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In search of common sense

Oct 07,2014 - Last updated at Oct 07,2014

When truth becomes hard to reach, what remains for any reasonable popular debate is common sense.

Recently, even that has turned to be a very hard to sell commodity. Only a very small number of people were prepared to listen to any argument suggesting that there were no gold treasures uncovered secretly in Ajloun. On a more important matter, fewer still who would agree that the Islamic State (Daesh in Arabic) is not a political gimmick created by the United States and allies to justify renewed Western powers’ invasion of the region.

Saying this, I must admit that due to the confusing circumstances surrounding us, I am equally mystified by the contradictions, the improvised rationalisations and the heterogeneous positions of the many parties handling the deteriorating situation in our region, with Jordan situated right at its centre.

Assuming the episode of the imagined gold treasures that many Jordanians believed were discovered in Ajloun, away from the public eye, is now over, with the authorities disclosing to the public the real story in full detail, the larger issue of the rise of IS and the threats implied remains overwhelmingly predominant.

Not until last June, when a small IS force crossed from Syria into Iraq and managed in a matter of hours to occupy the entire province of Nineveh, with its capital Mosul, did we become aware of the real danger Daesh, not just as a terrorist organisation, but as a credible fighting force with considerable potency and military capacity, poses.

The convenient explanation at the time, that it was the sudden collapse of the Iraqi army in that region, unwilling to fight on behalf of the sectarian government of Nouri Al Maliki in Baghdad, rather than the strength of Daesh, precipitated that stunning outcome, did serve some comforting purpose.

This theory, however, soon became untenable as that small force continued to expand west towards the Iraqi-Jordanian border, south towards Baghdad, occupying Tikrit and other strategic sites on the way, including a major oil refinery, and east towards Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish province. 

The fall of Erbil, largely feared then as the Kurdish defenders of the surrounding areas gave way as well, was only averted when the US Air Force intervened in the Kurds’ favour.

Questions as why Washington waited for almost two months before deciding to help the inadequate Iraqi defences stand up to the invaders and why Maliki government appeals for American help when Baghdad was threatened were ignored gave rise to various theories.

One is that Daesh was a tool rather than an independent player, a tool that probably exceeded its planned role when it turned towards Erbil.

Despite suspicions, there were substantial hopes, however, that once a major power like the US, with unlimited military and technological superiority, decided to take part, the tide would quickly turn against the rowdy intruders.

Astonishingly, that did not seem to be the case after weeks of allied bombing of IS positions and installations in both Iraq and Syria. 

The Kurdish forces, with allied aerial support, were indeed able in Iraq not only to neutralise some IS threats and to repulse some of their advances, but also to liberate sizeable areas in northeast Iraq from IS control. Not major cities like Tikrit and Mosul, however.

It was difficult, in the meantime, to reconcile military actions of an international coalition made up of more than 50 countries with visible IS strong military abilities and with continued and quite effective IS military activities in both Syria and Iraq.

Just about two weeks ago, IS forces attacked the Kurdish region in north Syria, occupied more than 60 villages and laid siege to the major Kurdish city of Kubane, Ain Al Arab in Arabic, on the Turkish border with Syria, forcing more than 130,000 Syrian Kurds to flee to Turkey.

Kubane is under attack as I write, with around 3,000 people trapped in it for weeks. It is hard to predict what the fate of the city will be by the time this article is printed.

To add to the mounting confusion, indeed the increasing doubt about the real intent of the whole operation, General John Allen, the US official coordinating the international anti-IS coalition, stated last Friday that it may take as long as a year to prepare a campaign to retake the city of Mosul. 

No matter what the explanation for that may be, it will almost be impossible to have many people believe that an international coalition of more than 50 states, with the UN and the rest of the world behind it, would need a year to recapture a city that was occupied by less than 1,500 illegal, irregular, rebels in few hours.

But General Allen wants to build a Sunni force to do the ground fighting because not one single country of those who joined the coalition would send soldiers of their own to engage IS, and that obviously takes time.

If this answers one question it raises many others.

Why a Sunni force, when sectarian division in Iraq, as initially practised by the Iraq Governing Council (IGC) soon after the American-led allied forces occupation of the country, in 2003, is seen as a major cause for the sequence of state failures since.

If the plan for ending the IS threat is to succeed, the current IS issue should not be perceived from a secular lens.

The Iraqi army, as a national army, should be equipped, helped and enabled to do the job with whatever military support the new coalition could offer.

All resources of the targeted countries, Iraq and Syria mainly, should be mobilised to confront a danger that targets them as well as the entire region.

In fact, all resources of the entire region should be recruited for the task. It was right for that purpose to have many Arab countries in addition to Turkey join the effort, but the exclusion of Iran and Syria is a major strategic flaw.

One other factor that may explain the rather unwarranted lethargy of the anti-IS campaign is what military experts often tell us.

They say that battles on the ground cannot be settled by aerial bombardment alone, and since the coalition plan does not offer foreign ground forces, the battle may indeed be slow and difficult, particularly when targeting gangs that have the advantage of mixing and melting among ordinary civilians in crowded urban centres.

That may be clarifying somehow, but the IS forces are not just that. They use heavy military gear, they use tanks, artillery and rockets and they run bases, they need supplies, communications, command posts and regular training. They also run their own economy by refining and selling oil for millions of dollars to finance their operations and pay their recruits.

Apparently much of this infrastructure has been already destroyed as one military expert has confirmed to this writer, but it does not seem to have much curbing effect.

Aerial bombardment, using ultra sophisticated electronic technology that can hit targets with ultimate precision, cannot be that ineffective, many people believe. Neither are cruise missiles, which have devastating destruction capacity.

If those weapons do not really settle the battle, they should at least help disable the attacking forces by substantially weakening their thrust.

That is not what we see, and that is why so many (not ordinary) people continue to argue that the whole scene is a show, that Daesh is part of a grand “imperialist” plan to dismantle the region and redraw the lines.

I like to conclude by affirming that there was no gold in the Ajloun mountains and there is no such plan this time — there were plans before.

If minor official handling errors led to the goldmines-myth, miscalculations, on the other hand, and ill-conceived tactics seeking the toppling of the Assad regime in Syria few years ago undoubtedly helped the idea, as well as the physical existence of Daesh and indeed others. 

Such shortsighted schemes seem to have blinded the players to the lethal phenomena mushrooming all around.

What is in progress now is no more than a — bit late — damage control operation. Let us hope it will succeed and end the huge mess quickly.

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