It is our war

As of Tuesday, Royal Jordanian Air Force planes joined US-led strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria.

The government said Jordan is taking part in the strikes which come as “part of our efforts to defeat terrorism in its strongholds”.

Many commentators and analysts welcomed the move.

Against the current, the Muslim Brotherhood and some Islamist figures, including Salafist leader Abu Mohammad Al Maqdessi, expressed opposition to Jordan’s participation in the war effort.

The Brotherhood said it was against any foreign intervention in Arab and Muslim affairs.

Strangely enough, the group has not taken any stand on the IS’ terror campaign, massacres, enslavement of people and, most importantly, the distortion of Islam as a religion of tolerance and coexistence, nor to its threats to Jordan and repeated infiltration attempts.

Jordanians were shocked to see IS fighters beheading people, forcing them out of their lands, taking their belongings, taking them as slaves and destroying property.

These fighters, along with their sympathisers around the Arab region, never hesitated to express their expansionist aims, meaning that it was a matter of time before their killings and terror campaigns spread to other parts of the region, against those who do not adhere to their faith and principles.

The question raised by many was why wait until these people start their war against Jordan and every other Arab country? 

And, first and foremost, why allow this force of destruction to practise what it is doing in the name of Islam and Muslims?

Jordan, which paid heavily as a result of terror attacks against it in 2005, knows that these people are targeting it, and indeed it has been foiling infiltration attempts by them over the past months.

Joining this war effort against the terrorist Daesh group is the duty not only of Jordan and coalition partners, but of every Muslim fighting to defend Islam from its enemies who are distorting what it represents in the ugliest manner possible, of every Arab who should defend fellow Arabs, be they Christians, Muslims or adherents to other faiths, and every civilised human being who rejects this force of evil.

This war should have been first and foremost an Arab and Muslim issue to tackle, but rivalries and differences over developments in the two war-plagued countries, as well as elsewhere, never allowed any such effort to materialise.

The atrocities taking place in Iraq and Syria demanded international intervention; that came in the form of this US-led coalition, which constitutes the best chance to defeat IS as soon as possible and that should not be missed.

Meanwhile, this war effort should in no way be intended or  interpreted as a war against the Sunnis of Iraq and Syria, who were also suffering, to various degrees, from discrimination and alienation in their countries.

Their choices have to be increased and their chances of participating in building their countries enhanced.