• Friday, 29 March 2024
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Emran El-Badawi: If ISIS falls today, another equally brutal group or angry, disenfranchised young men will take their place

Emran El-Badawi: If ISIS falls today, another equally brutal group or angry, disenfranchised young men will take their place
Gulan: One exact year is passing over the establishment of Islamic caliphate by ISIS terrorists, this year they are controlling more territories and they have better abilities than last year. According to your opinion; the ISIS controlled territory is a land-lock with no borders on any sea; in addition they don’t have airports. What is the secret of ISIS’s strengthening and extending?
Gulan: One exact year is passing over the establishment of Islamic caliphate by ISIS terrorists, this year they are controlling more territories and they have better abilities than last year. According to your opinion; the ISIS controlled territory is a land-lock with no borders on any sea; in addition they don’t have airports. What is the secret of ISIS’s strengthening and extending?

El-Badawi: Over the past year the so called Islamic State have been empowered by a number of factors. First and foremost, the group’s core includes a number of former military personnel from the Baath regime which the US hastily dismantled in 2004. These fighters in particular are professional, knowledgeable about Iraq and its neighbors, and have proven their effectiveness on the battlefield despite recent losses, including Izzat Al-Duri, Saddam Hussein’s former deputy.

Second is the failure of the Iraqi armed forces to independently win battles and hold disputed territory. The Iraqi army was only able to beat ISIS in Amerli and Tikrit in early 2015 with help from US airstrikes and Iranian sponsored militias. Let us also not forget their humiliating retreat from Ramadi (May 2015) and Mosul (June 2014), turning over thousands of weapons and military vehicles to ISIS.

Third, US foreign policy remains disastrous for the region, which further empowers ISIS. The US has been bombing Iraq (and now Syria) and intervening directly in the region for 24 years, and under four presidents. The policy of regime change in Iraq under George W. Bush was replaced with a more dragged out policy of weakening Syria’s president, Bashar Al-Assad, from within the region. These policies have completely destabilized the region and contributed directly to the rise to violent extremist groups like ISIS. One theme made clear in ISIS’s social media and its magazine (Dabiq) is the need recruit fighters from around the world to wage Jihad against a new generation of crusaders attacking Muslim lands—i.e. the US.

Fourth is the combination of ‘proxy warfare’ and ‘balkanization’ in the Middle East. The fight against ISIS has become a regional power struggle for countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran. Moreover such states are functioning within an American or Russian sphere. There is at present no coherent, unified, effective strategy against ISIS by any state or non state actor.

Gulan: Middle East has become a huge international violent zone and experts think that the region is heading towards a bloody war between Sunnis and Shiites. According to your opinion; where to the violence in Middle East is heading?

El-Badawi: It is difficult to predict what all this carnage will lead to. Unless something changes on the ground, the scope of violence and military intervention will continue to spread. Over the past year the White House renewed its commitment to arming the ‘moderate Syrian opposition,’ supporting the Iraqi armed forces with US “advisors,” both in addition to the US bombing campaign against ISIS. ISIS terrorist operations have spread to Libya and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia and the GCC have opened a new warfront with the Houthis and Iranians in Yemen. What comes next is hard to predict, war between sovereign states, renewed US occupation. Who knows?

The Sunni-Shii conflict often reported in the media should be understood in the context of the region, its diverse religious sects, ethnic groups and tribal confederations. Sunnis and Shiites have been living in relative peace for over one thousand years. The main reasons for violence in the region are the collapse of state sovereignty in Syria, Libya and Yemen as a result of the so called Arab Spring beginning 2011, the US led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the funding of Wahhabi style extremism.

Gulan: States in Middle East are not just failed states, but the state system has been failed in this area, the way they cannot preserve their sovereignty. To what extent it is easy for international community to change state system or to re-organize the state borders in order to return stability to the area?

El-Badawi: The “international community” is more truly a euphemism for the US and its allies, and before that nations like Great Britain and France which colonized virtually all the Middle East. History has demonstrated that these western nations have contributed to—rather than countered—the weakness and illegitimacy of governments in the Middle East. Humanitarian aid, however, from the United Nations, US and Europe make a significant difference to the refugee population fleeing the region. In the end only the people of the region themselves can grant their states the power and legitimacy which has been so lacking. There was a glimmering hope of this democratic dream in Egypt’s Tahrir Square, and there is still a fragile democratic transition in Tunisia.

Gulan: Among the changes that are expected to happen in Middle East, we see that there are different Arabic, Turkish and Iranian projects, in particular while Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey all of them are willing to have their trace in the future of the area. How the west can maintain a balance between all these projects in the area?

El-Badawi: Western nations, including the US, UK and France are not able to affect change like they used to. This month the White House and Pentagon admitted not having a “complete strategy” to fight ISIS. What’s more, some critics—including vice president Joe Biden in October 2014—have accused US allies in the region of supporting terrorism. Re-organizing such contradictory alliances would be necessary to restore some semblance of balance. That being said the White House’s reservation against sending ground troops into Iraq but rather supporting the Iraqi armed forces, toning down its rhetoric against the Assad regime, and talking to the Iranians are all moves in the right direction.

Gulan: United States is doing its best for preserving unity of Iraq, but on the real ground Iraq has been divided in which Iraqi government has authority only in Baghdad and Shiite provinces in the south, in other words, the government is representing only Shiite people of the country. Don’t you agree that American insisting on the unity of Iraq is serving Iranian interests by letting Iraq further turn into an Iranian extension?

El-Badawi: Empowering the Iranians was inevitable after the US military withdrawal from Iraq in 2008. There is no turning back the clock. The question is will Iraq remain one nation or be partitioned? ISIS currently has a de facto state in western Iraq and eastern Syria—where Sunnis dominate. The unspeakable truth is that there is a future prospect for a new Sunni dominant Arab nation or autonomous zone.

Gulan: Kurdish question is one of the suspended problems in Middle East, currently it is only the Kurds whom have been able to defeat terrorism on the ground, moreover; Kurds are having some values in common with United States and The West and wants to be independent. According to your opinion; to what extent establishment of independent Kurdistan is important for defeating ISIS terrorists?

El-Badawi: The question of an independent Kurdistan is an important one for its own sake. The Kurds are the largest ethnic population in the world without their own land, and they are by and large friendly with the US and other western nations. However, the brutality of ISIS against the Kurds of Sinjar, Kobane and elsewhere have demonstrated that even the Kurds need friends. Plus, for the moment Masoud Barazani, leader of the KDP, and the government in Baghdad seem to have a workable agreement on matters of Iraq sovereignty, oil revenue and the fight against ISIS.

Gulan: How do you see post-ISIS Middle East if international coalition succeeds defeating them?

El-Badawi: ISIS may be defeated one day, but one cannot simply defeat its sources. Its root causes, and those of Al-Qaeda before it, have not been addressed. And the coalition of western or regional nations fighting ISIS have no plan to eradicate religious extremism, social injustice or lack of economic opportunity. If ISIS falls today, another equally brutal group or angry, disenfranchised young men will take their place.

Even in a post ISIS Middle East, the prospect of a partitioned Syria and Iraq, and the creation of a new Sunni-Arab state becomes more likely with each passing day. Should this materialize it would have ramifications for the Kurdish struggle for national sovereignty, and the region as a whole.
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