What drives Islamic State?

S P SETH

Islamic State (IS) is the stuff that nightmares are made of. We don’t know much about its working, though some recent studies and reporting is starting to throw some light on it. What is generally known about IS, though, is that it is a killing machine given to beheading, maiming and whatever else might create the maximum fear among its enemies. And as part of creating fear, it encourages its followers/sympathizers to act in any way that will terrorize people, such as a ‘lone wolf’ attack and/or blowing up Shia mosques. These and other acts are designed to make even ordinary people going about their ordinary lives imbibe a sense of terror lurking anywhere and everywhere. Saudi Arabia is a case in point, where IS activists/jihadis wrought havoc recently in a series of explosions targeting the country’s Shias and their places of worship. Saudi Arabia has reportedly arrested hundreds of suspected IS operatives.

Another recent example is the bombing of a cultural centre in a Turkish town on Syria-Turkish border targeting Kurdish activists gathered there to help their fellow Kurds across the border in reconstruction of their shattered lives and battered town. This has brought Turkey into direct conflict, surprisingly, with both the Kurds and IS. Ankara was hoping they would tear each other out, with Turkey standing aside as an observer and/or occasionally nudging one or the other in the desired direction. It has obviously not worked. And IS continues to make waves. So much so, here in Australia, the country’s prime minister is warning people that IS is coming after each and everyone.

In a similar situation when al Qaeda sprung upon the world stage with the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, they were seen as larger than life. And despite the elimination of Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda brand is still around here and there. However, it is largely eclipsed by IS. And one important reason is that, unlike al Qaeda, IS a territorial entity where its writ runs while al Qaeda leadership was on the run or sheltering in Pakistan after the US invasion of Afghanistan. And by continuing not only to exist but, at times, to expand their territory and message, IS tend to perpetuate their cause and myth. And by announcing their self-styled caliphate, they have pronounced a future to revive and recreate the glory of an Islamic past.

Which resonates with many Muslims even though most Muslims would be appalled by their methodology of terrorist violence. And it resonates with many Muslims because they feel a great sense of injustice and humiliation since the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the caliphate. The period following that saw the division of the remnants of the Ottoman territory of the Middle East into British and French colonial outposts, and the emergence of an independent Israel out of the Palestinian territory. The imposition of a Jewish state largely supported by the US and its allies in the midst of a Muslim world, only added to the outrage and humiliation of a people that were still wrestling with their downsizing. And this hurt continues with Israel still running riot with the Palestinian land by building more and more settlements to virtually negate the idea of a sovereign Palestinian homeland. The IS is championing the Palestinian cause too, even seeking to supplant Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The oil rich states of Saudi Arabia and its Gulf partners are also in IS’s sight. In other words, IS is tapping into the deeply humiliated psyche of the Muslim world.

But in the process it is also antagonizing many in the Muslim world by its wanton and ghoulish use and display of violence. And such representation of Islam certainly doesn’t strike chord with many Muslims. It is important to remember that Muslims are not an undifferentiated lot that might fit into an image created and projected by IS. While most of them follow their faith, their interpretation and practice of their religion is practical and reflect local characteristics. Besides, they have their national and sectarian divide and differences. Therefore, this fundamentalist view of a global Muslim community just pining to rally under the IS flag is overly done.

Having said this, it is also worth noting that within their territorial entity, IS is trying to run a brutal, but in its own way, efficient governing machine that works as long as those under its control follow rules and edicts couched as Islamic precepts. According to Tim Arango, reporting from Istanbul quoting one Raqqa resident (IS’s de facto capital in Syria), “You can travel from Raqqa to Mosul and no one will dare to stop you even if you carry $1millon.” It is partly because the IS functions at a certain level according to their own raw morality but, partly, because of widespread fear of draconian punishments if caught. Arango adds that, “Now there is a limited sense of order…, a low bar, perhaps, but a reality amid years of war and anarchy…” against the backdrop of more than ten years of war in Iraq and a brutal civil war in Syria for the last 4 years. This makes people feel that “[in IS] there is a functioning state.” And as long as people “avoid any dissent, they can largely go about their lives.”

According to a new book, Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate, by Abdel Bari Atwan (to be published in September and previewed in The New York Review of Books), the IS is a well structured entity with two deputies (formerly members of  Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party) who assist the caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi with a hierarchical structure down the line. There are said to be advisory councils and several departments run by committees, with leaders of each department sitting in Baghdadi’s “cabinet”. And the most powerful of these councils is the Sharia Council, which is said to oversee draconian implementation of the penalties for “crimes against God’s limits” that include amputations and capital punishment.

According to Atwan’s account, the display of horrific atrocities put up on the Internet are part of a coherent strategy. To quote the author, “Crucifixions, beheadings, the hearts of the rape victims cut out and placed upon their chests, mass executions, homosexuals being pushed from high buildings, severed heads impaled on railings or brandished by grinning ‘jihadist’ children… these gruesome images of brutal violence are carefully packaged and distributed via Islamic State’s media department.” He adds, “As each new atrocity outdoes the last, front page headlines across the world’s media are guaranteed.” With an estimated force of anywhere between 30,000 and 100,000, IS has certainly been able to create a larger than life image through gruesome images that also strike terror and revulsion among people.

At the same time, for its followers IS is “an emotionally attractive place where people ‘belong’, where everyone is a ‘brother’ or ‘sister’…” and where the glory of ‘martyrdom’ is within easy reach. And this governing machine has its own sources of revenue through illicit sale of oil and through taxes. Its budget is said to be managed by an Economic Council. In January 2015, for instance, overall receipts were reported to be $2 billion, with a surplus of $250 million added to the war chest. Therefore, it is a well-oiled machine in all its aspects and seems to strike a chord among a section of the dispossessed and disenchanted among the Muslim youth in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world. Those working for it and affiliated with it feel empowered striking terror among its hapless victims.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au

US-Iran breakthrough

S P SETH

The US-Iran nuclear deal is the most important breakthrough in their relationship, indeed the only breakthrough since the 1979 Iranian revolution that ruptured their bilateral relationship. It is indeed a multilateral accord including also Britain, France, Russia, China (as permanent members of the UN Security Council) and Germany. During the last over three decades, the US-Iranian relationship only went from bad to worse. Indeed, President Bush branded Iran as part of the ‘axis of evil’ and it is still regarded as a terrorist state, most notably by Israel. And when Iran was found to nurse nuclear ambitions, its ‘evil’ character was so magnified that it became a threat to the world. Indeed, when the US wanted to station missiles in eastern European states, apparently against Russia, it was justified as defence against an Iranian nuclear threat. As the threat was amplified and Iran refused to surrender its sovereign right, as Tehran put it, to pursue nuclear research for peaceful purposes, the US led the charge for international sanctions against it that seriously affected, probably crippled, its economy, making Iran virtually into a pariah state. But that was not the end of the story.

Israel wanted the US to bomb Iran’s nuclear installations or else allow it to do the job with US help and under its protection. There were times it seemed that Israel might persuade the US to do its bidding, though with what follow up results was not quite clear. As is said at times, Israel is not only an occupying power in Palestine; it also seems to occupy the US Congress. But when the pressure for military action against Iran increased towards the end of George Bush’s presidency, he had already seriously messed up things in Iraq and Afghanistan that even he wasn’t prepared to dig an even bigger hole for his country. When Obama became President, he was keen to find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear question, as he did with the Palestinian issue. Which put him at odds with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who did everything possible to undercut Obama on both the issues by working the powerful Israeli lobby in the US.

It must go to Obama’s credit that despite all the pressure from Israel, as well as from Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, he quietly and persistently pursued the diplomatic path to untangle and resolve the nuclear issue with Iran. And under the nuclear deal now signed, Iran has agreed, for all intents and purposes, to forgo for the next 10 to 15 years any advanced work that might be interpreted as pursuing a nuclear weapons goal. And this will be achieved through a highly intrusive UN inspection and surveillance regime under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Which will lengthen the “breakout time” for Iran to make an atomic bomb to one year. The scope for any cheating will be minimal, if any, because of an extensive inspection regime. In specific terms, Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium would be reduced by 98 per cent for 15 years, probably by transferring it to Russia. Its centrifuges, the spinning machines used to enrich uranium will be cut from 19,000 to 5060. And if Iran follows up on its commitments, its crippling sanctions will be phased out.

Of course, all this is not going to be smooth sailing. Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu is still doing his utmost to wreck the deal. Some months ago, when Netanyahu was invited to address the US Congress on the subject, he duly railed against it. And he is continuing to do that and in this he has the support of Saudi Arabia and its fellow Gulf kingdoms, opposed to the deal for their own reasons. But having worked on the deal for the last 20 months, Obama administration is determined to get it through the Congress. President Obama has said that he would veto any rejection by the US Congress that has to review the accord within 60 days. The Congress though can out veto the president by a two-third majority. But it appears that Obama’s opponents might not be able to marshal that kind of majority. In that case, the nuclear accord with Iran is a done deal, especially after its adoption by the UN Security Council.

Israel, of course, will be terribly disappointed. Netanyahu has called it a “ historic mistake”, which will turn Iran into a “terrorist nuclear superpower.” Netanyahu, of course, sees phantoms when it comes to Iran; notwithstanding the fact that Israel is already a nuclear state with an estimated arsenal of 200 bombs. In his hard sell for the deal, Obama told a press conference: “The bottom line is this: This nuclear deal meets the national security interests of the United States and our allies. It prevents the most serious threat---Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, which would make the other problems that Iran may cause even worse.” And he went on, “ Without a deal, we risk even more war in the Middle East, and other countries in the region would feel compelled to pursue their own nuclear programs, threatening a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region in the world.”

But Netanyahu is not interested in any explanation or cogent reason for the deal because he wants Iran to be perpetually in the doghouse. As Philip Hammond, British foreign secretary, said, “The question you have to ask yourself is what kind of deal would have been welcome in Tel Aviv. The answer, of course, is that Israel doesn’t want any deal with Iran--- Israel wants a permanent state of standoff and I don’t believe that’s in the interests of the region. I don’t believe it’s in our interests.”

And, of course, if the deal is implemented, it has the potential of changing the Middle Eastern region in some fundamental ways. With sanctions lifted, Iran’s economic potential will open up all sorts of opportunities not only for Iran but also for the region and beyond. Iran will get access to its frozen funds estimated at $100 billion. It will be able to openly sell oil and gas in the international market. There will be potential for international investment in varied projects in Iran, with its people free at last from a perpetual sense of siege since the revolution in 1979. Iran will take its place in the community of nations, and might even play a constructive role in a region torn apart for all sorts of reasons.

However, all this will take time, if it works its way. On surface, both the US and Iran have sought to confine this breakthrough to the nuclear deal between them. They are in fact underplaying, even ignoring, its significance in their overall bilateral relationship, largely for domestic reasons. But there is already a shared sense of danger from the so-called Islamic state. The US is already understanding, if not approving, of the frontline role that Iran-sponsored militias are playing against the self-styled caliphate. And as the nuclear deal proceeds, this is likely to be the most productive area of cooperation between Iran and the US. And once that trust is established, there will be scope for multifaceted cooperation.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au 

Saudi Arabia and delusions of power

S P SETH

When one looks at the conflict-ridden Middle East, what strikes one is that there are two broad currents that underlie regional instability, aided and abetted by powerful external forces. The first is the proponents of the status quo led by the oil rich Saudi monarchy and its fellow monarchs in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). And the second is the inexorable pressure for change. And the two have been in a process of collision. The Saudi-led GCC have been doing their best to push back change. They have sought do this by using Islam, its Wahhabi version in the case of Saudi Arabia, as one of their principal tools. In the absence of any kind of demonstrable popular support for the Saudi monarchy, the sanctity of religion, with a pact of sorts with the country’s clerical establishment, has been a useful tool of longevity at home. And since Saudi Arabia houses and cares for the Islamic world’s most revered sites, it sees itself invested with a special kind of religious dispensation for the rest of the Islamic world.  

Which makes Saudi Arabia regard itself not only as an important regional player but also as an authentic voice internationally of the Muslims. And with its vast financial patronage dispensed to promote all sorts of Islamic causes, it has acquired tremendous political clout for a country with such a small population. Besides, it has used its vast oil resource as a strategic tool to weigh into regional affairs. In other words, Saudi Arabia and the GCC have tended to use their assets to insure the stability of their dynasties at home and promote their causes abroad. And in this, they had the support of the United States and its western allies as their strategic interests converged. Which is to say that they too largely supported status quo of dictators and monarchs ruling their subjects.  To placate their subjects, the Saudi rulers have generously provided economic benefits to their subjects. But this generosity doesn’t extend to foreign workers. So far, such virtual bribery to keep most of their subjects on the royal side seems to have worked, at least on surface, combined with the repressive enforcement of the state sanctioned/sponsored Islamic code.

However, this will, most likely, not work if the region around the Saudi kingdom were racked by political turbulence, as happened during the Arab Spring. Saudi Arabia’s oil producing and Shia-majority eastern province was greatly affected, as well as its near neighbour, Bahrain. But in both cases the kingdom’s army crushed this. Which would explain why Saudi Arabia has worked hard to maintain and perpetuate the status quo in the Middle East, apart from Syria under Bashar al-Assad and in Lebanon where Hezbollah must be contained and eliminated. And lately, this also applies to Yemen where Houthis, a Shiite group, have managed to substantially capture power. In Yemen, Saudi Arabia has been bombing the country since March demanding the restoration of the exiled (in Saudi Arabia) former President Abed-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

In all these cases (Syria under Bashar al-Assad regime, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Yemen increasingly under Houthi control) the common denominator is that they are believed to be Iranian proxies as part of Tehran’s game plan to expand its power into the predominantly Sunni and Arab Middle Eastern region. Saudi Arabia considers it necessary to contain and push back this threat. And as part of this policy, Riyadh has been providing arms and money to Syrian rebels of all descriptions trying to bring down the Assad regime. But this hasn’t worked so far. Instead, a good portion of Saudi-supplied weaponry has ended with the IS now controlling a big chunk of Iraq and Syria, with its ambition to extend the reach of its self-proclaimed caliphate to all Muslim countries. In other words, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf kingdoms are also IS targets as and when they can get around to it. But, for the present, Saudi Arabia is obsessed with Iran and its supposed threat to the Sunni Arab world. And hence, it will continue to bomb Yemen to crush the Houthis, continue supporting and arming rebels of all descriptions in Syria and work to erode Hezbollah influence in Lebanon.

At the same time, Saudi Arabia wants its Sunni Arab neighbours to maintain and perpetuate their status quo. Indeed, when the people’s power exemplified by Arab Spring was in ascendance, the Saudi ruling dynasty was mortified sensing an existential danger from them. And they did their utmost, prevailing on their most trusted and powerful ally, the US, to save the Egyptian dictator, Hosni Mubarak. Coincidentally, Israel was doing the same—both favouring regional status quo. However, Mubarak couldn’t be saved at the time, even if the US had wanted it because the revolutionary fervour in Egypt seemed unstoppable. Indeed, this was the beginning of a growing strain in Saudi-US relations, which has since widened as Washington didn’t follow up its threat to bring down Syria’s Assad regime after it used chemical weapons on rebels; reinforced further with a prospective nuclear deal with Iran, and US inability to effectively intervene against Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen. In other words, Saudi Arabia’s superpower ally, the US, is not proving as reliable as it once was.

But at one level, Saudi Arabia was relieved when Egypt’s strong army man, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, overthrew the first ever popularly elected President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, now sentenced to death along with other Brotherhood leaders, on a slew of charges. If this is one way of turning the clock back to recreate status quo, it will only explode at some point with even greater intensity. Perhaps it is already starting to happen, if the violent eruptions in Sinai and elsewhere in Egypt are anything to go by. Riyadh might think that their multi-billion dollar investment in the Sisi regime has put the lid back on the revolutionary upsurge of the Arab Spring, but signs do not seem propitious. The most astute thing for Riyadh would be to start/encourage a process of graduated change in the kingdom as well as in the region, with its large financial resources. But that seems unlikely.

On the other hand, it has tended to overreach by seeking to turn back the tide of change. It is a small country but with delusions of power. It did work up to a point. But now, with the US connection/power weakening and oil ceasing to be an over-riding strategic asset, Riyadh is encountering serious difficulties. In the circumstances, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies might find that they can’t turn the tide of history in favour of change. Instead they might need to change to survive. 

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au               

The nightmare that is Islamic State

S P SETH

The fall of Ramadi to the Islamic State (IS) has shown it to be more durable than is comfortable to believe. It led the US defence secretary to blame the Iraqi army for lacking the will to fight, even when they far outnumber their enemy. The Iraqis, on the other hand, blame the US for not providing enough weaponry and being selective about their aerial targets. Both might be right to a point. Unlike the loss of Mosul to the IS last June when the army simply fled, this time the Iraqi army did put up some resistance but only just. They seem to be more comfortable with disorderly retreat than putting up a good fight. And the reason for this is that, unlike their enemy, they lack the ideological and religious fervour that imbues and inspires the IS, however abominable that ideology might be.

At the same time, despite all the training and weaponry Iraqi forces have received from the Americans, their US mentors were hardly inspirational. They were basically foreign invaders even when they got rid of the Saddam regime, hated by Iraq’s Shia majority. However, the Nouri al-Maliki government, a Shia version of Saddam’s killing machine---though this time the victims were the Sunni minority- was hardly inspiring with widespread corruption where some of the listed army battalions existed more on paper with top commanders pocketing their salaries. And these so-called commanders were Maliki’s cronies heading different fiefdoms. It is important to remember that Maliki was the US choice, a continuation of the mishandling of Iraq by Washington. In other words, there was nothing inspiring in the Iraqi situation--- whether it was the US role or the Maliki experiment--- for the Iraqi army and society to cherish and uphold. His successor, Haider al-Abadi, might be an improvement on Maliki but in the absence of any worthwhile ideal and vision for the future, the Iraqi army simply is a ragtag force led by self-seekers out to enrich themselves.

Another important drawback is that Iraq lacks the unifying features of a nation state. It is a hodgepodge of ethnic and sectarian elements culled out of a dying Ottoman empire after WW1, like other Middle Eastern entities, and foisted on the world by the British and the French colonialists and manipulated by them for their economic, political and strategic gains. No wonder, the country never developed into a real nation state when its components lacked cohesive features. On the other hand, its disparate and fractious components, like the Sunnis, Shias and the Kurds, were ruled with an iron hand under Saddam Hussein’s brutal dictatorship, with the Shias and the Kurds as his special targets. And when the US attacked Iraq in 2003 and removed and hanged the dictator that was the easy part. The easy success of military operations, symbolized with President George Bush appearing on the deck of a US warship to declare victory, encouraged Washington to uproot the existing system by virtually abolishing the Saddam-era army, bureaucracy and everything else associated with it.

In the absence of any alternative structure to govern the country, Iraq soon descended into anarchy. Which led to the rise of the al Qaeda in Iraq, making things even worse. During 2006 and 2007, the US occupation succeeded in enlisting the support of the Sunni tribal leaders against the al Qaeda that had become unpopular with the local tribes because of its foreign leadership, high handedness and disregard for the tribal leaders. The US made a deal to fund tribal fighters against the al Qaeda in Iraq and to eventually have them incorporated into the regular Iraqi force. However, Iraq’s Maliki government wasn’t willing to incorporate Sunnis into the regular army, as they weren’t trusted. On the other hand, the US-approved Maliki government turned on the Sunni minority and any hope of a cohesive Iraq faded pretty soon.

Under Haider al-Abidi as Iraq’s Prime Minister, the US has been encouraging a coalition of Sunni tribal leaders and fighters into a united front of the Sunnis, the Shia militia and army and Kurdish fighters to fight the IS. At the same time, the US is tactically supportive of Iran’s role in backing the Shia militias with arms and, where necessary, taking a commanding position. While the Abidi government is keen to have the Sunnis on their side, they are reluctant to provide them with the necessary weaponry. The US is continuing the pressure on the Abidi government to enlist Sunni tribal leaders and is keen to provide them with US weapons. But the Abidi government’s distrust of the Sunnis would remain an obstacle. Therefore, any coalition between the Shia regime and Iraq’s Sunni minority is unlikely to eventuate or be effective. And the Kurds, on their part, are concerned more about saving their own autonomous region from IS than diverting their resources and fighters to save Shia Iraq. In other words, all this talk of a US-inspired grand coalition of Iraq’s feuding sectarian and ethnic groups seems rather unlikely.

The US is now committing more elite forces as trainers and advisers, taking their numbers to 3500. Indeed, there is talk of setting up a string of bases to do an effective job of training the Iraqis. This would suggest that the US is being drawn once again into the Iraqi war theatre. Whether this would be more productive than the disastrous experience, starting with the 2003 military invasion, would remain to seen. But the long record of direct involvement in the Iraqi war by the US and its allies is not very encouraging. Already, the US aerial intervention, while useful in stopping the IS advance in some areas, is not proving as effective as was originally thought.

There is also constant talk in the US that Iraqis or, for that matter, people in other troubled Middle Eastern countries, should do more of their own fighting, with the US and its allies willing to help with arms, intelligence, money and aerial support where necessary. The problem, though, is that these people blame their troubles on the US intervention in the region, in the first place. And they do not have the resources, leadership and cohesion to effectively fight against their real or imagined enemies, even as they are simultaneously feuding internally over a host of issues, with sectarian divisions at the top. Iran could be an effective ally against the IS but that raises a host of other questions further aggravating regional fault lines. Hence, there are no easy answers. However, even if the IS were to gain further ground, it will always remain under siege and will have difficulty functioning as a normal state. 

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au