Clear and Present Danger It Ain't

 Degrade and Destroy--But Whom?

Is anyone getting a sense of deja-vu over what is unfolding in the Caliphate?  We have a vague memory of the sixties as President Kennedy was mulling over what to do with a tiny "country" in South East Asia called Vietnam.  Initial attempts to neutralise communist armed forces were failing dismally.  Should the US commit ground troops?  Yes, it should.  Thus began the Vietnam war in earnest.  Disaster for the US beckoned--and eventually came to pass.

Fast forward to 2014.  Isis proclaims a Caliphate.  It captures some civilians and turns them into gruesome political theatre.  How dare they!  Ever a "can do" people, the United States demand action of their ineffectual President.  He admits that he does not have a strategy for ISIS.  But he needs something.  Nation-building is so overrated--and in any event that was the last term's policy.  He decides upon air-strikes--the preferred weapon of armchair, left-wing Commanders-in-Chief.  (The preferred option of Republican Presidents tends to be "boots-on-the-ground" but only because they usually have more respect for the Joint-Chiefs of Staff, who know what it takes to win wars.  But that, too, has its pitfalls and beckoning disasters for a war-weary nation--like body bags.)

Part of the strength of the fundamentalist movement is a sense that there is something inevitable and divinely inspired about its victories, whether it is against superior numbers in Mosul or US airpower at Kobani.

So, air-strikes it is.  How is it going?  Here is an assessment from Patrick Cockburn:

America's plans to fight Islamic State are in ruins as the militant group's fighters come close to capturing Kobani and have inflicted a heavy defeat on the Iraqi army west of Baghdad. The US-led air attacks launched against Islamic State (also known as Isis) on 8 August in Iraq and 23 September in Syria have not worked. President Obama's plan to "degrade and destroy" Islamic State has not even begun to achieve success. In both Syria and Iraq, Isis is expanding its control rather than contracting.

Isis reinforcements have been rushing towards Kobani in the past few days to ensure that they win a decisive victory over the Syrian Kurdish town's remaining defenders. The group is willing to take heavy casualties in street fighting and from air attacks in order to add to the string of victories it has won in the four months since its forces captured Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, on 10 June. Part of the strength of the fundamentalist movement is a sense that there is something inevitable and divinely inspired about its victories, whether it is against superior numbers in Mosul or US airpower at Kobani.

Did you get that last bit?  Apparently ISIS commanders and fighters believe their own religious ideology.   Who would have thought?  What a total surprise.  And when folk believe there is a divine wind at their back they can often achieve remarkable military victories.  Muhammad and his immediate successors demonstrated that way back in the seventh century AD. Some things never change. 

But ISIS has also been making gains against the rest of "sunni Iraq":

Unfortunately for the US, Kobani isn't the only place air strikes are failing to stop Isis. In an offensive in Iraq launched on 2 October but little reported in the outside world, Isis has captured almost all the cities and towns it did not already hold in Anbar province, a vast area in western Iraq that makes up a quarter of the country. It has captured Hit, Kubaisa and Ramadi, the provincial capital, which it had long fought for. Other cities, towns and bases on or close to the Euphrates River west of Baghdad fell in a few days, often after little resistance by the Iraqi Army which showed itself to be as dysfunctional as in the past, even when backed by US air strikes.

It does not look good.  It's "degrade and destroy" all right, but not as we knew it.

What should the West do?  Western countries should respectively focus upon what, if any, clear and present danger exists for them.  It is lamentable that citizens of Western countries have been captured by ISIS and turned into political theatre by means of public executions.  But such does not represent a clear and present danger to the UK or the US or France, etc.  An appropriate response would be to issue an advisory warning to all citizens travelling or intending to travel in that part of the world.

It is equally lamentable that citizens are becoming seduced by Islamic millennialism and are travelling to sign-up as jihadis for ISIS.  Western government should respond with measured urbanity: if citizens wish to die a martyr's death in holy jihad to get their seventy-two virgins, if they wish to subject themselves to Islamic rape or forced marriage, and if they wish to swear allegiance to the armies of Allah, then it is their choice.  By so acting, the government ought to revoke citizenship and passports.  In fact, in these days of state funding for everything, Western governments could do a lot worse than making a travel subsidy available for those so inclined.  But thus far, no clear and present danger.

Not that one won't emerge some time in the future.  But it is an old foe--terrorist acts perpetrated by Islamic jihadis on home soil is a familiar threat.  It does represent a clear and present danger in general, requiring appropriate intelligence and vigilance.  But in this there is nothing new. And it certainly does not require bombing runs in Anbar province, or missile strikes on Kobani.