'Shock and awe' with a short blade

By Michael Vatikiotis 

A new form of warfare is emerging, one that transcends the need to commit men and machinery to the battlefield but which has just as much impact. 

Tables were turned in global conflicts by the Dresden firebombing, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and more recently the hi-tech rain of ordnance characterized as "shock and awe" in the last Gulf War. 

But the brutal decapitation of hapless American reporter James Foley by a lone masked jihadi speaking English and using a short blade on a forlorn patch of desert somewhere in Iraq was in some respects a more proportionally efficient act of "shock and awe" warfare. 

Western political leaders scrambled to respond, some calling off summer holidays amid the clamor for firm retaliatory action. This brutal single act of violence has tipped the scales in a new and unexpected war the West is waging against the so-called Islamic State (IS) that occupies ribbon-like slithers of territory across eastern Syria and western Iraq. 

Reluctant to commit ground troops against a well-funded and well-equipped foe that takes no prisoners and imposes medieval Islamic law wherever it gains territory, Western countries are struggling to come up with an effective response to turn the tide. 

The ranks of this sudden adversary are swelling, with recruits coming from the very bosom of developed Western society that is supposed to be a bulwark against intolerance and extremism. Helped by pervasive social media and slickly produced promotional videos, IS has drawn as many as 2,000 foreigners into its fight. 

"Should I give up my gym membership?" asked a potential IS recruit of an English youth who has already joined, according to one news report. The British government estimates that one in four of the foreigners fighting for IS are from the United Kingdom. That's almost more than the 600 Muslims currently serving in the British Army. 

Implicit in the previous decade of struggle against Islamic extremism that focused on al-Qaeda was the assumption of an unbridgeable divide between the brusque bearded men of the desert hunkering in the caves of Tora Bora to avoid bombs or drones, and the modern West guarding against further attacks using invasive and sometimes illegal security measures. 

These bearded men, mostly misfits and outcasts from their own or adopted societies, effectively assailed the West by flying jetliners into New York's World Trade Center, killing thousands of innocent civilians. It took many years before these non-state ringleaders were captured and killed. But it was asymmetric warfare by any measure. 

No longer: Today's IS recruits are drawn from among the well-educated middle class in Europe. Others have made their way from Indonesia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Australia and perhaps even from Xinjiang in Western China, making for a veritable rainbow legion of committed - or brainwashed - jihadis. 

Those who have come from the UK, usually travelling overland from Turkey, have attracted particular attention since the Foley decapitation. One has been identified as a supervisor at the British discount clothing retailer Primark; another was an ace medical student. 

Two sisters who ran away from home in Greater Manchester to marry IS fighters in Syria had exemplary school grades. Well-spoken Reeyad Khan from Cardiff in Wales appeared in a recruitment video urging Muslim youth in the UK to join the struggle in Syam (the Koranic name for Syria), "which is just and for Allah!" 

Given this appeal and the apparent ease with which the ranks of foreign fighters are swelling, how will this war be settled? What will it take to resolve the underlying conflict between the West and this angry Muslim cohort? 

Bombing has done little more than enrage the militants and fuel the pipeline of fresh recruits. Nor is the struggle any longer about overthrowing the tyranny of Bashar al-Assad's rule in Syria; it's more about imposing a medieval Islamic world view and driving out or killing all non-Sunni Muslims. 

The script appears to be borrowed from some later al-Qaeda thinking about the potential for establishing a Caliphate in Syria. But IS's vision has far exceeded dreamy notions of a theological state and morphed into a totalitarian monster fueled by untrammeled violence and brutality. 

That in turn appeals to the alienated youth from recession-hit Europe who have lost all hope and long suffered discrimination and prejudice as well as chronic unemployment. 

All this suggests that conventional prescriptions, the old "shock and awe" bomb them to perdition approach, won't work. What is needed longer term is a two-pronged approach to resolving the conflict, which has generated palpable fears of spilling over into the streets of many European capitals. 

First, the West needs to disengage and step back from the morass of state disintegration in the Middle East, which is partly of its making. IS established a beachhead in Syria on the back of the civil war in which Western governments supported the rebellion against Assad, thus helping to undermine a strong secular state. Equally, angry sentiment among young Muslims susceptible to IS recruiters has grown on the back of perceptions that the West hasn't done enough to support democracy in the Middle East. 

Second, a greater effort must be made to ensure a better understanding of what alienates Muslim youth, and effectively address issues of self-esteem that have driven young men and women with prospects to serve as cannon fodder in Syria and Iraq. This isn't about patronizing campaigns to deter radicalization but rather tackling the root causes of prejudice and feelings of cultural inadequacy and disrespect within multi-cultural communities. 

In short, the West must wean itself off idealistic adventurism in the Middle East and devote more care and attention to the health of its own plural societies. To do otherwise is to court defeat in a war waged so effectively with a camera, some slick editing, a short knife and a helpless hostage as victim. 

Michael Vatikiotis is Asia Director of the Geneva-based Center for Humanitarian Dialogue and former editor and veteran correspondent of the Far Eastern Economic Review. 

(Copyright 2014 Michael Vatikiotis) 

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-260814.html