September 16, 2014
I dearly wish that the “Islamic State” (IS) will be contained
and then defeated by the many countries and non-governmental armed groups who
say they are committed to achieving that goal. From the evidence to date, it is
hard to be confident that the American-led coalition under construction will be
the effective vehicle to do that, which is a very uncomfortable feeling. Here
are some key reasons why:
We have decades of experience in the Middle East
in initiatives of various sorts (promote democracy and human rights, expand
free markets, etc.) that failed because they were unilaterally conceived in the
West in panic, and announced to the region by the United States — and only then
were the actual Middle Eastern actors who were central to progress identified
and engaged. Announcing a coalition before its members are on board is an
amateurish way to operate, because it makes the local players — Arab
governments of already mixed legitimacy in this case — look like hapless fools
who snap to attention when an American gives the order.
Washington is correct to say that a combination of
effective local military action and inclusive domestic political systems are
required for progress in destroying IS, in Iraq especially. I lack confidence
in this aspect of the American approach because it is foolhardy to expect that
such important central requirements can be forged quickly and in the heat of
battle — after the United States has just spent a full decade and trillions of
dollars in Iraq trying but failing to achieve precisely those two important
goals. Perhaps we can even see some counter-productive consequences of the US
legacy, such as the rampaging IS troops taking from the retreating Iraqi
security forces the fine arms and equipment that Washington had provided.
My confidence in the success of the coalition
being assembled to fight IS drops sharply when I hear the American president
cite Yemen and Somalia as examples of how this war will be waged. Yemen and
Somalia are modern catastrophes of state-building and foreign intervention,
including most recently the United States’ drone-based assassination campaigns
that are supposed to diminish and degrade the Qaeda-related groups there. Yet
somehow those killer groups keep expanding, not retreating, and they have
spread into half a dozen other countries in the region. No wonder, then, that resolve
among regional players to do this Washington’s way is erratic at best. Someone
should tell the American president that Yemen and Somalia are political
nightmares to be avoided at all costs, not replicated or touted.
Naming retired Marine General John Allen to
coordinate the anti-IS coalition also raises questions anchored in real
experiences. My concerns are that the areas of Gen. Allen’s expertise and
experience in recent years raise many doubts about American efficacy in the
Arab-Asian region, instead of inspiring confidence. He oversaw the war in
Afghanistan, worked closely with Iraqis in Anbar Province, was deputy commander
of all US military operations in the Central Command region, and worked with
John Kerry on the security training and coordination side of the recently
failed, American-mediated Israeli-Palestinian peace process. It’s hard to think
of a more depressing combination of American serial failures in the
military-political realm in this region than those four episodes where Gen. Allen
was a central actor. I hope he was only following orders. His playbook today is
to do exactly the opposite of everything he did during the past ten years,
which would inspire some confidence in chances of success.
Americans’ mixing emotional remembrances of the
9/11 attacks this week (a legitimate and understandable human act) with the
current mission to defeat IS in Syria-Iraq is factually incorrect and
unnecessary, and probably will be counter-productive. It will detract from an
accurate analysis of what IS represents and how it came to be, and therefore
will induce exaggerated emotional reactions, ideologically charged jingoism,
and mostly military-based counter-terrorism policies that are not suited to the
real threat. American foreign policies since 2001 have helped to expand the
threat of Al-Qaeda, IA and dozens of similar groups, rather than defeat them;
framing the attack on IS in Syria-Iraq through the lens of 9/11 will only
perpetuate this problem.
The Arab and Turkish allies being herded into the
coalition do not inspire a great deal of enthusiasm or confidence, I am sad to
say — genuinely sad, because only dynamic and effective local action will
defeat IS and other deviant and dangerous dimensions of our societies. John
Kerry looks less like the maestro of a united orchestra and more like a
strong-willed sheriff assembling a half-hearted posse of scared locals to chase
a dangerous bad guy.
Finally, Syria and its challenges is the heart
of the IS phenomenon, and the coalition being assembled seems unclear about
what to do about Syria.
Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and director of the
Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the
American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon. On Twitter: @ramikhouri.
Copyright © 2014 Rami G. Khouri—distributed by
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