Islamic State: how western policy is scrambling to catch up
Western journalists and politicians can concentrate on only one thing at a time. Not so the jihadis of the Islamic State. While we have been focussing on their advance in Iraq, the jihadi militants have simultaneously been making gains in Syria.
‘Without a policy to defeat IS in Syria, any approach in Iraq is doomed to failure,” writes Julien Barnes-Dacey of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
If US airstrikes, combined with the re-arming and advising of Kurdish and elite Iraqi forces, succeed in pushing back IS from central Iraq they won’t be crushed, they’ll simply advance on another front.
“Without a comprehensive approach, IS will respond to political and military setbacks in Iraq by regrouping in Syria from where it can continue to destabilise Iraq – and the wider region,” he adds.
Today the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 6,000 new fighters have joined Islamic State (IS) in Syria over the last month – 1,000 of them foreigners, the rest locals.
Why? Nothing succeeds like success. IS is closing in round Taqba, the last Syrian army base in the Raqqa region, capturing four villages in the last few days. In the last two weeks they have crushed an uprising against them by members of the Shueitat tribe, beheading at least 200 of their number.
Reports suggest that they are moving in on northern Aleppo, currently held by what US and British diplomats like to call “the moderate opposition.”
Those who watch Syria closely have long observed that the government of President Bashar al-Assad rarely attacks the IS, reserving its barrel bombs and artillery for areas held by rebel groups affiliated to the western-backed Free Syrian Army.
At the beginning of the rebellion in Syria, the government opened the prison doors so jihadis would join the pro-democracy activists calling for his overthrow. Assad’s aim was to ensure that his enemies were also the enemies of the west, and make the US and Europe hesitate before backing those who would overthrow him.
The plan has worked spectacularly well. The US bombing of IS in Iraq last week was the moment Assad’s self-fulfilling prophecy came true.
And so, right on cue, the Syrian airforce has started attacking IS areas. It’s as if they’re shouting: “Look, look – we’re bombing the same enemy! We’re on the same side!”
It leaves western policy-makers in a bind. Some say the US and Europe should, while holding their noses, embrace Assad – our enemy’s enemy has to be our friend. That may not only be distasteful but also self-defeating: Assad has engineered this situation.
The only alternative so far is to back half-heartedly a diminishing “moderate” Syrian opposition, while attacking IS in Iraq. The situation is so complex, and regional alliances are shifting so rapidly, western policy is left scrambling to catch up.
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