by Rob Marchant
No-one could exactly accuse President Obama of rushing into military action to deal with the resurgent Islamists of ISIS in Iraq, currently massacring local Christians and Yazidis. No, if there were a perfect illustration for the phrase “dragged kicking and screaming”, this would surely be it.
But Iraq’s apparent political and military meltdown is, ironically, drawing the “troops out” Obama administration – and could yet conceivably draw our own – into some kind of ring-fenced, belated rear-guard action in the Middle East. Whatever the rights and wrongs of any such action might be, the cause is, again, the phenomenon which has dominated the first decade-and-a-half of this century’s foreign policy and may yet come to dominate the rest of it: jihadism, the extreme version of political Islam.
As the years have worn on from 9/11 and 7/7, it has been easy for the world to retreat into the comfortable delusion that the threat has gone. It has not. Taking a bit longer in the airport security queue has not made everyone safe. Islamist terrorism is still happening, just not on our shores. And the fundamental problem is not Islam per se, of course; it is Islam as the basis for an illiberal form of politics and government.
If further evidence were needed of how Islamism seems destined always to end in some kind of madness, then it could certainly be provided by recent events in Gaza, where Hamas has spent recent weeks using civilians as human shields. Or in Nigeria, where Boko Haram is busy kidnapping its schoolgirls for use as slaves, as our politicians take decisive action to fight them via, er, Twitter.
But it’s not just such visibly extreme Islamism; look closer to home, to a “moderate” administration governing a historical ally of the West, where Turkey’s government has been slowly sliding into an increasingly unpleasant authoritarianism. If you want an indication of the current direction of a country which had previously made great strides towards modernisation, try reading recent comments by deputy prime minister Bülent Arınç, who recently opined that “women should not laugh in public”. This from the “acceptable face” of Islamism.
Last Sunday his boss, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was elected Turkey’s executive president, having altered the constitution to get around the prohibition on serving three terms as prime minister. Turkey’s founder Ataturk, who worked so hard to keep the country’s government constitutionally secular, must be turning in his grave.
In short, Erdogan has “done a Putin” in order to carry on governing, presumably indefinitely (he was once memorably quoted as saying that democracy for him was like a bus ride: when he reached his stop, he’d get off). There seems little doubt that Turkey will now become, like Putin’s Russia, ever less free and democratic as the years go by.
From its extreme to its moderate forms, we struggle to find a single example of Islamism in power which has allowed any kind of liberal democracy to flourish.
Meanwhile, where is Labour? Criticising David Cameron over Gaza and making supportive noises towards the somewhat dubious Baroness Warsi, the government’s resident Clare Short (both of whom, interestingly, only seemed to discover their principles rather late in the day). And best not mention Syria, where Labour had a starring role in the studied inaction that has largely led to where we are now with ISIS.
It may not be until Obama leaves office in two years that a sea-change in foreign policy will finally come; it may just come before. But neither is the quasi-isolationist status quo sustainable: thanks to its farcical “red lines”, Putin is laughing at the US and so is Assad. Most importantly ISIS, an organisation many describe as worse than Al-Qaeda, were that even meaningful, has been allowed to flourish in the shadow of the developed world’s indifference.
This is not the time for any politician to put narrow domestic, party or identity politics first. As the evidence mounts up and with an agonising slowness, it seems that world is finally realising it has got it wrong on dealing with the threat which Islamism poses to its values of liberalism and democracy, not to mention its very security.
And there is one corollary to that for Labour, which has consistently opposed confronting that threat: it risks one day being on the wrong side of history.
Rob Marchant is an activist and former Labour Party manager who blogs at The Centre Left
Tags: al-Qaeda, caliphate, foreign policy, ISIS, islamism, Obama, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Rob Marchant, Turkey
Agree with most of this and I keep on thinking `come back Saddam all is forgiven`. The west seems to romanticise and project its own wishes on cultures that are at each others throats without realising that they `need a tito` to stop a drive into chaos.
Surely though if we’d gone into Syria it would have made it far worse? Same with Iraq. It’s not just that Labour are on the wrong side of history it’s that they caused the problem by aiding Bush to go into Iraq without any view of a gameplan.
In the end the problems are to do with ideological and electoral reasons. Bush found it ideologically and electorally expedient to invade Iraq. Blair was saved by the electoral system that gave him ultimate power with only 35% of the vote and 22% of the total electorate. Labour’s reaction to that result will consign them to not having effective power even if they win in May 2015.
Dear Rob,
Given your reference to Hamas and human shields, it’s worth posting a comment made underneath the article you linked as source:
‘This article is severely flawed because it conflates two different senses in which human shields might be used.
Israel makes the accusation that Palestinians are made to stay in their homes to defend the Palestinian resistance’s arsenal which is allegedly located there, and they try to use this to explain why so many civilians are killed in airstrikes.
All this article shows is that Hamas asks Palestinians to stay at home, but homes are a priori not legitimate targets, and the bombing of them is prima facie a war crime. Because a person’s home is not a legitimate target anyway, then there is nothing wrong with staying there to try to deter a war crime from being committed, and it doesn’t make the Israelis any less culpable for the deaths of any civilians who are murdered in the process. To argue otherwise is pure victim-blaming.
The difference is the same as difference between using your body to shield an armed fighter using his weapon and using your body to shield a helpless child who is caught up in the fighting, which is obviously admirable and doesn’t mitigate the guilt of someone who shoots you. It’s hard to understand why anyone would blur the lines between the two unless they were following an agenda to exculpate Israel of its war crimes.
Were any Palestinian viewpoints sought in the researching of this article?’
good artcle Rob.
I agree fully with this article. Radical Islamism is the fascism of our time, and large parts of the left will be condemned by history for their appeasement of or collaboration with it.
However, even for those who understand the evil nature of ISIS there is still the delusion that somehow Hamas is different. They are not. There is no difference of any significance between their ideology (exterminate Jews and gay people), destroy democracy, establish a caliphate) and that of ISIS. The only difference is that Hamas face a state, Israel, which is able and willing to defend its people.
Were Israel as weak as Iraq – something which I suspect some contributors on this thread wish for – the Jews and Christians of Israel would be suffering the same grim fate as the Christians and Yazidis of Iraq. Let’s stop this silly distinction between the ‘bad’ genocidal fascists of ISIS and the ‘good’ genocidal fascists of Hamas.
Off you pop then Marchant. If you are so bothered go and actually physically fight it. Islamism only respects the gun.
Incidentally with regards Hamas and so-called human shields – you do know it breaches international law to force the civilian community to leave a combat area? If they wish to stay that is their right. Hamas can’t make them leave – and even if they decide to leave they can only go to Israel and they won’t let them in. UNPROFOR/SFOR/IFOR used closed civilian schools the same as Hamas (I was in one) and set-up bases in inhabited towns and villages with the civilian population still there even though they were targets of bosnian serb (and bosnian croat) artillery & mortars – again perfectly legal and above board.
The west interfering in the Islamic middle east and north africa trying to westernise it is what has caused this and your solution is? More meddling – which will gain exactly the same result.
Erdogan is a NATO ally. After we have finished arming the kurds and Iraq stabilises the kurds will increase their separatist operations in Turkey – and the Turks think nothing of retaliating deep into kurdish Iraq – all perfectly legal under their rights as NATO members. You will quickly have a situation like Incurluk airbase, Turkey in the 1990’s where RAF aid & weapon drops to kurds in beleaguered northern Iraq were being bombed (along with the kurds) by Turkish aircraft operating out of the same air base, waiting for the RAF planes to get out of the way. Oh what a Catch-22 laugh that was.
@Tafia
“The west interfering in the Islamic middle east and north africa trying to westernise it is what has caused this…”
The West did not create ISIS or IS, one of the worst canards that is uttered. IS grew out of AQ in Iraq which bombed and terrorized populations.
An incredibly patronizing statement to the people of Iraq and Syria, as if they are incapable of original thought.
Not everything is a result of colonialism – if colonialism directly caused such terror and misery than why are Singapore, Hong Kong, Botswana, Canada, Australia some of the highest ranking nations in terms of GDP per Capita, the Human Development Index and the Gini coefficient?
The West did not create ISIS or IS, one of the worst canards that is uttered. IS grew out of AQ in Iraq which bombed and terrorized populations.
Part of ISIS comes from the anti Assad grouping that we helped arm, equip and train.
Remember where al-Quada originate from? Mujahadeen armed, equipped and trained by the west.
The conditions that have led to the creation of ISIS are a direct result of our meddling. Forced regime changes, propping up despotic kingdoms, interfering in civil wars to get the result we want as opposed to the result the people involved want etc etc etc
You cannot go around changing governments to suit yourself and financing armed resistance groups and then cry when it goes tits-up. Everything that is going on in the middle east is a direct result of our interference and a lot of it dates back to that dickhead Balfour drawing straight lines to suit himself.
An incredibly patronizing statement to the people of Iraq and Syria, as if they are incapable of original thought. They had original thought. That’s the problem – it wasn’t the original thought we in the west wanted them to have and it’s not the original thought we have any intention of letting them have either..
The West did not create ISIS or IS, one of the worst canards that is uttered. IS grew out of AQ in Iraq which bombed and terrorized populations.
Part of ISIS comes from the anti Assad grouping that we helped arm, equip and train.
Remember where al-Quada originate from? Mujahadeen armed, equipped and trained by the west.
The conditions that have led to the creation of ISIS are a direct result of our meddling. Forced regime changes, propping up despotic kingdoms, interfering in civil wars to get the result we want as opposed to the result the people involved want etc etc etc
You cannot go around changing governments to suit yourself and financing armed resistance groups and then cry when it goes tits-up. Everything that is going on in the middle east is a direct result of our interference and a lot of it dates back to that dickhead Balfour drawing straight lines to suit himself.
An incredibly patronizing statement to the people of Iraq and Syria, as if they are incapable of original thought. They had original thought. That’s the problem – it wasn’t the original thought we in the west wanted them to have and it’s not the original thought we have any intention of letting them have either..
And as for Sykes-Picot. Jesus Christ – the damage they have done and the deaths they have caused..
Tafia: “the damage they have done and the deaths they have caused..”
People are already saying the same of Blair and Bush. And the disasters caused by their ineptitude will only multiply.