THE fall of Ramadi last month to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) drew harsh United States criticism of the weak Iraqi military performance. Most importantly, a year after the strategic northern Iraqi city of Mosul was captured by Isil in June last year, it took both Iraqi and international leaders by surprise. The militant group has remained resilient and powerful. The event then led to US-coalition airstrikes to defeat the self-described Islamic State.
The event has been unprecedented in the history of the Arab state system. For the first time, an Islamist non-state actor, which is now simultaneously national and transnational, carved out a new state in the Arab world, a system of states whose borders have remained relatively unchanged over the last century.
Despite the formation of Israel in 1948, the difference in the case of IS is that it is ruled under a self-proclaimed caliph who claims both religious and successive authority among believers within his state and globally.
Although Muslims leaders around the world have declared this new caliphate illegitimate, there is a fear in both Muslim and Western states that a “caliphate foreign policy” poses a danger to their own domestic stability.
Despite the future viability of its proto-state in Iraq and Syria against the military might of the US and its coalition, the ability to deliver on a promise of restoring an idealised IS within the territory ruled by two Shia governments (Iraq and Syria) will continue to inspire followers.
The emergence of Isil took a decade in the making. It was the Syrian civil war that served as the vacuum that allowed Isil to regroup and distinguish itself from al-Qaeda, emerging as the most tenacious armed Islamist group in the region. Another solid argument is the American intervention in Iraq subsequent to this.
This relates to the tragic actions of former US president George W. Bush, who lost his way almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans. The event demonstrated that America had a new enemy, Islamist radicalism. On Feb 15, 2003, millions of people in around 60 countries and over 800 cities marched in a coordinated effort to stop the impending war on Iraq. It was the biggest demonstration ever seen in London with 1.5 million, in Madrid with 1.5 million and in Rome with three million.
Despite this, the US and its allies invaded Iraq in March 2003, three weeks before Hans Blix, head of the weapons inspections mission in Iraq, had been allowed to finish his job and confirm that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was not hiding weapons of mass destruction.
Bush and then British prime minister Tony Blair did not want Blix to finish his job, and they certainly did not care about the massive, democratic peace protests. Many claimed they wanted to wage a war on Iraq to control its oil reserves, at any cost.
And the cost was huge, as 4,491 American service members were killed in Iraq between 2003 and last year. Surveys vary on the number of Iraqis killed, and they range from 150,000 to over a million. The US officially withdrew from the country in 2011, but the insurgency and various dimensions of the civil armed conflict continue.
For Iraqis, the war not only destroyed the state and its political, military, social and economic institutions, it also decimated a society with a long-standing mix of ethnic and religious groups, some of which are now locked in sectarian struggle or even threatened with extinction. About 25 per cent of Iraqi children live with chronic malnutrition.
Comparing this to the First Gulf War, also known as “Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm”, which lasted six months, almost 500 coalition soldiers and 35,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed.
Many believed that Bush, Blair and others in their administrations should stand trial for their roles in the Middle East disasters, including testimonies from those directly involved in the policy, such as Blix, various politicians and former US secretary of state Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s chief of staff at the time.
In fact, President Barack Obama used the Iraq War during his presidential campaign, claiming that a large portion of global anti-Americanism stemmed from overly aggressive actions on the part of the US.
Last year, The Wall Street Journal wrote: “Obama won the presidency by arguing that the US had alienated the world and Muslims by recklessly using force abroad. We had betrayed our values by interrogating terrorists too harshly and wiretapping too much. Our enemies hated us not because they hated our values or our influence but because we had provoked them with our interventions.”
When Obama became president, he withdrew from the Middle East, particularly from Iraq, and avoided new entanglements, such as in Syria after its leader, Bashar al-Assad, came under attack from a powerful insurgency.
America’s complete withdrawal allowed former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to act on his deeply divisive authoritarian and sectarian impulses, which in turn created the Isil opportunity in Iraq.
Syria was in a state of ruin when the Americans withdrew, and the West, with its loss of appetite for war after Iraq and Afghanistan, and the United Nations Security Council failed to prevent war through negotiation, diplomacy and sanctions. The international community has failed to alleviate the suffering of millions of refugees, most of them women and children, made homeless and hungry by the conflict.
The West failed spectacularly to provide a viable structure with which to replace it, leading to further conflict, the impoverishment of thousands and a vacuum that became particularly conducive to the proliferation of militias and extreme groups such as al-Qaeda and Isil. They also failed to give adequate support to neighbouring countries Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, who are hosting the Syrian refugees and creaking under the political, economic and social strain.
During the Syrian uprising, the US, Western European, Saudi and Arab Gulf policy was to overthrow Assad. Ironically, this happens to be the policy of Isil and other jihadis in Syria. If Assad goes, then Isil will be the beneficiary, since Assad’s defeat means absorbing the rest of the Syrian armed opposition.
So, a year after Isil’s advance and takeover of Mosul, the city remains under Isil. Another city Ramadi has fallen. The Obama administration now is considering a plan to increase the US presence in Iraq by sending 400 to 500 more military personnel.
One year on, more years, troops and interventions added to the war against Isil seemed inevitable. The military machine that combines religious fanaticism with efficient military expertise seemed to be expanding every day. The West that continues to self-deceive and the guilty that remains unpunished are among the reasons why the self-proclaimed caliphate survives.
The writer is a former lecturer of
Universiti Teknologi Mara, Shah Alam, and International Islamic University Malaysia, Gombak