Islamic State - another unwinnable war?

[Petrushka]

Why is IS a threat to Britain?

Do people realise that 'air strikes' means killing and maiming and could well be seen as legitimising their attempts to kill us?

How are IS fighters recognised from any other people of whatever nationality in the region?

How long before ground troops go in (despite assurances they won't)?

Is this another unwinnable war?

Discuss.

[aeolium]

IS is not a threat to Britain, and it is beyond credibility that it could be so described. The proposed airstrikes are part of an ill-conceived and badly thought out strategy reflecting the complete incoherence of Western policy in the Middle East. Last year the UK government was proposing to get involved militarily in Syria against the Assad regime, yet American air-strikes only days ago were targeting the al-Nusra group, one of the foremost resistance groups against Assad. That shows what a mess Western policy is in - despite still claiming to oppose Assad, its actions are having the effect of strengthening the Syrian government's position by "degrading" its opponents. Air strikes, which as Petrushka suggests, are likely to hit civilians and those not affiliated to IS, will not have the effect of defeating it (in any case, how can an idea be defeated?) It is quite likely though to involve the Western interventionists in protracted, expensive and futile military activity which will have the effect of radicalising Muslims in their own countries, just as the 2003 Iraq war did.

In what way are the airstrikes justified legally? There is no UN resolution which underpins them. Self-defence is wholly implausible. Humanitarian assistance under the Responsibility to Protect principle? Hardly - Syria is a much stronger case for this, as over a hundred thousand have been killed and millions displaced.
The fact that the government of Iraq has asked for military help? I am not sure if this is a principle accepted in international law. If Syria, for instance, asked for military help from Iran or Russia against its insurgents, would that intervention be accepted by the international community?

IS are an unpleasant insurgent group who are committing atrocities in (particularly Kurdish) villages in Iraq and Syria and kidnapping and executing Western journalists and aid-workers. They pose a threat to the weakened regimes and societies in the areas where they operate, but it is a threat which ought to be dealt with by powers within the region, not by Western governments with their appalling and poisonous record of intervention over more than a century. There is no political, legal or moral case for Western intervention.

[johnb]

A very good question.

IS/ISIS/ISIL are a barbaric and frightening phenomenon but to deal with it you need to address the causes (e.g. the corrupt and extremely sectarian Shia government in Iraq, the war in Syria and the billions of dollars that the Saudis funnel into their support for their hate filled Wahhabism and the Saudi's initial financing of IS).

There was a very good survey of this topic in today's Independent, written by the very knowledgeable Patrick Cockburn: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/...internalSearch

I despair of our politicians and political leaders. Surely we deserve better.

[Serial_Apologist]

Galloway, Hammond and another are to be interviewed shortly on News on 4

[johnb]

George Galloway's complete speech in the HoC debate was broadcast on the PM programme. His style is somewhat off-putting but his general analysis of the situation is spot on. It is well worth hearing.

Most other politicians give the impression of just wanting to do something, anything, without giving any thought to the consequences.

This seems to me to be yet another ill advised Middle East intervention - an unwinnable war with no end-game and no exit strategy. As for relying on the Iraqi Army to fight IS - what a joke that is.

Do the politicians actually believe the garbage they spout?

[P. G. Tipps]

Do the politicians actually believe the garbage they spout?

It's easy to blame our politicians ... but generally they do not cut off innocent peoples' heads, crucify opponents and rape and murder women and children.

The problem is basically this:

a) The West intervenes in an effort to stop ISIS(L) and many thousands of innocent human beings die or are horribly injured in the process.

b) The West looks the other way and many thousands of innocent human beings die or are horribly injured in the process.

a) offers some hope to the innocent, b) offers the murderous barbarians free reign.

Take your moral pick.

[teamsaint]

It's easy to blame our politicians ... but generally they do not cut off innocent peoples' heads, crucify opponents and rape and murder women and children.

The problem is basically this:

a) The West intervenes in an effort to stop ISIS(L) and many thousands of innocent human beings die or are horribly injured in the process.

b) The West looks the other way and many thousands of innocent human beings die or are horribly injured in the process.

a) offers some hope to the innocent, b) offers the murderous barbarians free reign.

Take your moral pick.

Or
D. Western governments start to develop morally defensible foreign policies, so that on the long term, and perhaps not so long term, the case for people to jojn or support groups like IS start to wither away.
It might require some backbone, or perhaps just as importantly, require that western ( and other)governments start to move their economies and resources away from oil dependency and arms sales, towards real human needs like sustainable food production and water resources.


Incidentally, those who follow the news more closely than I do might like to discuss where IS resources come from, how they are channelled, banked, and distributed.
Heavy duty weaponry and big armies don't live on the pickings of the desert , they require big money.

Somebody in the west is complicit in this activity.

[aeolium]

Given that IS itself is a creation of the chaotic breakdown in society and government that has resulted from the Iraq war and the Syrian civil war, and therefore partly the result of Western intervention, it's rather strange to see how further Western intervention could improve the situation. Has bombing the Taliban and engaging in a 13-year attritional war resulted in stability in Afghanistan? It's a pretty poor kind of foreign policy in which almost the first instinct is to send in the fighter planes. As johnb suggests, it's a sort of "something must be done" policy, without really seeking to understand whether the proposed policy is likely to make things better, and also without considering how yet more Western intervention will appear to the millions of Muslims in the region and around the world.

There is of course a third possibility c) in which the West intervenes, resulting in many thousands of innocent human beings dying and being horribly injured AND the West eventually pulls out, resulting in an even more chaotic and destabilised situation, in which perhaps hundreds of thousands of innocent people die. This was after all the actual outcome of the 2003 Iraq war. (With the added byproduct of many radicalised Muslims around the world including in this country, increasing the threat of domestic terrorism).

[johnb]

I really do recommend people to read Patrick Cockburn's article that I posted at link to previously in this thread. Patrick Cockburn is extremely knowledgeable about the Middle East and the article shows some of the complexity of the situation.

I also recommend his recent book(let) ISIS: The Return of Jihad - which gives an extremely valuable account of the development and nature of ISIS.

teamsaint asked who has funded ISIS - the same countries in the Middle East who are now part of the US alliance, in particular Saudi Arabia, at least in its early development. Also, the Saudi's massive funding of the virulent Wahabbi doctrine is a major cause of the spread of extremely nasty groups like ISIS but nobody wants to address that.

[MrGongGong]

Would the world be improved if our government decided to have a more ethical relationship with Saudi Arabia & Israel ?

[amateur51]

It's easy to blame our politicians ... but generally they do not cut off innocent peoples' heads, crucify opponents and rape and murder women and children.

The problem is basically this:

a) The West intervenes in an effort to stop ISIS(L) and many thousands of innocent human beings die or are horribly injured in the process.

b) The West looks the other way and many thousands of innocent human beings die or are horribly injured in the process.

a) offers some hope to the innocent, b) offers the murderous barbarians free reign.

Take your moral pick.

No morals required to observe that the correct spelling is rein

[visualnickmos]

Do the politicians actually believe the garbage they spout?

They themselves probably do not - but sadly, many people do.

[P. G. Tipps]

No morals required to observe that the correct spelling is rein

'Reign' is the correct spelling according to my trusty OED, amateur51, and makes perfect sense in the sentence concerned.

Furthermore ...

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/free-rein-or-free-reign/

[ahinton]

No morals required to observe that the correct spelling is rein

I think that Mr Tippster is actually correct here, to the extent that me appears to mean not "free rein" to do what they want but to be able to seize control and "reign" over suchever territory as they may choose; that said, I accept that he could have expresed it more clearly and less ambiguously.

[Serial_Apologist]

Would the world be improved if our government decided to have a more ethical relationship with Saudi Arabia & Israel ?

As indeed was said in part by the rather wonderful Yasmine Alibhai-Brown on yesterday's Any Questions; though she did not refer to Israel she reiterated at Hague her question, when was the government going to take up the funding of Islamic jihadist groups by "its best friend" Saudi Arabia? - and got no answer.