Defeating Islamic Terrorism for the long term & securing the Middle East

By Oliver Green

Home to the Cradle of Civilization, the Middle East has been the birthplace of many of the world’s oldest cultures and civilizations, from the earliest human settlements through to numerous Empires from the ancient Hittites and Egyptians to the Ottoman Turkish Empire and latterly as a protectorate sphere of Britain and France, through to the post-colonial authoritarian nation-states of the Post-World War II era, which throughout the rest of the 20th Century could rely on a constant supply of Oil revenue to placate their populations, coupled with America’s sustained investment and presence in the region to deny Soviet hegemony there and access to its resources. However, since the ending of the Cold War such a sustained level of continuous and pragmatic American commitment has remained elusive, exacerbated by America’s persistent march toward energy independence and substantial domestic Oil supplies, tightening budgetary constraints and an inevitably changed geo-political Post-Cold War landscape, as President Obama argues that it would have been bad politics to have left high levels of American troops in Iraq after the completion of the 2003 invasion.

My point is, that throughout its long history, the Middle East has been characterised and shaped by Empire and latterly Geo-Political competition and intervention from outside superpowers, which have all served to suppress or manage any underlying domestic religious and political tensions. But since the end of the Cold War this arrangement has come to a rather unceremonious end, leaving a vacuum for home-grown political and idiosyncratic sectarian groups to flourish and vie with one another for dominance and legitimacy, which culminated in the Arab Spring and subsequent Civil Wars and rise of ISIS, with no immediate answers available to any satisfactory and sustainable resolution, as the aforementioned Post-World War II authoritarian regimes have now come under the very irresistible social, economic and political pressures associated with this geo-political vacuum, along with the equally irresistible onset of globalisation and rapid advances in communications technology, as well as the accompanying inconsistency and subsequent falls in Oil revenues. So, to have left a sizable US occupation force in Iraq would have done nothing to prevent the onset of the Arab Spring throughout the region in 2011.

Whilst in Syria there was never really any viable or sufficient capacity of moderate opposition to overthrow and replace the Assad regime, with ISIS comprising a large bulk of anti-regime resistance throughout the failed state, whilst the stark Sunni Shia imbalance of Post-Saddam Iraq was wilfully and consistently overlooked by the new Iraqi government, with regard to the disaffected Sunni minority, with Shias being the minority in Syria. Furthermore, the region has become rife with well-armed, financed and supplied sectarian groups in the region like Hezbollah and offshoots of Al-Qaeda, which have had sustained support from major regional players like Iran who have filled the funding vacuum created by America’s Post-Cold War absence and which have become very proficient at fighting proxy wars, which they have spent decades getting more and more proficient and experienced at, whilst not being bound by any 21st Century Western standards of international law or ethics, whilst not having to be sparing with their military budgets as western nations with other spending commitments and democratic accountability have to. So unless the minorities in both Iraq and Syria are given meaningful stakes and representations in any post conflict settlements, they will not be sustainable, with the marginalised populations continuing to view ISIS and other extremist groups as the means of addressing and expressing their problems and representing them.

So if a total absence of western intervention is not the answer and a vast western occupation is not desirable or sustainable, how do we defeat ISIS for the long term and secure the Middle East?

Clearly a top down American led effort is no longer desirable or sustainable, what is needed now is an genuine and meaningful coalition of equals in terms of what’s done and brought to the table throughout the region, both in terms of military effort and the political and domestic commitments toward reconstruction and institutional developments toward more viable, sustainable and pluralistic societies with fully representative, responsible and reasonable governments. To think that these longer term essentials can be delivered from the air with western troops on the ground is a complete fantasy. There is already a broad consensus among the major national players of the region to eradicate Islamic Extremism once and for all, most crucially the leading regional powers of Saudi Arabia, Israel and a resurgent Turkey, which rightly view the likes of Islamic State as an intolerable scourge against civilisation, with Israel and Saudi Arabia already being natural strategic allies, in the case of Israel through shared cultural, ideological and political ties, along with mutual defence and security concerns, whilst in more transactional trade and security terms where Saudi Arabia is concerned. The newly democratic republic of Iraq will also need to pull its military weight and commitment, whilst moving toward a fully viable, stable and mature democracy. Furthermore, the decision of the Trump Administration to ditch the Iran Nuclear Deal and re-impose sanctions was a step in the right direction. The JCPOA did nothing to stem Iran’s nuclear ambitions or restrict their ability to wage its proxy wars throughout the Middle East, in particular it’s funding of terrorism throughout the region, mainly of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Palestine, along with the Houthis in Yemen, coupled with Iran’s ongoing missile strikes on its neighbours.

In the case of Syria, making guarantees to Russia about their continued stake and influence in any post Assad Syria maybe the best way to ensure a return to relative stability and longer term investment in Syria’s future. However, the US and allied militaries can only keep a lid on the home-grown and inherent problems of the region’s societies. It is up to the peoples of these lands themselves to make the necessary decisions necessary to work out how to live together and move forward. If everything is done for them, they will have no reasons or motivations whatsoever to pull their own military weight and make the necessary and sustainable reforms and measures required for a sufficiently prosperous, successful and secure future, with the same being true of Libya and Egypt and everything that can be done should be done in terms of guiding and working with them to securing these goals. The Kurds have long set a good example in terms of their military persistence and resilience in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds, having provided America and her NATO allies with a reliable and viable group with which to supply and train, having undoubtedly become the great inspiration and success story of the fight against ISIS and of a viable and sustainable post-war society with enormous potential. Despite mixed results, had it not been for our intervention, Iraq and Libya may well have ended up in a similar state to Syria in the Arab Spring, as unlike Tunisia and Egypt, they haven’t possessed the necessary civic traditions and institutions to transition to democracy without the right sort of assistance and initial military intervention, having been under the permanent rule of despotic dictatorships for the decades after colonial times.

What type and degree of Western intervention can and should be applied to secure the Middle East and what of its track record?

It can be argued that in some cases the results of American or Anglo-American interventionism, especially of late can be looked upon as less than satisfactory, especially in Iraq’s case. I would argue that America has no trouble by and large in winning the rather short conventional confrontations it engages in against opposing national armed forces, with its overwhelming military and technological superiority. It won both Gulf Wars without breaking a sweat, achieving both objectives of liberating Kuwait and removing Saddam Hussein and his Baathist regime from power. America has also succeeded in securing a democratic and prosperous South Korea since 1953, with the South Koreans fully engaged and sharing in the burden of the that commitment. America has also kept Taiwan free from China, which it protects with its 7th Fleet in accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act. America has also had a positive impact in bringing stabilisation to the Balkans since the fall of the Iron Curtain. But most significantly, it has succeeded in preventing a further World War since 1945 and lead the free world to victory in the Cold War, which were no mean feats.

The problem is that the American Empire just of late has shown a consistent inability to politically and economically commit to the long term, or plan for it in the places it intervenes in, especially in the case of Iraq. They go in “beat the bad guys”, hang around for short time and then go home.  Anglo-American leaders and policy makers appeared to have forgotten the fact that to change somewhere properly for the better over the long term, and in a sustainable way, you have to remain there to one degree or another and not leave altogether after just 8 years as we did in Iraq. There should have been a firm commitment both politically and economically for the long term, whilst also maintaining a limited but permanent military presence to be gradually drawn down, not over a few years but over a few decades, whilst bringing in people who are prepared and equipped to do it. Britain did so in its colonies, and to be fair America did in Japan after World War II and is still there to this day, as they also are in South Korea. Furthermore, the Shia Sunni tension in Iraq had always been present under Saddam, he just kept it suppressed with unyielding terror and brute force, something which our leaders and policy makers failed to grasp before committing halfheartedly to inconsistent and short-term military action, along with their policy of dismantling much of Saddam’s existing military and security institutions, whilst then trying to rebuild their own version from scratch. This is in stark contrast to what was done in Japan after World War II, when the Japanese Army was re-employed by Britain and America to maintain order and stability in South East Asia and the Japanese home islands.

The good news is that we already have a successful historical template for realising our common strategic and development goals in the Middle East, which is ‘The Marshall Plan’, also known as European Recovery Program, but was named after the man who devised it, Secretary of State George C. Marshall. It was ratified by the US Congress in 1948 and ran for four years, providing the aid required to help fund the reconstruction of Western Europe after World War II. When adjusted for 2020 levels of inflation, the United States provided over $128 billion in total. It revitalised and built up industrial plants and infrastructures, cooperation and coordination between the Western European nations, and achieved its stated aim of preventing Communism from taking hold in Western Europe, and arguably played a key role in the formation of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1949. After the Marshall Plan officially ended, further investment initiatives were made, until it was deemed feasible to end it in the early 60’s. Therefore, it is well within America’s capacity to roll out a Middle East Marshall Plan which will not require the same level of sums needed for Western Europe against the Soviet Union, as it will for the less populated Middle Eastern nations against non-state Islamist extreme actors like ISIS.