Debunking the myths about extremists’ rise

Given every invitation to rule it out, Tony Abbott refuses to do so. My guess is Australian action in Syria is more likely to take place than not, over time.

In the meantime, the Australian debate is bedevilled by three truly ludicrous myths peddled variously and in different combinations, by Greens, lefties, professional anti-Americans, and that great undifferentiated and largely uninformed cadre of general commentators on everything who figure so ubiquitously, and so repetitively, on the ABC. 

The myths are: that the rise of Islamic State in Iraq is a consequence of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq; that recent US counter-terrorist activities and aggressive actions in the Middle East have spurred the terrorist threat on; and that Israel remains the core issue, or the root cause, of the Middle East’s problems.

To believe these myths, you have to be taking something strange in your morning coffee, because they are not remotely supported by facts.

Professing, as opposed to actually believing, these myths offers a high level of psychological comfort, because they give you the two favourite pantomime villains of international politics: the US and Israel.

The facts are these. Islamic State started operating in Syria, a nation never invaded by a US-led Coalition. The US led a coalition of nations into Iraq in 2003 because it believed, as did every relevant government, that Saddam Hussein, one of the 20th century’s most brutal dictators, possessed weapons of mass destruction. It may well be that Saddam encouraged this belief because it helped him in internal and regional power equations. Certainly many in his own regime believed it.

A result of the 2003 invasion was that Iraq became an electoral democracy and the majority of Iraqis are Shia rather than, like Saddam, Sunni.

The US-led occupation made several early mistakes. It disbanded the Iraqi army and too much of the Iraqi civil service.

However, it set about recovering, and it soon acquired UN backing and held internationally recognised elections.

It was opposed above all by al-Qa’ida in Iraq, which is the direct predecessor of Islamic State. Al-Qa’ida central split with its Iraqi offshoot specifically because the Iraqi branch was too vicious in its hatred of, and violence towards, all Shia. This was an internal al-Qa’ida strategic disagreement which had absolutely nothing to do with the US.

By 2010 al-Qa’ida in Iraq had been turned back with the co-operation of the Sunni tribes in Iraq’s west. When the US withdrew its troops across 2010-11, violence was way down in Iraq. However, the Sunni-dominated government of Nouri al-Maliki ran a sectarian anti-Sunni government and alienated the western Sunni tribes and most of the Sunni population.

This was one of the key factors leading to the rise of Islamic State.

The second, much more important factor, was the rise of Sunni insurgency in Syria. This came about three years ago when the sense of rebellion provoked by the Arab spring spread to Syria.

Syria was ruled by Bashir al-Assad, a dictator who sometimes supported terrorists but was nowhere near as brutal as Saddam had been, until he found himself in a civil war.

Since the beginning of the civil war, Assad’s forces have committed countless atrocities.

Assad’s regime is based on the Alawite religious grouping of which he is part. Alawites are connected to Shia while the majority Syrian population is Sunni.

When the Syrian conflict became intense, Assad’s response was savage, partly because he knew that he and the Alawite community faced certain obliteration if he lost. At this point, exercising a lot of caution, the West, especially the US, was extremely reluctant to back Syria’s moderate Sunni rebels. As a result two al-Qa’ida factions, the al-Nusra Front, and what later became Islamic State, dominated the Sunni side of the Sunni-Alawite war in Syria. They were the most effective fighters and they got some funding from fellow Sunnis in Gulf Arab states.

Most important for what happened in Iraq, they overran substantial parts of Syrian territory that bordered Iraq. That meant that large numbers of Sunni fighters could flow into Iraq to bolster the Sunni rebellion there.

So, the two factors that immediately caused the upsurge of Islamic State in Iraq were the civil war in Syria and the anti-Shia policies of the Maliki government.

Neither of these factors could possibly be attributed to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. Washington cannot be held responsible forever for the policies of all succeeding Iraq governments.

If that were the case, then logically those politicians who campaigned for the removal of the racist Ian Smith regime in Rhodesia are responsible for the massive crimes of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. So myth No 1, that the ­actions of 2003 caused the rise of Islamic State, is bereft of facts and logic.

Myth No 2, that aggressive, recent US actions, and its foreign policy in the Middle East, have ­exacerbated the terrorist problem in the Middle East is also the ­opposite of the facts.

Barack Obama has made three decisions that you could argue bear on the current troubles in Iraq. All show restraint and peaceful intent, not aggression.

One was a passionate plea for democracy in his speech to the Arab world in Cairo, which may have done something to spur on the Arab Spring. And the Arab Spring as it played out in Syria has certainly had an effect.

The second was deciding not to intervene significantly to help the West’s friends early in the conflict in Syria. I think this was a reasonable decision in the circumstances. But it may have been a poor decision. In any event it was no sign of US aggression.

And three was the US President’s decision to withdraw all American troops from Iraq in 2010-11. In Obama’s defence, this is what Maliki wanted. But if Obama had pressed harder to keep a residual force of 10,000 in the country, it is likely that the Iraqi army would not have folded so comprehensively against Islamic State.

Finally, myth No 3, the hardy perennial about Israel.

The most important and ­destructive dynamic in the Middle East today is the sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia. This produces state-to-state rivalries, such as between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, and it also produces internal rivalries within Arab countries, as in Syria and Iraq. ­Israel’s role in the basic Shia-Sunni hostilities is absolutely zero.

Similarly, fundamentalists recently took control of much of Libya’s capital, Tripoli. The collapse of Libya has seen a huge infusion of weapons into al-Qa’ida affiliates in the Middle East and North Africa. Israel’s role in Libyan politics has been zero.

In Egypt, a new military dictatorship has stabilised the country after the old military dictator, Hosni Mubarak, was overthrown and a brief and chaotic period of Muslim Brotherhood government was instituted.

Israel’s role in this Egyptian drama was absolutely zero.

More people have been killed in each of several of the recent internal Arab disputes than in all the Arab-Israeli wars.

Indeed, the main criticism of US diplomacy in the Middle East in recent years would be that Secretary of State John Kerry spent a year on the forlorn Israeli-Palestinian dispute, which meant he ­ignored the truly giant conflicts unfolding all over the rest of the Middle East.

Israel is the licensed grievance in many Arab nations, which the public is allowed to talk about. Criticising Israel is also a good way for Westerners to demonstrate their concern for the Middle East without having to take any difficult decisions. But to continue to see Israel as the root cause, or core, of the Middle East’s conflicts ­requires an absolute indifference to the facts.

These myths, which figure in most Australian discussions of these issues, are a serious enemy of clear thinking and good policy.