If Daesh is to be defeated

The latest Islamic State atrocity is the outrageous murder earlier this week of British aid worker David Haines.

The crime is barbaric; it was posted on video, as were the two previous cases, when American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff were murdered, adding callousness to the barbarity.

The crimes are an insult to Islam, in whose name the brutality was perpetrated, as well as to every follower of this great and noble faith.

This crime should be widely condemned, not only because the victim is an innocent aid worker who was kidnapped while playing a humanitarian role in a troubled land far from his own; not only because he was the innocent victim of indiscriminate kidnapping by ruthless criminal extremists; not because it must be a painful tragedy for his family; but because such brutal behaviour is objectionable under any and all circumstances.

The ideology of this terrorist movement is a direct threat to human order, to communal security and individual safety anywhere in our troubled region, if not worldwide.

It is a troubled region, indeed, where law and order are fast breaking down in countries until recently believed to be immune.

It is a troubled region because the level of injustice and lawlessness, as a direct result of international malfunction, that reached the 21st century, when we thought our civilised behaviour was acquiring safe levels of maturity, has in fact descended to unprecedented lows.

IS’ jihadists, or Daesh, as they are known in Arabic, have been mercilessly persecuting other religious and ethnic groups and terrorising tranquil communities in northern Iraq, and previously in Syria, are not a new phenomenon.

Their rise and significant military gains in both Iraq and Syria were no surprise to anyone.

IS’ fighters’ treatment of other religious groups and sects, their revolting abuse of women and even men who refused to comply with their inhuman and humiliating demands rang more than one alarm bell, but the response has been shockingly slow if not totally muted.

Faced with the enormous harm caused to Islam by those who kill and terrorise in its name — the noble faith that strongly stands against injustice, that highly values all human life, that respects the dignity and rights of other religions and their followers, that protects women and respects their dignity — the question is why did the true representatives of Islam, the legitimate religious communities, Muslim institutions, the Islamic states and Islamic organisations keep quiet about such crimes for so long.

Except for few faint voices, the astonishing silence is unfortunately still maintained.

The battle against the IS danger is not going to be only military. The US-led coalition to combat the creeping threat to the entire region is late and has yet to prove its effectiveness in confronting the entrenched jihadists. But military action should be paralleled by an intensive and resounding media campaign by all credible defenders of the faith, to liberate Islam from bigotry, evil deed and crime.

What is also needed, and urgently so, is a bold and objective review of all the factors and circumstances that over the past years led to the decline of order and the states’ retreat before the invading jihadist gangs.

Governments in Syria and Iraq should take a big share of the blame for failing to protect their land and their people.

Both governments are directly responsible for antagonising their citizens and leaving them easy victims of dangerous intruders, to the extent that many of the marginalised communities welcomed the invaders to avenge the ruthlessness and the incompetence of their leaders.

The popular uprising against the Syrian leadership, over three years ago, was right and justified. It should have been enabled to achieve its goals peacefully and correctly.

Instead, it was messed up, though by many foreign hands trying to exploit a genuine and legitimate popular pursuit of freedom and democratisation, for totally unrelated and disingenuous political designs.

The rise of so many out-of-control fighting groups, such as Al Nusra and Daesh, was strongly helped with finances and arms by various regional and international powers that rushed to join the anti-Assad campaign and to rally behind the many opposition groups without examining their true identities and sinister goals.

The political chaos in Iraq was the inevitable product of a war, a decade earlier, that was neither necessary nor legitimate.

What the war left behind was not the promised healthy democracy and a strong sovereign state, but a sectarian mess, a divided population and political and social anarchy that gradually destroyed the social fabric of the Iraqi nation.

The Iraqis who long aspired for liberation from the former dictatorship of the Baath regime started to lament its removal, however terrible it was.

Iraq was, as a result, naturally prepared as a convenient incubator for the IS advance. That is why only 1,000 IS fighters managed, in a matter of hours, to invade and keep control of about one-third of Iraq, and are still devastating the population there.

Judging from the horrifying outcome of previous hasty practices, the war, its aftermath and the rushed dismemberment of the Iraqi army, as well as all the existing state institutions under the deposed regime, it is clear, with hindsight, that such policies were destructive, shortsighted, ill-advised and counterproductive.

Once more — remember the Afghanistan jihadist struggle against the Soviets — billions of dollars were spent on creating the monster that quickly turned against its creators.

Billions more will be needed now to try to destroy it.

The war against Daesh is not going to be short or easy, if success can at all be guaranteed.

Unless focused and free of any hidden goals, such as targeting the Syrian regime, it will create problems than it may be able to solve.

It is already ominous to hear about the part of the plan meant to further feed the internal Syrian conflict by supporting the so-called “moderate” opposition.

This could be a foolish repeat of the mistakes that led to the rise of Daesh.

There is no way to fight Daesh in Iraq alone. Syria should be included, but not without coordination with the existing regime, a bitter but hard to avoid pill the allies against Daesh may have to swallow.

Iran should be part of the effort too.