Tag Archives: Humanitarian crisis

Britain, Government, Iraq, Islamic State, Middle East, Military, Syria, United States

The intervention by the West in the Islamic State on humanitarian grounds is a right one…

ISLAMIC STATE

Intro: The West must do all it can to prevent the creation of an Islamist semi-state

The Islamic State has become a serious threat, and one that has to be confronted. Its outlook is based on foundations that are medieval, aims which include the destruction of all other faiths and the imposition of Sharia law. The establishment of a caliphate, under which Islamists are ruled, is an overarching objective.

The military successes of the Islamic State have been remarkable. Its campaign has spread across large swathes of Syria and Iraq like a plaque, threatening Baghdad as Iraq’s capital and pushing towards the Kurdish homeland in the north. This advance has caused chaos and anarchy and has driven thousands of religious minorities from their homes under the threat of ‘convert or die’.

The resultant effect is a humanitarian crisis in Iraq, a threat to the stability of a fragile Middle East and a challenge to Western security. Islamist hardliners speak of ‘humiliating’ the United States with a pledge of ‘raising the flag of Allah in the White House’. The ranks of this violent and barbaric army include around 3,000 who are said to hold European passports.

The immediate reason why the outside world has to intervene is to help those displaced people turned into refugees avoid the threat of execution. Many are trapped in the perilous and harsh geography of Iraq and will soon die if aid is not delivered. The worrying comments of General Sir Richard Dannatt, the former head of the British Army, that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 has helped to create the conditions for the rise of the Islamic State, suggest we also have a debt to pay.

There remains, too, a much wider task facing the West. Preventing the creation of an Islamist semi-state that both destabilises the nations around it and provides a safe haven for the plotting of terrorist attacks elsewhere is central to the US starting air strikes in Iraq and by halting the advance of the jihadis. Britain is providing logistical support.

This difficult operation has to strike a careful balance. Act too cautiously, and the West may fail to provide sufficient help to those in most need. Get too involved too quickly, and recent history will soon be repeated, with our military being sucked into an unwanted and protracted conflict which could potentially make the West an even greater target for terrorist outrages in the future.

President Barack Obama has indicated that he sees this military operation as being a ‘long-term project’. In military terms, the situation will have to be monitored very closely to decide whether what we are doing is working and, if not, what should be done instead. Mr Obama has said that Iraqis themselves must take a lead.

Where the West’s action should certainly be unstinting and unsparing is in the provision of humanitarian aid. The US and Britain will hopefully do their best to help bring urgently needed supplies – food, water and medical supplies. The Head of the Church of England, Archbishop Justin Welby, is right in his condemnation when he speaks of an ‘evil pattern around the world’ where religious minorities are persecuted for their faith.

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In response to the escalating situation in Iraq, three RAF Tornado fighter jets from RAF Marham in Norfolk have departed for the skies over Iraq. Their mission is to assist in the delivery of humanitarian aid to refugees who have fled in fear of the ISIS insurgents to the slopes of Mount Sinjar.

Technically, this is a humanitarian aid relief effort. No-one should be making the mistake of assuming this operation is in anyway routine. This isn’t an aid drop into a zone struck by a natural disaster, such as happens after an earthquake, but a relief effort that is dealing with the plight of retreating religious minorities. The military are dealing with a situation that is very much man-made.

The ISIS advance has demonstrated their brutality in the most sickening of ways. There are frequent reports of beheadings, crucifixions and the burying of people alive. Amongst those being targeted are the Yazidi, one of the most ancient Christian communities on Earth.

American air strikes against the militia of ISIS, and the UK aid operation that accompanies them, are aimed at saving thousands of lives that are in perilous danger.

Whilst the Islamic State is an organisation that is regarded by the West as the most deadly of destabilising forces in the region, we should also be clear that there are many who will see any US/UK involvement as a provocation. The RAF Tornados are fully armed, and have flown direct to a war zone.

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It will be curious for many Britons, that – given the political sensitivity of UK military involvement in the Middle East – a British deployment has happened without a debate having taken place in the House of Commons. Parliament may be in its summer recess, but military operations in a war zone are exactly the kind of circumstances that could justify a recall. The last time the Prime Minister thought he knew the will of Parliament on a sensitive matter in the Middle East (on support for the rebels in Syria) MPs swiftly disabused him of that notion. If air strikes had gone ahead against President Assad of Syria, the sworn enemy of ISIS, the jihadists could have now also been in control of Damascus. That embarrassing foreign policy reversal was perhaps the most damaging in modern British political history, and has certainly marked one of the lowest points in Mr Cameron’s premiership.

It is apt to point out that this is a tinderbox moment in Iraq, a country still a long way off from being a coherent and sustainable political entity. War zones are, by their very nature and definition, places where the unexpected happens. ‘Mission creep’ will always be an inherent risk.

The questions are real, and not subjective rhetoric. For example, what would happen if British warplanes came under attack? Would they be justified in returning fire? What exactly are the rules of engagement? Any military action – however limited – must have defined objectives, a time limit and a clear endgame.

This demonstrates why it is wise for our political leaders to ensure they have the full backing of the country, through its democratic representatives, before they make a commitment in a conflict situation. The Prime Minister has, so far, not sought that endorsement.

Air strikes against ISIS positions, humanitarian aid drops and even arming the Iraqi Kurds are all options that could be justified if Turkish anxieties can be assuaged. But, as recent history has shown, a full military intervention is bound to have unforeseen and potentially calamitous consequences.

It was ill-conceived foreign intervention that led to the situation we have today in Iraq. The West must avoid making it even worse.

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Britain, Foreign Affairs, Iraq, Middle East, Politics, Society, Syria, United States

The dismal choices faced in Iraq: averting the worst scenario must be viewed as a priority…

IRAQ

Intro: Iraq is in a quagmire. The options are dismal, but the West cannot reverse the course of events in Iraq by intervening

The West will take some comfort, as well as to most Iraqis that Iraq’s ramshackle armed forces appear to have stalled the advances towards the capital by Sunni jihadists. The fall of Baghdad to the fighters of ISIS would undoubtedly lead to the termination and dissolution of Iraq as a formal state, as well as providing the jihadists and their putative caliphate with a real capital – forcing millions of Iraqi Shia to flee from their homes. It is inconceivable to believe or imagine the Middle East absorbing the shock.

Such an apocalypse has been averted, for now at least, and the Middle East and the wider world will gasp deep breaths of relief. However, even if the makeshift Iraqi forces succeed in containing the ISIS fighters (some 60 miles north of Baghdad) the long term prognosis for the country and for the region remains desperately worrying.

ISIS is in control of much of north and north-west Iraq. Whilst the insurgents may possibly cede the odd frontline town back to Iraqi forces, it will still be in possession of a de facto state composed of large, continuous chunks of Iraq and Syria. The boundaries that the British and French imposed on the Middle East following the end of the First World War seem soon to vanish, with the dismal fate that both will become failed states, much in the same way that Somalia became on the Horn of Africa. The emergence of such vacuums on the map of the world will be hugely destabilising – drawing in and expelling a range of volatile forces and consequences that will be very difficult to deal with.

The frontiers of Iraq and Syria were drawn arbitrarily to reflect the temporary interests of British and French colonists. It is quite possible, of course, with events unfolding as they are that both countries were only ever going to be viable under despotic rulers, in which case nothing can be done to prevent them from dissolving in the long term, or stop their embittered and hopelessly alienated Sunnis from creating their own entity out of the debris.

One major and worrying problem is that these countries are unravelling in a completely uncontrolled fashion. Another concern is that the heavily armed insurgents of ISIS have no intention of confining themselves to a medium-sized state based in north-west Iraq and the north-eastern parts of Syria. These extremists are religious imperialists, and their hardened and fierce ideology teaches them that they must expand or die. They will soon turn elsewhere if they are forced to consolidate control over their existing territories. The ethnically and politically fractured kingdom of Jordon surfaces as an obvious candidate for their malevolent attention.

The West, starting with the United States, cannot even hope to reverse the course of events in Iraq by intervening on the ground. President Barack Obama was right to rule out any ground incursion by US troops going back into the country.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the US takes up an observer’s seat as the region descends into ever greater chaos and disorder. Washington should encourage the tentative rapprochement between Saudi Arabia (Sunni) and Iran (Shia), both of which are starting to see just how dangerous the Sunni-Shia power struggle is becoming to each of them. The sectarian divisions and widening conflagration could easily have a tendency to draw in others by default if no attempt is made to harness relations between other countries in the region.

Western countries could also afford to be more generous in helping to address the humanitarian aspects of the latest crisis. The UK, for example, has offered an additional £3m to help tens of thousands of fleeing refugees that have been displaced as a direct result of the advances made by ISIS. Most of these refugees are now camping in Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Iraq. Such a meagre sum, given the plight of many desperate people, is hardly an adequate gesture.

A fortuitous outlook might suggest that the Sunnis in Syria and Iraq turn against their self-styled deliverers at some future point. If that is the hope, then it is vital that the Shia-dominated regime in Baghdad is persuaded to keep the door open to talks about some kind of federal option for the Sunnis, and for the Kurds. True, it may be late in the day for Iraq to even try the federalist option, but just possibly that might be the only option remaining in salvaging some kind of gossamer-thin state from the current mess. The options available are far and few between, none of which look particularly good. Despair cannot be allowed to prevail and is not the answer.

 

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