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Every year, as the long summer recess approaches, those of us who cover foreign affairs speculate as to which international crisis will precipitate a recall of Parliament. This year we were spoilt for choice with Russia, Syria and Gaza dominating. However when the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) overran Mosul, the lack of any obvious course of action prevented a recall. But now as a US strategy has been revealed, there are some clear pointers about what the UK needs to consider in its response. We need to be clear about the implications of our action and its implications.
First, it is a mistake to characterise the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria as a purely sectarian conflict. ISIS murders Sunnis as well as Shia, and similar hatreds exist among radical Shia Islamist groups too. Alliances between jihadi groups’ form and break where there are weaknesses and vacuums rather than as a matter of clear ideology, as we have seen in Afghanistan and Pakistan. ISIS cross-dresses for the benefit of different insurgents. It has broken with Al Qaeda, but is a bedfellow of Iraqi Ansaar al Islam, as well as numerous Sunni tribes, former Baathists and other groups and individuals from across the Muslim world.
The emergence of ISIS is a consequence of politics and military conditions on the ground – a brutal war in Syria pulled in jihadis from the Middle East and wider afield who moved into the stalemate and took territory. Having gained a foothold in Raaqa, it was only a matter of time before ISIS made common cause with the disgruntled Sunni tribes of Western Iraq. Since the US withdrawal, they have been subject to Maliki’s violent repression, starved of resources from Baghdad and since Maliki’s re-election they saw that their situation could not improve under his regime.
Second, we are here because of geopolitics. While the UN Security Council was deadlocked and impotent to act, the regional powers did not stay out. Unsuccessful in seeking Western intervention, Saudi Arabia and Qatar actively funded and armed the various factions including jihadis in Syria. Iran could not allow its client Syrian regime to collapse and provided military support, confident of a Russian veto on the Security Council. Turkey, which as a NATO member and EU applicant could have held back, turned on Assad in a complete reversal of its previous policy, cynically using jihadi Islamists as tools to overthrow him.
Third, the combination of radical political Islam and geopolitics may mean that this is a long drawn out war, but that does not make it an open ended ‘global war on terror’ as it is again being seen in the US. Rather, it is a more conventional war for control of borders, regime-change and religious ideology, between states as much as within them. For these reasons, the UK should hold back from rushing to intervene, unless the UNSC invokes action under the norm of Responsibility to Protect.
As someone who called for UK action to arm the Free Syrian Army (FSA) till last year, this might appear to be a change of position. But we are in a different situation now. The FSA has lost support to ISIS and other jihadis, and grows weaker by the day. On the Iraqi side, it is clear that the Kurds will seek independent statehood, precipitating the break-up of Iraq, which may or may not be peaceful. Repelling ISIS from Iraq as the US hopes to do will involve ground forces and a significant escalation of conflict. Pushing it back into Syria will still leave it as a force with the capacity to destabilise Iraq unless the Assad regime cooperates with the West. Take Ansaar al Islam, an ISIS partner, which continued to operate in Iraq despite the US surge and subsequent withdrawal. As Washington and London have ruled working with Assad, a strategy of dislocation cannot succeed.
If our security is threatened by our own citizens, then we need to deal with that though domestic measures. For us to join the US in being sucked into another Iraq war with a Syrian dimension can only do harm, as our involvement clearly encourages jihadi recruitment. The war shifts from being a war for the heart of Islam to a narrative of righteous warriors defending holy lands against infidel aggressors.
At this point the real choice is for Muslims themselves. They have to choose between moderate, modernising, non-authoritarian Islam on the one hand, or lurching between authoritarian monarchy and strongmen or variations of jihadi and Taliban rule. For them it is a brutal Caliphate across borders as witnessed in Islamic State, Saudi and Bahraini type domestic oppression, or supporting strongmen like Assad and Sisi as the alternative to more upheaval. Insofar as we can help, we should do so through conventional alliances and support for moderate, democratically inclined states, not fighting open-ended wars.
When historians write the history of this chapter of Middle Eastern politics, a over-hasty withdrawal from Iraq, and a lack of timely intervention in Syria will surely be seen as precursors for what has followed. We should learn the lessons from those mistakes and not repeat failures in the hope that this time we might succeed.
This article was written on 17th September and will be published in the Liberal Democrat Conference edition of House magazine
* Kishwer Falkner, Baroness Falkner of Margravine, is a Liberal Democrat and a life peer