Undoubtedly, for the US President, defeating the Islamic State is the highest priority. But Donald Trump does not have an easy road ahead, which runs through complex situations, posing problems difficult to resolve
Almost immediately after Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States of America, the White House’s official website reiterated his position on foreign policy and identified defeating the Islamic State (ISIS) and other terrorist groups as his “highest priority.” It added, “To defeat and destroy these groups, we will pursue aggressive joint and coalition military operations when necessary. In addition, the Trump Administration will work with international partners to cut off funding for terrorist groups, to expand intelligence sharing, and to engage in cyberwarfare to disrupt and disable propaganda and recruiting.”
There can be no doubting where the new US President stands. Trump said during a speech in August last year, “We cannot let this evil continue. Nor can we let the hateful ideology of radical Islam — its oppression of women, gays, children and nonbelievers — be allowed to reside or spread within our own countries”. He had further said in the same speech, “We will defeat radical Islamic terrorism, just as we have defeated every threat we have faced in every age before.”
Three questions arise here. How does Trump propose to go about achieving his targetIJ What are the chances of his being successfulIJ Will the defeat of the ISIS and other terrorist organisations like the Al Qaeda mean the end of the appeal of the distorted version of Islam they swear byIJ A look at what we have quoted from the statement of his foreign policy position, displayed on the White House’s official website, indicates certain broad lines of approach — “aggressive joint and coalition military operations when necessary,” working “with international partners to cut off funding for terrorist groups,” expanding intelligence sharing, and engaging in cyberwarfare to disrupt and disable propaganda and recruiting.” These are familiar platitudes. The question is: How does he implement them on the groundIJ
The question needs to be asked. The road ahead runs through complex situations posing problems difficult to resolve or bypass. As a recent report in The New York Times by Anthony J Blinken points out, a serious dilemma confronting President Trump is whether to arm Syrian Kurdish fighters poised to liberate the Islamic State’s Syrian stronghold in Raqqa. Blinken adds, “Taking back Raqqa, along with Mosul in Iraq — where Iraqi forces backed by the United States-led coalition have freed about half of the city — will effectively eliminate the Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate. The consequences for the Islamic State will be devastating. It will no longer control significant territory within which to train and harbor foreign fighters or exploit resources. It will lose the foundation of its most compelling narrative: The construction of an actual state.”
Syrian Democratic Forces, a mixture of Arabs and Kurds dominated by the People’s Protection Units, a Kurdish militia, are the only fighters capable of seizing Raqqa. To succeed, it needs to be armed to overcome the Islamic State’s ferocious urban resistance by snipers, suicide bombers and the use of improvised explosive devices. According to Blinken, the Pentagon had said in the last days of the Obama Administration, that it would immediately ask President Trump for permission to arm and get for the several hundred Special Operations forces President Barack Obama ordered into Syria, the most effective partner possible. Unfortunately for the US, its NATO ally, Turkey, which is an important player in central Europe and West Asia, strongly opposes any American support to the Syrian Kurds, especially the protection units. It is angered by the militia’s links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the PKK, which it considers to be a terrorist group.
It will perhaps take a dialogue between President Trump and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to sort matter out. However, problems will not end even if, things are worked out at the highest level and the Islamic State is expelled both from Raqqa and Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq which the ISIS had captured on June 10, 2014, after days of fighting. For, the ISIS will retain its ability to mount terror strikes even if it loses the territory it still controls. In fact, these may increase in intensity and frequency because these will become the only method of unconventional warfare retained by it.
One does not know how the 90-day on the entry of people from seven Muslim-majority countries — Iran, Iraq, libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — and the 120-day one on the entry of all refugees into the US, will pan out. The US, however, will not be immune from terror attacks even if these and other future measures lead to a total ban on the entry of Muslims. For one thing, this will make Americans interests, establishments, goods and mass passenger and good transit carriers (mainly aircraft and ships) greater targets for attacks abroad. It is critically important to make this point. There are limits to which the US can convert itself to fortress America without abandoning its business interests and diplomatic and military commitments overseas.
It is not just a question of actual terror strikes. A ban — or severe restrictions — on the entry of Muslims will seriously impair its relations with Muslim-majority countries including those like Saudi Arabia, which is a close ally. Even countries that may not be affected will be under pressure from its inhabitants — incensed by what they are likely to consider as an attack on all Muslims — to take adversarial positions towards the US, or at least to refuse/sabotage cooperation on matters like intelligence sharing and trade relations. Intelligence being a key element in the fight against terrorism, the results can severely handicap Washington’s fight against the latter.
Nor can one rule out the ISIS, ousted from Syria and Iraq, trying to carve out another caliphate in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in both of which its growing presence has been noted. One cannot rule out its finding a swelling army of supporters from the ranks of the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban as well as the other militant Islamist groups active there. As Eric Hoffer points out in his classic, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, “Where mass movements are in violent competition with each other, there are not infrequent instances of converts — even the most zealous — shifting their allegiance from the one to the other. A Saul turning into a Paul is neither a rarity nor a miracle. In our day, each proselytising mass movement seems to regard the zealous adherents of its antagonists as its own potential converts.”
Even if it fails to establish a territorial State, a resurgent ISIS in Afghanistan and Pakistan, can use the inaccessible border areas of both countries to mount terror strikes against the US. Complacence is bound to be expensive. Washington should not forget the price it paid for considering the war in Afghanistan won in 2001, and to go in for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
(The writer is Consultant Editor, The Pioneer, and an author)