Terror Forces the Enemy To Become an Ally

The leaders of the Islamic State are very smart, but their repeated conquests and their ease in occupying Syrian and Iraqi territories have led them to the trap that anyone who is arrogant falls into: They have compelled their enemies to join forces and provoked the reaction of forces that had previously avoided getting involved with them. However, the most significant contribution of the militants of the Islamic State is probably that they are forcing their neighboring countries and the great powers to take a clear moral stand against them. The slaughter of prisoners and civilians, the persecution of Christians, Shiites and members of the Yazidi religious minority, and the destruction of the region’s cultural heritage demand a direct and absolute response to this threat.

The tragic repercussions of the American-British invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the chronic instability of Afghanistan have forced Barack Obama to be extremely frugal in the use of military force. Libya is an exception, but it is worth remembering that the U.S. decision, along with that of the other NATO member states, to intervene was taken in the United Nations on March 18, 2011, a month after the revolution against Moammar Gadhafi had occurred. The government forces had surrounded the resistance fighters, and Gadhafi was threatening to crush them. In his address to the nation, he stated, “We are coming tonight, and there will be no mercy.”

While until then the U.S. had been reluctant to engage the Arab League’s calls, pressure from France and the United Kingdom, and an impending massacre of the rebels, led to airstrikes and Gadhafi’s fall and death. The subsequent political developments in Libya, the murder of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens in September 2012, and the lack of governance that has been plagued the country for years advocated for the avoidance of military involvement in the civil war in Syria. The threat of intervention had a positive impact. The Syrian government agreed to the U.N. proposal for the handover of its chemical weapons so that they could be destroyed. The U.S. and other Western countries did not take part in the Syrian civil war, even though the country was dissected into parts, which were controlled either by the regime or the extremists of the Islamic State group in Iraq.

In June, the Islamic State fighters suddenly occupied Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, murdered captive soldiers, persecuted Christians, and began destroying ancient monuments and Shiite, Christian and other shrines. Although the international community was showing signs of concern, no country was willing to engage, apart from sending advisers to Iraq from the U.S. and Iran and the imposition of pressure on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to step aside in favor of someone who would unite Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds in government. Maliki, a Shiite, has refused to step down. Meanwhile, the Kurds extended their autonomous region in northern Iraq in order to include the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

The nexus between ethnic conflicts and religious differences, the delicate balance between Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey in their struggle for influence, and the involvement of external elements in favor of the Iraqi government or the Kurds would have unforeseeable consequences in the region. However, the leaders of Islamic State in Iraq triggered the breakup of the deadlock. After abolishing the borders between Syria and Iraq and declaring the establishment of a new caliphate, during the previous week, they occupied around 10 cities and villages belonging to Christians, Kurds and the Yazidi minority. They killed civilians, destroyed temples, and drove the population out of their homes. Heavily armed insurgents forced Kurdish fighters to retreat and seized control of the electricity-generating Mosul dam, and they reached close to Erbil, the Kurdish capital, which we Greeks know as Άρβηλα from Alexander the Great’s military campaign in Asia. About 40,000 Yazidis fled to the mountains to escape the massacre, without any food or water.

Suddenly, the impact of military intervention did not excuse the lack of action; reality was worse than the worst-case scenario. The Iraqi government and Kurds were compelled to cooperate militarily. Saudi Arabia sent aid to the Lebanese army when insurgents attacked it. When talking about the fear of genocide, Obama gave the green light for humanitarian aid, as well as airstrikes against the positions of the Islamic State, which began the day before yesterday. If the Islamic State is defeated, maybe the people of the region will look upon their relations through a different perspective, now that they’ve seen the gates of hell open.