Ibne Siraj :
In August 1941, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin Roosevelt met off the coast of Newfoundland to outline a shared vision for the post-World War II era. Churchill was so thrilled to see Roosevelt that, in the words of an official, “You’d have thought he was being carried up into the heavens to meet God.” The two countries issued the Atlantic Charter, which sought “a better future for the world” through the principles of self-determination, collective security, and free trade. The United States hadn’t even entered the war yet, but it was already focused on winning the peace. The endgame was not just the defeat of the Axis powers, but also the creation of a stable global order, in which World War II would be the last world war.
At this moment, the United States is contemplating a major expansion of its military campaign against ISIS. Driven partly by faith that the end times are imminent, the ISIS has stepped up expeditionary attacks outside its caliphate, including the bombing of a Russian jet over Egypt, a suicide attack in Lebanon, and coordinated assaults in Paris. In the struggle against ISIS, however, far from preparing for the postwar world, the US politicians haven’t shown much interest in long-term thinking. Instead, the debate is fixated on immediate tactical questions, or which hill to capture. Who is planning for a better peace? For months, members of Congress and former Pentagon officials have been criticizing the Obama administration’s approach to defeating ISIS, arguing that air strikes and occasional special-forces operations are not enough to destroy this Islamic force.
In November last, Michael Morell, former CIA Director, told CBS’s Face the Nation, “I think it’s now crystal clear to us that our strategy, our policy vis-à-vis ISIS, is not working.” The following week, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton joined a collection of Democrats breaking with the president over his Syria policy. She called for “a new phase” and said it was time to “intensify and broaden our efforts to smash the would-be caliphate and deny ISIS control of territory in Iraq and Syria.” The morning before US President Barack Obama gave his State of the Union address, three former US intelligence and diplomatic officials testified before the US House Armed Services Committee, describing the major issues with the US fight against ISIS. Michael Morell, former US Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Michael Vickers, and former US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford had common threads that outlined two major problems with the US strategy to defeat the ISIS. The first problem is that air power alone won’t be enough to defeat the group. The second, related issue is that there aren’t local ground forces in Iraq and Syria that are capable of clearing and holding territory. And while the US has been fighting terrorism directly in the Middle East for more than a decade, ISIS is a much more evolved version of America’s old foe, al-Qaeda.
“I believe ISIS poses a significant strategic and lethal threat to the United States of America,” Morell said. He continued: “The nature and significance of the threat posed by ISIS flows from the fact that ISIS is at the same time a terrorist group, a quasi-state, and a revolutionary political movement. We have not faced the likes of it before.”
Several members of the US-led coalition attacking the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria are doing “nothing at all” to help destroy the jihadists, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has said. His comments mark a departure from the Pentagon’s typical depiction of the 65-member coalition, which carries the slogan “One mission, many nations,” and is frequently touted to highlight global resolve in the predominantly US effort to defeat the ISIS group. “Many of them are not doing enough, or are doing nothing at all,” Carter said in an interview with CNBC on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “We can do a lot ourselves … (but) we are looking for other people to play their part,” he added, without singling any country out.
In a separate interview with Bloomberg TV, Carter called the anti-ISIS alliance a “so-called” coalition, highlighting frustrations the Pentagon has with some partners – particularly Sunni Arab nations – not doing enough. “We need others to carry their weight, there should be no free riders,” he said. Carter reiterated calls for one such partner, Turkey, to bolster its fight against the jihadists. Turkey is allowing the United States to use Incirlik, a geographically vital air base in the south, to strike Isis targets in Iraq and Syria, but Carter said Ankara needs to do more to secure its lengthy border with Syria. “Turkey is a long-time friend of ours,” he said during a Davos question-and-answer session. But “the reality is” that it has a border that “has been porous to foreign fighters.” “They’re on the list … it’s not a small list, of countries that I think could make contributions that are distinctive, unique and necessary to the defeat of ISIL,” he added, using an alternative acronym for ISIS.
In his speech at late last year’s UN General Assembly, Russian President Vladimir Putin urged the global community to act against terrorism while mentioning about the credible threat form the ISIS. He also underlined the necessity of consolidation of international efforts in taking emergency measure in fighting terrorists in Iraq and Syria.
The US-led forces bombed the ISIS for one year without any remarkable results, whereas the Russian supports for the Syrian army in fighting the ISIS, the Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front and other terrorists led to results after a few months. The Russian air strikes have broken the backbone of the ISIS, not victimizing any civilian but making all activities of the Russian air force and allies absolutely transparent. As far as the Russian actions against the ISIS are concerned, Moscow shows its firmness over the international laws and allegiance to its allied obligations not to be bogged down under any influence.
According to Putin, Russia will never betray with its partners to get any political benefits proposed by the western powers as Moscow has proved it many a times, particularly in respect of Myanmar when they wanted to impose pressure on Russia years ago. Tens of thousands of militants are fighting under the banners of the so-called “Islamic State.” Its ranks include former Iraqi servicemen who were thrown out into the street after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Many recruits also come from Libya, a country whose statehood was destroyed as a result of a gross violation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1973. And now the ranks of radicals are being joined by the numbers of the so-called “moderate” Syrian opposition supported by the Western countries. First, they are armed and trained, and then they defect to the Islamic State Besides, the Islamic State itself did not just come from nowhere. It was also initially forged as a tool against undesirable secular regimes.
Having established a foothold in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic state has begun to actively expand to other regions. It is seeking dominance in the Islamic world. And its plans go further than that. The situation is more than dangerous. In these circumstances it is hypocritical and irresponsible to make loud declarations about the threat of international terrorism while turning a blind eye to the channels of financing and supporting terrorism, including the proceeds of drug trafficking and illicit trade in oil and arms. It would be equally irresponsible to try to manipulate extremist groups and place them at one’s service in order to achieve one’s own political goals in the hope of “dealing with them” or, in other words, liquidating them later.
Some Arab and Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia are nominally part of the coalition, but are now more focused on fighting Iran-backed forces in Yemen. The United States carried out the bulk of air strikes launched in Iraq and Syria since the summer of 2014. But despite calls for additional help, Carter insists that the coalition has the jihadists on a back foot, especially since the recapture of the Iraqi city of Ramadi and the targeting of their financial and illicit oil-selling capabilities. In the wake of the terror attacks in Paris in November that left 130 dead, France and Britain joined efforts in Syria. Some of the other nations to have conducted strikes in Iraq or Syria include Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Jordan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Dozens more countries, including Iceland, Italy and Panama, have pledged varying degrees of support, for instance through the training of local security forces.
