Of course it is complicated. Of course there are no obvious or simple or even, perhaps, persuasive solutions. And yet, despite that, some things are clear.
First, is confronting Islamic State in this country’s interest?
Yes. Because the alternative is even worse. Foreign policy only rarely affords the choice between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ options. It is not a risk-free enterprise. Often, the options lie between ‘unpalatable’ and ‘appalling’. But we are where we are and no good can come from pretending reality can be wished away.
If it was not apparent before, it should now be clear that ‘containing’ Islamic State is a non-starter. The alternative to confrontation is, in the end, accepting that Islamic State will be permitted to hold onto the territory it has conquered and the rudimentary state-apparatus it has constructed. If Islamic State is not weakened it must grow stronger. Is that in our interest? I doubt it.
From which it follows that squeezing ISIS is desirable. It will not be easy but neither can it be reckoned impossible.
British policy, at present, is unavoidably half-baked. The RAF plays a role in the fight against Islamic State in Iraq but no part in the struggle against ISIS in Syria. That seems an arbitrary, even fussy, distinction that’s past its sell-by date. Again the question is, at root, clear: can we live with Islamic State? If the answer to that question is ‘No’ then it follows we must live without them.
But, critics cry, won’t that simply exacerbate the very problems that have caused these present agonies? Isn’t peace the answer? Can’t we remember that a ‘comprehensive regional settlement’ is the only long-term solution?
Well, sure. But peace comes after the battle, not during it. Moreover, it is hard to imagine circumstances in which a comprehensive – or even partial – regional settlement can be reached while ISIS remains a viable entity. Because, as should also be clear by now, they have no interest in such a settlement.
More than one thing can be true at the same time. Thus it is entirely possible that taking the fight to Islamic State, wherever it is found, will increase the risk of terrorist atrocities occurring again in this country. Fighting ISIS may well involve increasing the short-to-medium-term ‘threat’. But it is also true that a) this threat exists anyway and b) cannot be reduced in the long-term without also extirpating Islamic State.
In like fashion, the failures and misadventures of the Iraq War undoubtedly helped create the morass in which we, and the peoples of the middle east, now find ourselves. But, as too many people seem to have forgotten, Islamic fundamentalism and the atrocities carried out in its name were not created by George W Bush or Tony Blair. That their efforts failed to defeat, far less contain, the problem does not absolve their successors from the need to try themselves. In each instance, it was not ‘the west’ that sought the confrontation.
In any case, as the recent bombings in Ankara and Beirut should have made clear, ‘the west’ is not the only, or even the major, target. Hating Bush and Blair does not require you to absolve Islamic State from the consequences of their actions. Doing so comes perilously close to pardoning them or otherwise suggesting that their murderous worldview is in some inchoate sense ‘understandable’. Ask the Yazidis about that. Ask the Kurds.
And the truth of the matter is that we face two different but linked problems. One in the middle east, the other here at home. Again, it is entirely possible that playing a more active part in the battle against Islamic State could easily encourage more British citizens to sign-up for a tour of duty with ISIS. Well, that’s their choice but if they determine that is where their future lies then it seems only reasonable to raise the price – that is, the risk – of joining the jihad.
The government has, quite rightly, made it abundantly clear time and time again that neither it nor the other citizens of the United Kingdom have any quarrel with the ordinary British muslim. A clear and convincing majority of these citizens have no interest in jihad. Paris was not done in their name; nor was it done in the name of their version or vision of the prophet.
This remains a tolerant, open, society. Vastly more tolerant and open than any of its previous incarnations, in fact. Political leaders from all shades of the spectrum insist, and rightly so, that this be a warm house for all citizens, regardless of their ethnicity or religion. In return, only a little is asked: a respect for the law and the norms of life in a modern, liberal, democracy. It is not too much to demand and the vast majority of citizens, of whatever background, have no quibble, far less a quarrel, with this.
Which in turn means that when, as seems all too likely, another attack succeeds in Britain we agree that the only people responsible for it are those who carried it out. They will not have been forced to kill their fellow citizens and to pretend they have, somehow, been compelled to do so by the actions of this or any previous British government is to suggest, by implication at least, that they will have only chosen this course of murderous action reluctantly. Not so. Not so at all.
The fire was not started in the west and if it cannot be put out by western intervention alone that does not absolve our government from the task of sharing the burden of responding to the latest conflagration.
It may be that ISIS would like to ‘provoke’ a reaction but that does not necessarily mean a reaction is ill-advised. Defeating ISIS on its ‘home’ territory will not on its own be a sufficient response; it still seems a necessary part of any response. Not least because the alternatives invite them to try, try, and try again. Everyone expects that to happen anyway. This will happen again.
But are we – France, the UK, whomever – supposed to sit back and ‘take it’? Of course we can take it and we will take it. ISIS and the wider jihadi movement cannot destroy France or the UK. We should have sufficient confidence in ourselves to remember that. But being able to take it is not the same thing as having to take it. Nor does it impose any requirement to confirm the jihadi suspicion that the west is irredeemably weak and decadent.
Defeating ISIS won’t be the end of the matter but it cannot be ended without their defeat either. We didn’t choose the fight but that does not mean we can shrink from it either. There comes a point at which dignity, as well as the national interest, demands a response. It might not be enough. It might not work. Success too, however it is defined, is liable to spawn fresh intractable problems. So be it. We move to deal with them as and when they arise.
Aux armes, citoyens.
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