Ben-Ami:
MADRID – The general consensus emerging since last month’s carnage in Paris seems to be that the Islamic State (ISIS) can be defeated only by a ground invasion of its “state.” This is a delusion. Even if the West and its local allies (the Kurds, the Syrian opposition, Jordan, and other Sunni Arab countries) could agree about who would provide the bulk of ground troops, ISIS has already reshaped its strategy. It is now a global organization with local franchised groups capable of wreaking havoc in Western capitals.
In
fact, ISIS has always been a symptom of a deeper malady. Disintegration in the
Arab Middle East reflects the region’s failure to find a path between the
bankrupt, secular nationalism that has dominated its state system since
independence and a radical brand of Islam at war with modernity. The
fundamental problem consists in an existential struggle between utterly
dysfunctional states and an obscenely savage brand of theocratic fanaticism.
With
that struggle, in which most of the region’s regimes have exhausted their
already-limited stores of legitimacy, a century-old regional order is
collapsing. Indeed, Israel, Iran, and Turkey – all non-Arab-majority countries
– are probably the region’s only genuinely cohesive nation-states.
For
years, key states in the region – some of them, like Saudi Arabia and Qatar,
darlings of the West – have essentially paid protection money to jihadists.
Yes, America’s wars in the region – as destructive as they were stupid – bear a
substantial part of the blame for the mayhem now engulfing the Fertile
Crescent. But that does not exculpate the Arab fundamentalist monarchies for
their role in reviving the seventh-century vision that ISIS (and others) seek
to realize.
ISIS’s
army of psychopaths and adventurers was launched as a “startup” by Sunni
magnates in the Gulf who envied Iran’s success with its Lebanese Shia proxy,
Hezbollah. It was the combination of an idea and the money to propagate it that
created this monster and nurtured its ambition to forge a totalitarian
caliphate.
For
years, the Wahhabis of Arabia have been the fountainhead of Islamist radicalism
and the primary backer and facilitator of extremist groups throughout the
region. As former US Senator Bob Graham, the lead author of the classified
Senate report on the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, put it earlier this
year, “ISIS is a product of Saudi ideals” and “Saudi money.” Indeed, Wikileaks
quotes former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accusing Qatar and Saudi Arabia of collusion “with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other terrorist groups.”
That
raises an obvious question: When regimes in the region collaborate with
terrorist groups, how can intelligence cooperation with them, let alone a coalition
to fight Islamic extremism, be credible? The so-called pro-Western regimes in
the Arab Middle East simply do not see eye to eye with the West about the
meaning and implications of the war on terror, or even about what violent
radicalism is.
That is
just one reason why an invasion of the caliphate, with local armies supported
by Western airstrikes, could have devastating unintended consequences – think
of George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Indeed, even if such a division of labor
could be agreed, a ground invasion that denies ISIS its territorial base in
Iraq and Syria would merely push it to redeploy in a region that is collapsing
into various no man’s lands.
At that
point, “Caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, or some future would-be caliph, would
invariably fuse the region’s mounting governance chaos with a global jihadi
campaign – a process that, as we have seen in Paris and elsewhere, has already
started. The ideological and strategic rift between ISIS and Al Qaeda
notwithstanding, an alliance against the common enemy – the incumbent Arab
regimes and the West – cannot be entirely discounted. Osama Bin Laden himself
never ruled out the idea of establishing a caliphate. Indeed, his terrorism was
perceived as a prelude to it.
At the
same time, Syria and Iran might exploit the inevitable chaos to expand their
presence in Iraq, and all parties, including Turkey, would oppose a central
role for the Kurds. The latter have proven themselves to be tremendously
reliable and capable fighters, as the battles to liberate the cities of Kobani
and Sinjar from ISIS control have shown. But no one should think that they can
be the West’s tool for subduing the Sunni heartland of Iraq and Syria.
Nor is
it clear that the West is capable of compensating the Kurds with full-fledged
statehood. The geostrategic constraints that have prevented Kurdish
independence for centuries are even more acute today.
Some of
the consequences of a Western-backed Arab invasion of the caliphate are no less
predictable for being “unintended.” It would eventually stir up mass sympathy
for the caliphate throughout the region, thus providing ISIS with a propaganda
victory and further inspiration for alienated young Muslims in Europe and
elsewhere to fight the "Crusaders" and the Muslim
"traitors" aligned with them.
The
only realistic alternative is more – much more – of the same. That means a
constant and resolute effort to stop the caliphate’s expansion, cut off its
sources of finance, deepen and expand intelligence cooperation among credible
allies, end the oil-rich monarchies’ collusion with terrorist groups, and
encourage reform (without engaging in grand state-building projects).
The
Arab Middle East is not susceptible to quick fixes. It requires profound
indigenous change that might take the better part of this century to produce.
For now, turning the caliphate into yet another failed state in the region
seems to be the best possible outcome.
