“ISIS is not an existential threat to the United States”, President
Barack Obama told Jeffrey Goldberg of Atlantic magazine recently.
What becomes clear in this long article, much of it Obama’s own words,
is that Obama shies away from the idea that war can make bad things
good. The unquenchable wars that he inherited- Iraq and Afghanistan-
were set alight by his predecessor, George W. Bush, and no amount of
Obama fire engines have been able to douse them with enough water to put
them out.
As for the rest of the waterfront of foreign affairs, he argues that
after a period of uncertainty he decided that the US should not
militarily involve itself in the civil war in Syria. He decided that
Ukraine is not a core American interest, although it is a Russian one,
and he was convinced that Iran would agree through peaceful negotiation
to renounce the dangerous parts of its nuclear program. As for the
toppling of Muammar Gaddafi and the mess that followed, he agrees that he
made a bad mistake when he put on one side his own philosophy of not
intervening militarily in a situation that was not a core US interest.
In the Atlantic article, Obama says believes he has broken with what he
calls, derisively, the “playbook”. “It’s a playbook that comes
out of the foreign policy establishment. The playbook prescribes
responses to different events, and these responses tend to be
militarized”.
So if ISIS is not an “existential threat” what is it and why have
American bombers been deployed against it and even some Special Forces
on the ground? Why is he sounding the trumpet of war- limited war, it
must be admitted, but still war? According to the New York Times, since
September 2014, groups or individuals claiming some connection to ISIS
have killed approximately 600 people outside Syria and Iraq. Yet more
than 14,000 people were murdered in the US in that same period. Indeed
if 600 is the best ISIS can do the US and its NATO allies should switch
off the lights in the Middle East and go home. The US doesn’t need the
Middle East’s oil as much as it once did. The US can’t straddle all
the local beasts at the same time- Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey and
the Gulf States are all pulling in different directions. As James Baker,
President George H.W. Bush’s Secretary Of State said about the
Yugoslavian civil wars, “We haven’t got a dog in that fight”.
ISIS has limited power. The Soviet Union could impose communism on
eastern Europe thanks to the might of its army. The Islamic State (ISIS)
in contrast has at the most 30,000 troops. Alarmists point to the fact
that it controls an area as large as the UK, but most of it is empty
desert. Its national income is about the same as Barbados. Its base is
what are the ungoverned Sunni areas of Iraq.
As Harvard professor of international affairs, Stephen Walt, writes in
Foreign Affairs, “Spreading a revolution via contagion requires a
level of resources that only great powers possess. The Soviet Union was
powerful enough to subsidize the Communist International and support
client states around the world, but medium-sized revolutionary powers
are no so fortunate. Iran has backed a number of proxies over the past
30-plus years, but it has not yet created a successful clone.”
Local Muslim governments are already working to contain ISIS influence
by cutting down on the passage of foreign fighters, interrupting its
financing and encouraging local religious authorities to challenge its
outlandish religious claims. In Europe, an overwhelming majority of
Muslims will have no luck with ISIS. Imams are increasingly on the
alert for ISIS propaganda and recruiting in their mosques.
ISIS leaders have quarreled with the Al Qaeda leadership. ISIS has a
tendency to treat minor disagreements as acts of heresy, punishable by
death.
The US and its allies (and Russia) should be aware of the boomerang
effect. Foreign intervention by Austria and Russia radicalized the
French Revolution. Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980 allowed Ayatollah
Khomeini and his followers to purge moderate elements in Iran.
Walt suggests “patient containment” as the best policy. ISIS’s own
excesses and internal divisions could lead to its collapse. Or over time
it may mellow, as has Iran and Palestine, even Gaza.
The role that the US and its allies can play is back up, but not
fighting, support for the front-liners most affected by ISIS. Also Saudi
Arabia has to be sanctioned if it doesn’t once and for all put a stop
to its citizens exporting the most militant and violent interpretations
of the Koran and money to go with it to ISIS.
Last but not least, Western media and politicians should play its significance
down. Ringing the alarm bells all the time plays into ISIS’s hands.