Defeating ISIS

The ISIS monster continues to scare the world days after the Paris carnage. The international community should come out of their respective strategic interests to work out a consensus plan to defeat ISIS before this dreaded outfit resorts to many more incidents of mayhem.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria called ISIS (known as Daesh in Arabic) is proving to be more menacing than al Qaeda. France is at war again, provoking ISIS to issue a fresh threat of attack this time on Washington, indicating that the Western allies have no monopoly over use of force. War on terror is nothing new. But, what is seriously lacking is the Western appreciation of the roots of terror.

This lapse is not due to the myopia of the west. Instead it stems out of their culpability. The US and its allies in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) including France have turned Iraq and Syria into killing fields by destabilising the State in these countries on the pretext of regime change. The West militarily intervened to destabilise what they called rogue states.

But such rogue attacks by the West have created a simmering cauldron of Iraq and Syria, giving birth to terror outfits like ISIS. Therefore, ISIS cannot be defeated by military attacks alone, without trying to bring in peace and tranquility in Iraq and Syria. The end of civil war in Syria is, therefore, crucial to any strategy of successful fight against ISIS. But, the western military and economic hegemony wants this civil war to continue till their puppet regimes are firmly installed.

Al Qaeda’s might stems out of the US’ unilateral occupation of Iraq. The ISIS is actually a metamorphosis of al Qaeda. Similarly, the West has been militarily intervening in Syria since 2011 to topple the Bashar al-Assad regime. Towards this end, it has pumped in massive funds and arms to so-called rebels which included Islamic groups sympathetic to al Qaeda.

Ultimately, the military largesse of the West landed in the hands of ISIS, making it lethal. France, the latest victim of terror, was part of this great game in its former colony. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other Gulf allies of NATO were accomplices in this process of destabilising the regimes in their fellow Islamic countries. In return, the US and its allies fully backed autocratic and fanatic regimes in countries like Saudi Arabia.

The West thus pampered radical Islamic elements in Iraq and Syria as long as they fought a jihad against the regimes hostile to them. It has to choose between fighting ISIS and toppling Bashar government.

The Russian entry into the scene and the involvement of even Iran in Syrian negotiations have a potential to alter the situation a lot by making the fight on ISIS to gain primacy over dislodging Bashar government as both these nations are supporting the Syrian regime.

The West should realise that their hunger for oil makes the world boil due to ISIS. The ISIS should be militarily defeated. But, this cannot happen without a just political settlement in Iraq and Syria, free from intervention by NATO and its Gulf allies.

Editor: Prof K Nageshwar