Bashar Al Assad regime for gassing its own people, and crossing Obama’s red line, the US president made a famous U-turn, letting Al Assad go scot free.
The Russians mediated and Al Assad surrendered his chemical weapons, but went on killing and maiming his own people with conventional weapons. That move by the Obama administration stunned its allies in the Middle East, led by Saudi Arabia, which for the first time, assertively and openly made its displeasure with the US clear.
Network of death
Obama eloquently described Daesh as a “network of death”, in his UN General Assembly. Clearly, most Muslims are aghast at any attempt to link Daesh’s barbarism with Islam. From the view point of the majority of the 1.6 billion Muslims around the world, what Daesh has been doing is un-Islamic, and can’t be condoned.
It has been the hallmark of the Obama administration’s Middle East policy: whether it is the peace process, Israel’s war on Gaza, Iraq, Syria, or the Arab Spring, the administration intervenes half-heartedly and in a piece-meal fashion after wavering and inaction, and after the damage has been done.
Ramzi Mardini in an recent article in the Financial Times on Friday, put it best: “President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy is adrift amid the region’s shifting currents. Indeed, since the Arab uprisings began, the White House has misdiagnosed each crisis, intervened with little heed to the consequences and overestimated its ability to shape the outcomes in its favour.”
A case in point is the Syrian mess. The Obama administration should have dealt resolutely, or at least showed a similar zeal and action against the aggression of the Al Assad regime after it gassed its own people in 2013.
If it had done so, Daesh would not have been the menacing threat it is today, and would not have been able to recruit thousands of foreign fighters from the Arab and Muslim countries and from the West.
Daesh would not have become the monster that everyone fears and gangs up to slay! If we acted then, we would not have been here today.
With the US and its Arab and international allies at war against Daesh, it would be prudent to agree on a comprehensive strategy, and be engaged whole heartedly. They must also have an exit strategy — or it will be another decade of war and mayhem.
Professor Abdullah Al Shayji is the former chairman of the Political Science Department, Kuwait University. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Middle East Centre in George Washington University. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/@docshayji
